Shifting Reader Perceptions of the Authority and Dignity of Biblical Style

Abstract

This study examines changes in readers' assessments of biblical style over the life course through biblical texts, scholarship on biblical literature and translation, reader surveys, and autobiographical accounts of long-term Bible reading. It begins with the experience of a reader who regarded biblical language as excessively authoritative and stiff during adolescence, but who later came to regard the language of contemporary Bible translations as overly plain and insufficiently dignified, resembling that of a storybook. The study examines what Scripture says about the source and transmission of divine words, scholarly discussion of the preservation of biblical wording and literary form, reported preferences for Bible translations, and individuals' reasons for changing translations. Cases include a return to traditional biblical diction after extended use of conversational translations and a change prompted by concerns about fidelity to original wording and translators' interpretive choices. The findings relate assessments of biblical style to life experience, translation characteristics, and attention to the form of scriptural expression. Note. The document presents two summaries with different wording and content. This was an entirely unexpected AI error that occurred before I issued the instructions for file production. I have decided to leave both summaries in the document as they are.