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Christian Issue 100 history

Celebrating 400th anniversary of the King James Read how the pet project of an intellectual king became, against all odds, the most beloved English Did you know? Three KJV myths First, the KJV was not translated personally by King James I, though he did pride himself on his biblical scholarship and “as a young man and a good Protestant Scot had made his own metrical versions of thirty of the , and of the .” And he doubtless appreciated the effusive two-page dedication that appeared in the front of every printed copy of the Bible. Second, although the British have since the early 1800s called the KJV “the Authorized Version,” the KJV was never authorized. The term “Authorized Version” is more aptly used of the of 1539, prepared by , which Henry VIII in 1541 and 1547 (and in 1559) commanded to be read in churches, under threat of penalty for those omitting to do so. No such proclamations from either king or prescribed the use of the . Third, and also contrary to popular belief, “this version was not universally loved from the moment it appeared. Far from it. As a publication in the seventeenth century it was undoubtedly successful: it was heavily used, and it rapidly saw off its chief rival, the three . But for its first 150 years, the KJV received a barrage of criticism.” (See “No overnight success,” p. 22.) Source: , The Bible in English: Its History and Influence (2003)

The “funny” version? “The prose style of the King James Version lends itself well to parody. . . . Most often appearing in parody form are the twenty-third psalm (‘Roos- evelt is my shepherd, I shall not want’), the ’s

Prayer, the Sermon on the Mount (‘Blessed are a

the cheesemakers’), and the . LV an I y ERE d) The cadences of the seventeenth-century English t nn S prose of the King James Version lend themselves ta LL y a L to improprieties intoned in solemn measure. I g “Two examples will illustrate the comic use of The buckeT for our well the Lord’s Prayer. In one, a small boy named How-

Above: Title page of 1611 KJV. The preface gives these powerful images for ard inquires of his mother if he were named for God y, Un IVERSI ty of P E R a

because they had prayed in Sunday school, ‘Our R what a does: ”Translation is what opens the window, to let the light b in. It breaks the shell, so that we may eat the kernel. It pulls the curtain aside, Father who art in Heaven, Howard be thy name.’ t So CIE ty ( PH oto d I R

The second was used by the late Lord Mountbatten y of Cong RESS so that we may look into the most holy place. It removes the cover from the well, R a

when in command of a battered, obsolete destroyer, R so that we may get to the water. . . . In fact, without a translation in the common b language, most people are like the children at ’s well (which was deep) the Wishart. He told his men to be very proud of ES y of W ISH a without a bucket or something to draw the water with; or like the person men- the name of their ship for the entire fleet prayed ev- ook and Man USCRIP t L I

ery morning, ‘Our Father Wishart in Heaven. . . .’” b tioned by Isaiah who was given a sealed book and told ‘Please read this,’ and had Source: “The Bible in American Popular Humor,” in The Bible CURRIER & IVES: L I SHIP: Co UR t to answer, ‘I can not, because it is sealed’ (:11).” and American Arts and Letters, edited by Allene Stuart Phy (1985). Ra RE

