A Bible to Read Aloud in Worship
“THE HOLY BIBLE, Conteyning the Old Teſtament, AND THE NEW: Newly Tranſlated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Tranſlations diligently compared and reuiſed, by his Maiesties speciall Comandement. Appointed to be read in Churches.”
Many editions of the King James Version of the Bible still include this inscription, sometimes with the peculiar spellings though in modern typography (ſ=s and u=v). In order to understand and appreciate the King James Bible, we must start by recognizing that it was “Appointed to be read in Churches.”
King James and the Bishops of the Church of England wanted to unify the Church by mandating the reading of a single Bible in public worship. The Great Bible, the Geneva Bible and the Bishops’ Bible were all in use at the time, but none of them totally satisfactory. So in 1604 the Hampton Court Conference on the future of the church (does this sound contemporary?) commissioned a new translation that would be acceptable to everyone.
The translators were specifically instructed to give priority to how each passage would sound when read aloud in worship. Thus, the King James Bible preserved the use of “thee” and “thou” that the Great Bible (1538) had drawn from William Tyndale’s translation (1526), even though they were no longer in common usage. As English translations multiplied in the 20th century, some argued that “thee” and “thou” should be preserved as more formal, respectful language for God, forgetting that these were originally the familiar form for close friends and family, similar to the German “du” and Spanish “tu.” Tyndale used them to convey God’s approachability.
The King James Bible translators purposely used other language that was already antiquated at the time to create sounds and rhythms for reading aloud in public worship. After the scholarship was done and alternative translations presented, they were read aloud and selected on the basis of listening.
The first editions of the King James Bible were printed in blackletter (similar to Gothic) in large folio format suitable for public reading by trained lectors, not the portable, personal books we are used to today.
The History and Impact of the English Bible
The history of translating the Bible into English is about much more than making the Bible available in a language we read. The procession of English Bible translations has driven and been shaped by forces far beyond English speakers, challenging and influencing the entire Church and cultures worldwide.
The first English translation to make an impact was stimulated and done by John Wycliffe from 1382 to 1395. This inspired the pre-Reformation Lollard movement that rejected Medieval Roman Catholic theology and authority. With the goal of a translation into common language he said, “I will cause that every plowboy in the fields shall be able to read it [Scripture].” This concept threatened the authority of the Medieval Church’s hierarchy far more than the content of the translation, which was directly from the Latin Vulgate, the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. Wycliffe was sowing the seeds of the priesthood of all believers and the respect for individual Christian conscience that were so important in the Reformation and cherished by the Disciples of Christ. From these seeds, also grew English and American democracy.
William Tyndale’s translation (1526) launched the next wave of English Bible translation. The Great Bible (1538) had been commissioned by King Henry VIII was still translated from the Latin Vulgate. The Bishops’ Bible (1568) was translated from the original Hebrew and Greek and reinforced the authority of the bishops of the Church of England. The Geneva Bible (1599) was also translated from the original language but was done in Geneva, Switzerland under the protection of John Calvin. It emphasized Presbyterian polity and was the Bible of the Puritans who were on the rise in England. These translations were competing at the time the Hampton Court Conference was convened in 1604 to make a new translation to unify the Church of England.
Not only was the King James Bible based on the original Hebrew and Greek languages, but textual and linguistic scholarship was making great advances at that time. It set the standard for biblical scholarship that shaped modern Biblical studies. Publishing practices kept the King James Bible text, spelling and punctuation quite fluid until the Oxford University text (1769) standardized not only English usage for the Bible but for all of us who write in English today.
Scholarship of Text and Language
The conquests of Alexander the Great (356 – 323 BCE) spread Greek culture and language through the Mediterranean Basin. Subsequently the Old Testament was translated into Greek in the second and third centuries BCE. It is known as the Septuagint. Since Greek had become the language of both trade and culture, the New Testament was written in Greek. The Greek of the New Testament is the language of everyday life, not the classical Greek of literature and government.
When Constantine adopted (and corrupted) Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire (346 AD) Latin became the predominant language. Jerome (347-420 AD) was the major contributor to translating the whole Bible into Latin. This became known as the Vulgate because it put the words of Scripture into the “vulgar tongue,” not at all meaning crude or profane but into the common language so ordinary people could read it.
