How Old is your Bible Language?

No I'm not talking about the age of the biblical languages used in biblical texts. I'm wondering about the 'age' of the kind of language translators use in translations.

In other words I'm interested in discussing: How recent or how ancient does a Bible translation sound? 

One of the reasons I ask is to follow up again (already followed up briefly here) on a postscript from my second blog post where I said:

The question of the first Bible translations in modern speech will of course depend on one's definition of "modern" and "modern language." Suffice to say here (other posts will pick it up) the King James Version (1611) simply consolidated (revised) the earlier 16th century Bibles and avoided modern speech in preference for archaic speech--it was not (contrary to misconceptions) either a completely "new" translation, nor was it a "modern language" version

That is, the King James Version chose to use archaic mid-sixteenth century language (mid 1500s English) rather than contemporary English. One reason was that the translators were attempting to produce a single version out of the many sixteenth century English versions:

Truly (good Christian Reader) wee never thought from the beginning, that we should neede to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one, (for then the imputation of Sixtus had bene true in some sort, that our people had bene fed with gall of Dragons in stead of wine, with whey in stead of milke:) but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principall good one, not justly to be excepted against; that hath bene our indeavour, that our marke. 

But in creating a 'single version' by using old-fashioned English, the translators are doing something quite different to what Tyndale did. It's not that they differed much from Tyndale's version at all. But Tyndale's English was more contemporary at the time he translated. So the result of the KJV's use of Tyndalian English would seem to suggest that a Bible translation should sound archaic, right from the very time it comes off  the press.

So how old should a Bible translation sound? 

I have also pondered (from a Christian perspective) whether a translation of the Hebrew scriptures should be made to seem/sound 'older' than the way the Greek New Testament is translated...given that a Christian approach to the Older Testament develops from first century (Christian) readings of OT texts. I cannot fully bring myself to accept that approach. It would be a kind of anachronistic approach (the OT Scriptures were not Christian scriptures prior to the first century). Yet the different Testaments need some kind of coordinated attempt to explain the different approaches to their reading audiences. 

For example, although the NRSV translated the Greek ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου as the formal and stilted 'The Son of Man' the translators went with a less literal mode for OT verses that mention בַ֥ר אֱנָ֖שׁ ('Son of Man' in Aramaic) and בֶּן־אָדָ֔ם ('Son of Man' in Hebrew) and instead translated these as 'Mortal'. It could be that the NRSV translators had particular reasons for this, or that the translation approaches differed between the OT and NT.

A related question is the given perceptions of the source language in relation to how the target translation might/should sound... should something translated from biblical Hebrew sound like it was translated from a more archaic language (more exotic?) than texts translated from Koine Greek? If so, how obvious would the results of such translation need to be?

I would be interested in what other people have to say about these questions.

Translation Theory in Translation Studies

Most of my year this year has involved house-moving related tasks ... But I have not forgotten this blog ...
I am still interested in presenting some more examples involving the issue of utilising up-to-date resources for Bible translation. Last post I mentioned the issue of using the recent BDAG lexicon (dictionary) over its older 1979 edition (BAGD). Another kind of up-to-date 'resource' I wish to discuss is that of translation theory.
I have recently started reading widely on translation theory within the broader field of translation studies. Whenever I do this, I am shocked at how poor is the field of Bible translation (in regard to theory) when compared with the variety of translation theory discussed within Translation Studies.
If and when I can, I would like to discuss some examples of such differences along with any practical translation points arising.
I have previously noted how modern Bible Prefaces are not a good source of up-to-date information concerning translation theory or the history of Bible translation. For example, the kind of English used in the Bibles of Tyndale (1526) and the Geneva Bible (1560) is evidently much more contemporary to the spoken English of their times than that used in the 1611 King James Version, by which time English had continued to evolve, yet the choice was made not to use up-to-date contemporary language in the KJV but rather to use language that sounded decades older, as

we never thought from the beginning that we should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one ... but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one ... (from the 1611 KJV preface). 

Yet many Bible prefaces instead portray the KJV as though it were a modern-language translation in its time. For some examples of contemporary language avoidance see, Alistair McGrath,“The Story of the King James Bible,” in D. G. Burke (eds), Translation that Openeth the Window: Reflections on the History and Legacy of the King James Bible. (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009), 3-20. This picks up a note from my earlier post http://bibletranslationtheory.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/first-english-bibles-in-modern-speech.html.
Likewise the information given in Bible prefaces is demonstrably not up with the wider discipline of Translation Studies (though Bible translators themselves are evidently not ignorant of many of the same kinds of translation issues).
In coming weeks I would like to discuss further Translation Theory within Translation Studies.