KJV on "which"

Larry Swain swainl at rocky.edu
Tue Jun 30 12:06:49 EDT 1998


At 09:02 AM 6/30/1998, you wrote:
>At 11:07  6/29/98 -0500, Donald W Price wrote:
>>Why does the KJV (in Matt. 6:9) render the phrase "ho en tois ouranois"
>>as "our Father WHICH art in heaven" instead of "WHO art in heaven" as the
>>ASV put it?    
>
>The reason is an English dialectal difference.  While it is not
>appropriate today to refer to persons with the relative pronoun
>"which," it was acceptable and quite common to use "which" to
>refer to persons in Early Modern English.

As well as the fact that nearly 2 centuries separates the KJV and the
ASV........a whole lot of language change goin' on.

Larry Swain




More information about the B-Greek mailing list