Christian History “Good enough for Jesus” STill life: Apparently the 1952 publication of the —an lady and American revision of the KJV—elicited the comment, “If the King James bible Version was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for me.” This Currier & Ives has been traced authentically to two sources, an elderly Texas woman recognized Bible and a middle Tennessee evangelistic preacher. as a typi- cal activity of the American upper- TesT your BiBle knowledge: English phrasEs middle class in and sayings that dErivE from thE KJv this 1848 print. After Shakespeare, the KJV is the most common source of phrases in English. Most people who have grown up with the KJV or one of its modern revisions such as the RSV will recognize immediately the origin of such common Eight KJV errors English phrases as “a cross to bear” (:27), “am I my brother’s keeper?” Printers do interesting things to texts sometimes, and (Gen. 4:9), “an eye for an eye” (Matt. 5:38), “feet of clay” (Dan. 2:31-33), the KJV was no exception. In various over “fight the good fight” (Tim. 6:12), and “the salt of the earth” (Matt. 5:13). the years, certain errors were so egregious that those But how many of the phrases listed below would you have guessed editions got their own sarcastic titles. Among these: come from the King James Version? 1. The “Judas Bible” 1611: This Bible has Judas, not Test your Bible knowledge by identifying the book of the KJV (and if you’re Jesus, saying “Sit ye here while I go yonder and really good, the chapter and verse) from which these English phrases come: pray” (:36). 1. A broken heart 11. The fat of the land 2. The “Printers Bible” 1612: In some copies :161 reads “Printers have persecuted me without BK______CH______V______BK______CH______V______a cause” rather than “Princes have persecuted me...” 2. A drop in the bucket 12. My cup runneth over 3. The “Wicked Bible” 1631: Omits an important “not” from Exodus 20:14, making the seventh com- BK______CH______V______BK______CH______V______mandment read “ shalt commit adultery.” The 3. A labour of love 13. Put words in one’s mouth printers were fined £300 and most of the copies were BK______CH______V______recalled immediately. Only 11 copies are known to BK______CH______V______exist today. 14. Put your house in order 4. A law unto themselves 4. The “Sin On Bible” 1716: :11 reads BK______CH______V______“Go and sin on more” rather than “Go and BK______CH______V______sin no more.” 15. The straight and narrow 5. A leopard cannot change 5. The “Vinegar Bible” 1717: The chapter heading for its spots BK______CH______V______Luke 20 reads “The Parable of the Vinegar” instead of “The Parable of the Vineyard.” BK______CH______V______16. Sign of the times 6. The “Fools Bible” 1763: :1 reads “the fool BK______CH______V______6. A two-edged sword hath said in his heart there is a God,” rather than “... 17. Sour grapes there is no God.” The printers were fined £3,000 and BK______CH______V______all copies ordered destroyed. BK______CH______V______7. At their wit’s end 7. The “Lions Bible” 1804: :19 reads 18. To the ends of the earth a “thy son that shall come forth out of thy lions,” BK______CH______V______BK______CH______V______rather than “loins.”

LV an I y ERE d)

t 8. Seeing eye to eye 8. The “Owl Bible” 1944: “Owl” replaces “own,” nn S 19. The root of the matter making 1 Peter 3:5 read “For after this manner in BK______CH______V______ta LL y a L

I BK______CH______V______the old time the holy women also, who trusted God, g 9. Heart’s desire adorned themselves, being in subjection to their owl 20. The spirit is willing but the husbands.” The error was caused by a plate BK______CH______V______flesh is weak y, Un IVERSI ty of P E with a damaged letter n. R a R

b 10. Holier than thou BK______CH______V______t So CIE ty ( PH oto d I

R BK______CH______V______

y of Cong RESS ANSWERS ON P. 38 R a R b ES y of W ISH a ook and Man USCRIP t L I b our faTher, . . . in heaven Right: To those who treasured this version, King James puns seem to have been irresistible. If you had SHIP: Co UR t CURRIER & IVES: L I Ra RE captained the HMS Wishart, wouldn’t you have been tempted to do what Lord Mountbatten did with that name (see left)?

Issue 100 1 Birth of a vision Left: The Vision Video barn in PA, where Christian History was born. Below: Dr. Kenneth Curtis, founder, Christian History magazine.

