Charles Haddon Spurgeon
After commenting upon the difficulty of translating Jeremiah 17:12-14, Spurgeon acknowledges the excellency of the AV and the expertise of its translators.
“. . . it seems to me that the translators of the Authorised Version have given us the true meaning of the original, as I think they generally do.
The men are not yet born who will give us a better rendering either of the Old or the New Testament than is to be found in our old English Bibles, and it is my belief that they never will be born.
These men wrote a marvellously pure English, and really translated the Bible into our mother tongue, being helped by God not only to see the meaning, but to write it in words which are understood by the people.
Learned men in our day for the most part know every language except English; and they fall into the error of mistaking long Latinized words for our native language. Give me plain expressive Saxon.
You may place every confidence in your grandmother’s Bible; whatever small improvements the translation may require, it is in the main so good that its rivals have had very short lives, while it retains all its primitive power.”
Source: C.H. Spurgeon, “Our Sanctuary.” A Sermon Delivered on June 15, 1884 at The Metropolitan Tabernacle. [read online]
