Jude 24-25 and literary beauty

An animated discussion has been taking place about the literary beauty of English translations of Jude 24-25 in the comments to a preceding post. (It's probably the immediately preceding post, but that is not easy for me to find out since I am now back on the reservation in Montana and I'm "borrowing" my neighbor's dial-up connection. I miss our high speed, always-on connection at home.)

In any case, I thought it would be interesting to post several translations of Jude 24-25. Perhaps we can draw a few conclusions regarding literary beauty of the various translations. I would like to think that while beauty is so often in the eye of the beholder, some elements of literary style might be more objectively measured. And if we polled enough people, we might find a statistically significant number of people preferring certain literary elements over others. At the same time, as with art and music, subjective judgements are very much a part of trying to decide what is beautiful and what is not.

These two verses in Jude surely were beautiful in Greek. Yes, these two verses are a long "run on" sentence--and run-on sentences often are not perceived to be beautiful by many (?) current English speakers (or at least their English composition teachers). But in this case I agree with those who see beauty in this long sentence, with its rhetorical progression that builds toward the ending climax (yes, I think a Freudian allusion is appropriate here; I think that there is beauty in a number of different kinds of climax, including musical, artistic, literary, and intimate physical oneness).

The progression, in this case, is not simply that of any old items on a laundry list. These are terms in Greek and, surely should be so in translation to English or any other language, of wonderful, glorious concepts captured by words (sorry, I tried not to use the word "glorious" since it's part of several translations of this verse, but sometimes it is difficult to avoid a word which fits so well!). There is syntactic parallelism which we could chart. I suspect that enjoyment of syntactic parallelism would be a nearly universal phenomenon. It definitely is in music. It's all over Western styles of music and it is widespread in Cheyenne indigenous music which is sung to different scales from Western music, has different rhythms, etc. Parallelism is part of the beauty of poetry, whether it is formal English poetry with rhythm and rhyme or Hebraic poetry where parallelism of concepts predominates.

Here, then, are translations of Jude 24-25:

Vnto him that is able to kepe you that ye faule not and to present you fautlesse before the presence of his glory with ioye yt is to saye to God oure saveour which only is wyse be glory maiestie dominion and power now and for ever. Amen. (Tyndale)

Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present [you] faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, [be] glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and for ever. Amen. (KJV)

Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you without blemish before the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and for ever. Amen. (RSV)

Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (NRSV)

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (ESV)

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (NASB)

Now to the one who is able to keep you from falling, and to cause you to stand, rejoicing, without blemisht before his glorious presence,to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time, and now, and for all eternity. Amen. (NET)

Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glory without fault and with unspeakable joy, to the only God, our saviour, be glory and majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before time was, now, and in all ages to come, amen. (Phillips)

Now to the One who can keep you from falling and set you in the presence of his glory, jubilant and above reproach, to the only God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all time, now, and for evermore. Amen. (REB)

Now to Him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless and with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now, and forever. Amen. (HCSB)

To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—Jude 1.25 to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. (NIV)

To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. (TNIV; one change from NIV: "falling" to "stumbling")

God can guard you so that you don't fall and so that you can be full of joy as you stand in his glorious presence without fault. Before time began, now, and for eternity glory, majesty, power, and authority belong to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (GW)

Now to the one who is able to keep you from falling and to make you stand faultless in his glorious presence with rejoicing, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time and for all eternity! Amen. (ISV)

And now, all glory to God, who is able to keep you from stumbling, and who will bring you into his glorious presence innocent of sin and with great joy. All glory to him, who alone is God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Yes, glory, majesty, power, and authority belong to him, in the beginning, now, and forevermore. Amen. (NLT)

To him who is able to keep you from falling and to bring you faultless and joyful before his glorious presence— to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, from all ages past, and now, and forever and ever! Amen. (TEV)

Offer praise to God our Savior because of our Lord Jesus Christ! Only God can keep you from falling and make you pure and joyful in his glorious presence. Before time began and now and forevermore, God is worthy of glory, honor, power, and authority. Amen. (CEV)

And now to him who can keep you on your feet, standing tall in his bright presence, fresh and celebrating—to our one God, our only Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Master, be glory, majesty, strength, and rule before all time, and now, and to the end of all time. Yes. (The Message)

What kinds of literary beauty do you see in these various translations? And do you note any objective language characteristics that correlate with that beauty?