Editor’s note I first heard of Dr. A. Kenneth (Ken) Curtis back in the History was born. Ken struck me as a committed Christian late 1980s, when I was a young convert. That was when communicator and businessman with tremendous energy I discovered the wonderful magazine Christian History, and vision. But he then shared with me the challenge that which Ken had started in 1982. Christian he was facing. In December 2002 he had been diagnosed History showed me the true depth of our spiritual with lung cancer and given six months to live. heritage as Christians. By the late 80s I had CH in one In fact, buoyed by alternative treatments and a dedi- hand and graduate school catalogues in the other, and cated prayer team, Ken ended up with eight years, which by the mid-90s the love for church history that I first he referred to as “bonus time.” Then, in 2010, an unex- discovered in Ken’s magazine took me into graduate pected gift came to Ken that absorbed him until the end study in that field. of his life. Facing serious recessionary pressures, CTI Ken was not primarily a magazine publisher, but a ceased publication of Christian History, and the magazine turned filmmaker and distributor. In the late 60s reverted to Ken’s publishing non-profit, the Christian he helped put together the partnership that created the History Institute. Although the timing was not perfect film The Cross and the Switchblade. This eventually led for him, he rose to the challenge. During the last months Ken to start Gateway Films to continue the film’s dis- of his life, his enthusiasm for Christian History poured out tribution. as he gathered a team to bring the magazine to life again. Some years later Ken made a fateful decision: he Early on the morning of January 3, 2011, Ken Curtis followed his pastor’s heart and put out a film on the passed on to his reward. To the end, he was awed by martyred proto-Reformer . Ken related being God’s many providences and honored and excited to be “surprised and appalled” to discover how little peo- part of his kingdom work. I pray that those who have ple in evangelical Protestant churches knew about the been touched by Ken’s work will carry on his legacy faith’s historical heritage. Gateway had found its niche, in this important way: the church still needs to have and the company went on to co-produce Shadowlands, its memory restored, and in Ken’s memory, no more on C. S. Lewis’s late-life marriage to Joy Davidman, as worthy project could be undertaken than the rebirth of well as many other award-winning films. In 1981, Ken this magazine. If there is enough interest and financial founded a distribution company called Vision Video to support, the Christian History Institute plans to relaunch make spiritually themed videos widely available. The the magazine. company now carries over 2,000 titles. If you would like to help bring Christian History to The following year, Christian History magazine was life again, we need to hear from you. Please fill out the begun as an add-on to Ken’s historical videos. Seven brief survey online at www.ChristianHistoryMagazine. years later, in 1989, Ken decided to increase the maga- org/survey/ or use the bind-in survey and envelope obin Heller zine’s reach by putting it in the hands of included in this issue. I hope you will enjoy this issue of Today International (CTI). In 2002, with great gratitude, Christian History and many issues to come in the spirit of I joined CTI’s team as managing editor of Christian the Rev. Dr. A. Kenneth Curtis, a uniquely gifted servant History. So many places I’ve traveled, people have told and visionary in God’s kingdom. me how much they love this magazine. During my time as editor, I got to meet Ken and tour Dr. Chris R. Armstrong the red barn an hour north of Philadelphia where Christian Managing editor Vision Video line drawing by r

2 Christian History Embarkation of thE Pilgrims, 1620, 1857 (oil on canvas) by robErt WaltEr WEir (1803-89), brooklyn musEum of art, nEW york, usa/thE bridgEman art of QuEEn ElizabEth i by Paul dElarochE, by English school (20th cEntury), PrivatE / look and lEarn/ thE bridgEman art library Issue 100 Dr. JamesD.Smith III Dr. PhyllisAlsdurf Advisory Editors Bill Curtis Executive Editor Dr. ChrisR.Armstrong Managing Editor Dr. A.K.Curtis Founder 4 the KingJamesBible 22 18 4

Also: than critics 1611, the“authorizedversion”tookdecadestogainmorefans Poor KJV!Unlovedfromthemomentofitsfirstprintingin No overnightsuccess about theseandseehowtheyrenderedtheLord’sPrayer The roadtotheKJVranthroughsomefascinatingBibles;learn Pre-KJV Englishtranslations A queen’sdeath,aking’sinauguration,plague,religiousunrest, How theKingJamesBiblewasborn

AmericanJewsandtheKJV

Tara M.Smith Layout Ann T.Snyder Jennifer Trafton Assistant Editors Doug Johnson Art Director Dawn Moore Editorial Coordinator

© ChristianHistoryInstitute Christian HistoryInstitute Publisher Dr. JenniferWoodruffTait Proofreader Tara M.SmithandDebLandis Production Coordinators Hebrew idioms of are word-for-word English phrases Many common to English in theointment” brought a“fly James Bible 16 Rules oftheKJV; Also: KingJames; this storyhasitall Parliament . a plottoblowup

How the King How theKing

Christian History Institute, P.O. Box 540, Worcester, PA, 19490. Christian HistoryInstitute,P.O.Box540, Worcester,PA,19490. reprint materialshouldbe magazine,P.O.Box540, to theeditormaybesentChrisArmstrong,editor, 1-800-584-0458, orthroughwww.christianhistorymagazine.org . ter, PA,19490.Subscriptionsareavailable onadonationbasisbycalling HistoryispublishedbyChristianInstitute, P.O.Box540,Worces- James I”byGeorgeE.Kruger,1754HultonArchive/GettyImages . © 2011ChristianHistory.Cover:“TheTranslatorsPresentingBibleto 39 38 20 2 1 1 Departments 40 38 37 35 28

