THERE'S OSCAR, AH BUT THEN THERE'S JAMES

Four hundred minutes after the 2011 Oscars, I can't remember most of the names. But 400 years after the 1611 King James version of the Bible, millions of us can remember not only its names. Its passages. And especially its hopes. Such is the difference between the fleeting and the foundational.

The King James translation of the ancient texts was famously eloquent, a beautiful instrument for conveying the vision of the Biblical writers to the English-speaking peoples of the world. Not that Moses, Solomon and Jesus exactly spoke this way -- they didn't -- but what they did say was now imbued with a lofty lyric which has strummed the heart strings of 20 long generations.

Not only among the congregations in the pews, but among the legions of novelists whose own language has continued to be inspired and shaped by this 400-year-old lyric. To be sure, the fourth centennial will be different than the third. In 1911, the King James version was extolled by leading public figures like Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson as "America's national book, the text that more than any other has affected the life of the English-speaking societies of the world."

Since 1911, two enormous shifts have occurred. First, the Bible is no longer memorized and read aloud by students and public figures. Second, the King James is now accompanied by dozens of other translations, each more contemporary, yet each stylistically less stunning. Our language and faith have both suffered accordingly

In 201l, the English-speaking nations are perceptibly less focused on the things of heaven, and more on the things of earth. At least so it would appear in the emptier pews in Western Europe and even the United States. , The lyric proclaimed in the 400-year-old King James Bible has been in part drowned out by the multi-cultural, secular sounds of our more pragmatic times. Oscar can lure 40 million viewers on a single night; a televised Bible reading will not even make it to the networks.

And yet, the words of the original Biblical writers -- crazed or inspired, your choice! -- have never been out of print. And the King James version has never been surpassed within the borders of the English language. Matched perhaps by Shakespeare, but never surpassed.

And so it is for those new to James to ask themselves why it has outlived anything Oscar can hope to achieve. Could it be it actually IS the greatest story ever told? in the greatest lexicon ever penned? One struggles to find among our great scientists any who can explain the cosmos with greater power than: "And God said, let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day...."