Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by chrislee973 1465 days ago
I figured it was the quintessential version of the Bible ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I'm not religious so cut me some slack haha. Looking back, I should've used a version using modern English.
2 comments

KJV is still wildly popular and some sects even regard it as an inspired translation. Never heard that about anything else.

NKJV is more readable for people who grew up reading blog posts instead of old books and generally retains the poetry of the KJV, but it's under copyright. I think it would be allowed for a use like this though, because they explicitly allow (as do most translations) quoting up to a certain number of verses.

EDIT: Maybe not, here's the rules: https://www.harpercollinschristian.com/sales-and-rights/perm...

Seems like you'd fall afoul for the % of total text requirement.

My understanding of the Eastern Orthodox Church is that they see the Septuagint as an inspired translation of the Old Testament (from Hebrew to Koine Greek).
...another reason is that KJV is not currently under copyright, unlike (as far as I know) all modern English translations.
Fun fact: in the United Kingdom, the King James Version is still copyrighted—perpetually copyrighted, in fact—by (who else?) the British monarchy.

Since the author of this app is based in the United States, he should be safe… we have a bit of precedent for ignoring royal prerogatives here :)

Interesting.
I think there are a couple of free and open translations that are reasonable - the WEB (World English Bible) maybe.

https://www.biblegateway.com/versions/World-English-Bible-WE...