Find usonline atChristianHistoryMagazine.org KJV Bible phrases answers KJV Biblephrasesanswers Legacy Ken Curtis’s Editor’s note phrases quiz KJV Bible Films thatbringthestoryalive Two takesontheKJV Quotes fromfamousKJVfans They saiditbest This KJVpassagemakesitseemso Was Paulagainstsex? An interviewwithMarkA.Noll The KJV:theviewfromtoday Timeline Did youknow? Also: R-RatedBible;Hailtothechief’sBiblewars captured heraffections America’s scripturalsweetheart,buttheKJVsoon The GenevaBiblehadthefirstshotatbecoming Old bookinanewworld Recommended resources

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2 Christian History 28 2 Christian Christian Letters Letters 3

How tHe King James Bible was Born

the came before their king. he gave them almost none of what they wanted, but one idea did grab him: a new bible translation.

A. Kenneth Curtis

Picture yourself in 1604 . the Elizabethan idyll has been fraying at the edges. By It is a slow-moving world, where the 1590s starvation, disease, and unemployment are security and stability are prized. spreading like a miasma. The urban landscape has Someday England, along with the grown overcrowded, squalid, and chaotic. Poor Laws rest of the West, will pursue con- have emerged to punish the idle poor and set the able- stant, rapid innovation. For you, bodied poor to work in the proliferating workhouses. however, what is old and hallowed Then comes the queen’s illness and her refusal by tradition is what is best. You rest to the very end to name her successor. Your anxiety in the knowledge that God rules all and suspense could hardly be imagined by dwell- things by an unchangeable provi- ers in modern democracies. A change of monarch dence and orders all things by an reaches deep into the hearts of his subjects, evoking equally unchangeable natural law. uncertainties and absorbing the attention of the na- But all is not well in your world. Beneath its peace- tion. The monarchy, after all, is God’s instrument ful and orderly reality, an uneasy undercurrent bubbles. of order and his hand of guidance. To paraphrase True, for much of the past 45 years you and your fam- Proverbs, “Without a monarch, the people perish!” ily have dwelt in the secure, stable England of Elizabeth. Now, in the year of our Lord 1604, the news has Under her reign population and wealth have grown, been confirmed: The new king will be James VI, and the enmities between small, zealous groups of from England’s generations-old enemy, Scotland! Christians have, with the judicious use of force, been The remains of Hadrian’s Wall dividing the coun- repressed for the greater good. But for some time now, tries stand as a lasting symbol and reminder of the

4 Christian History Birthplace of a BiBle. Here, at , the newly inaugurated King James I met with a squabbling group of Puritans and bishops to hammer out the future of England’s church. Out of this ecclesiastical scrum was born an unlikely treasure: the KJV.

enduring enmity between the two. Frantic specu- The Elizabethan Settlement lation is erupting all around you. What can loyal The King James Version of the Bible was born at the subjects of England and worshipers in the English Hampton Court Conference in January of 1604. This, as church expect of a man who was brought up under we will see, was a meeting cannily called by the newly- Geneva-influenced Presbyterian tutelage? What, of a crowned James I (still James VI of Scotland) to appease man whose crowning as King of Scotland, when he the Puritans, though he made few concessions there. was just a toddler, was accompanied by a fiery ser- Political uneasiness was in the air as religious faction- mon from John Knox himself? How will this man act alism continued unabated, despite Elizabeth’s efforts. who since adolescence has made of himself an author She had solidified and entrenched the English Reforma- and intellectual? Will he know how to take advice? tion begun under Henry VIII. But many pious English Your more pessimistic neighbors may also be subjects had never been pleased with “the Elizabethan asking a darker question: What latent pathologies Settlement”—the uneasy state of equilibrium she had may lurk in a 37-year-old man whose parents were engineered to stave off religiously motivated civil war. killed for political reasons, who harbors no doubt that Roman Catholics, of course, had reason to be embit- God is on his side, and who is an outspoken advo- tered about their disenfranchisement. And on the oth- cate of the divine right of kings? James’s wide learn- er end of the spectrum, Puritans within the Church of ing (in which he takes great pride) and his taste for England insisted that the had not gone far theo logical debate are well-known—could these spell enough in their native land—that it retained too many trouble in an England already seeded with religious elements. They had no trouble agreeing with