While biblical scholarship survived in monasteries, little of it made it to people or priests in parish churches. The approach of the sixteenth century brought an awakening of scholarship, including biblical studies that nourished both the Reformation and Renaissance. In 1512 Dutch scholar and humanist Desiderius Erasmus began working on an updated Latin Translation which led him to a thorough study of the underlying Greek text of the New Testament, which he began in 1516. He gathered all the manuscripts he could and used the best and newest insights into language of that time to publish a parallel column New Testament in Greek and Latin. He included the Greek to show that his Latin was superior to the Vulgate, and in the process produced what came to be called Textus Receptus (received text), which was what the King James Bible translators used and was the standard until the twentieth century.
The twentieth century also brought a blossoming of biblical scholarship that brought not only better linguistic understanding but the discovery of thousands of manuscripts centuries older than Textus Receptus. A science of textual criticism also brought better ways to evaluate which were probably closer to the original. While most twentieth century Bible translations are based on these scholarly advances, they have challenged some cherished traditions. Some groups have insisted that Textus Receptus is preferred and thus insist that the King James Bible is superior or even the only “Authorized Version.”
Influences on Literature, Art and Culture
In recent years Richard Dawkins has gotten a lot of attention for his advocacy of atheism with his writings and public appearances. As unlikely as it may seem, in a video from the King James Bible Trust, he said, “You can’t appreciate English literature unless you are to some extend steeped in the King James Bible. There are phrases that come from it – people don’t realize they come from it – proverbial phrases, phrases that make echoes in people’s minds. Not to know the King James Bible is to be, in some small way, barbarian.”
Some of these phrases are: “my brother’s keeper,” “salt of the earth,” “give up the ghost,” “scapegoats,” “any eye for an eye,” “casting your pearls before swine,” “scarlet woman,” “writing on the wall,” “the blind leading the blind.”
In American history one of the most influential quotes from the King James Bible came from Abraham Lincoln’s speech accepting the Republican nomination for Senator from Illinois in 1858, in which he said, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” Though one who kept his faith totally private and was not a church member, Lincoln’s speeches are filled with references and paraphrases from the King James Bible. In his Second Inaugural Address he said “The Almighty has his own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.’ ‘The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”
The art of poets from John Donne (1572 –1631) to T. S. Elliot (1888 – 1965) is inscrutable without familiarity with the King James Bible. Voices as varied as Alexander Scourby and Johnny Cash have recorded spoken versions. Pete Seeger quoted from Ecclesiastes 3 for his 1959 song “Turn, Turn, Turn” that became the Byrds’ number one hit in 1965. In that same year Simon and Garfunkel recorded their take on the Beatitudes with “Blessed.”
The Politics of Bible Translation
Nothing happens in a vacuum. Since Constantine appropriated Christianity for his political purposes in the Roman Empire (346 AD), government and church, culture and faith have jockeyed for position and power. When King Henry VIII broke from the Roman Catholic Church (1536), he declared himself “Supreme Head of the Church of England” and kept the ascription “Defender of the Faith” with which he had been recognized by the Roman Catholic Church for his attacks on Luther and the Reformation. King James appropriated both of these titles for himself as affirming his authority to commission the translation of the Bible that came to bear his name (which are still inscribed on the flyleaf of many modern editions of the King James Bible). Thus, political as well as scholarly and religious motives inspired the King James Bible. Nevertheless, popular acceptance took until the late 1640s and scholarly acceptance into the eighteenth century.
The growing Puritan movement in the Church of England identified with the Reformation and was the source of the Geneva Bible. To minimize their threat, King James instructed the six teams of translators who gathered in 1604 to guarantee that they would confirm to the episcopal structure and traditional beliefs about ordained clergy of the Church of England (e.g. using “church” not “congregation” and “bishop” not “elder”). He also instructed that certain passages be handled so as not to justify disobedience to the king. For example, the midwives in Egypt who defied Pharaoh by not killing the baby boys at the time of Moses’ birth (Exodus 1:17) and the criticism of King Asa for not executing his idolatrous grandmother (2 Chronicles 15:16). The feared Puritan revolt did come in 1649 when Oliver Cromwell executed King Charles I and established the Commonwealth of England, which lasted until the monarchy was reestablished and Charles II made King in 1661.
The Puritans (Pilgrims) who settled in Massachusetts in 1620 were not seeking what we would think of as religious freedom but wanted to escape the control of the King and the Church of England to practice their Reformed Christianity in congregational churches. Ironically, they brought the King James Bible with them as their standard Scripture. With similar irony, today’s most vigorous proponents of the King James Bible are decidedly congregational, opposed to hierarchal church structure and are advocates of traditional American democracy.
To learn more go to www.kingjamesbibletrust.org
