alt Hacker NewsThe first is of course from the King James Bible which for centuries was essentially a standard that all English speaking peoples aspired to. If you find that version difficult I would expect much literary writing before the 1940s also seems difficult. This is just to say I recommend reading the King James even if you are an atheist, as I am.
I also have to say that the first strikes me as being written by someone that might be smarter than I am, the second as being written by someone significantly less intelligent than I, yet somehow placed by society in a position of authority over me.
In the context of newly written work in the modern era, I would argue it's best to use grammatical constructions that are used in modern 20th/21st century English, at least most of the time. Those who wrote the KJV were trying to be expressive but the whole point was to do so in language that ordinary people would be familiar with.
> the first strikes me as being written by someone that might be smarter than I am
This is why Joseph Smith tried to imitate the language of the King James Bible in the Book of Mormon, albeit not very successfully.