Courtesy of Jerry GriffitH dissension? Presbyterian John Knox’s description of Elizabeth as

Issue 100 5 Walking the factional balance James would need to walk a delicate balance in trying to keep the various factions in peaceful accord. The Roman Catholics, called Papists by Protestants, longed for the English church to return to the Roman fold. The main body of Puritans were loyal to the crown but wanted further distance from Rome. Orbiting beyond these two groups were a number of others, all with their needs and demands to be navigated by the new king. The Presbyterians were Puritans who were ready to do away with the hierarchical structure of powerful bish- ops. They advanced what they iden- tified as the model of local and collegial church admin- istration under elders or presbyters, and they sought every opportunity to remake the in that image. It would never happen, but that didn’t stop them from trying. There was also Parliament, eager to expand its power base beyond the per- functory role it had been allowed thus far. And, not incidentally, there was a significant Puritan influence and repre- sentation in Parliament. Then there were the bishops of the Church of England. Their role was different from that of their successors SuSpended animation. Above: Not willing to relinquish her firm control of England until the today. They were a genuine elite, with very end, the dying Elizabeth I left her courtiers hanging until the eleventh hour before at last exceptional power, privilege, and whispering the identity of her nation’s new monarch. wealth to protect. To them, Puritan agitation was far more than an intel- lectual abstraction to be debated at “neither good Protestant nor yet resolute papist.” They and Cambridge. If the Puritans were to prevail, perhaps remembered God’s words in the Book of Reve- this hierarchy had much to lose. lation about the church in Laodicea: a lukewarm church The Great Leveler among all of these groups was ain he would “spew out of his mouth.” no political or ecclesiastical party, but an implacable M Eager to see the task of reformation completed, foe nonetheless. From the moment of his accession, the Puritans felt that in James they might finally have James found himself face to face with this most piti- found their royal champion. After all, hadn’t he been less of enemies. Its very name struck terror every- brought up under the influence of Calvinist Presby- where it went: Plague! terians, who shared the Puritan commitment to a con- The outbreak of this disease that descended on tinuing reformation? England the year James became king was unusu- by Paul Delaro CH e/ P ubli C D o i It was not to be. James had seen enough of the ally severe, causing a reported 30,000 deaths in and Puritans’ ilk in Scotland, and he didn’t like them or their around . In those days, not far removed

at all. They were spared their king’s outright from the great, millennium-long medieval synthe- lizabet H enmity only by being a sizeable minority, well edu- sis of the City of God with the City of Man, plague cated, and highly motivated. Since James wanted unity was far more than a public health issue. Many saw and stability in his church and state, he needed to con- it as their ancestors would have: as a vehicle of of Queen e

sider how to satisfy this constituency as far as he could. God’s judgment and wrath. Although different Deat H

6 Christian History ibrary ibrary l rt a an M ri DG e b tH e K/ u on, on D l , Museu M parties disagreed about exactly who was being parliament: Why Bother? James, believing himself to be king by ritis H judged and why, most agreed that this horrifying divine right, saw little use for Parliament and dissolved it on two occa- scourge was the very hand of God on a sinful nation. sions. He himself survived the rift, but it would get his son Charles killed. entury) b C A time of upheaval At the time of the Hampton Court Conference in Jan- attitudes, fears and methods of revenge of the west- uary of 1604, the cultural and political climate roiled ern world in the first decade of the twenty-first cen- sCH ool (17t H

with turbulence from a number of other sources. tury.” The aim of the so-called “- lis H G n This was the very time John Smyth from Gainsbor- ters”: to blow up the Parliament building with all ough was teaching and organizing his group of dis- the royal family and Britain’s political leaders in- sident Lincolnshire farmers, laying the groundwork side. Had the plot not been discovered at the elev- for what would soon emerge as the first expression enth hour, the carnage would have been immense.

) (b/w PH oto) by e of the English Baptist movement. At that point they Nor did the religious and social upheaval stop were seen more as a nuisance than as the founders there. The seeds had already been sown for the hor- ravin G of what would become a large Protestant tradition. rific Thirty Years’ War, the last and most savage of Then, too, a more pernicious cabal was about the Post-Reformation religious wars, which would to form, one whose near-successful act of horren- begin just 14 years after Hampton Court, in 1618. ent, 1624 (en G dous terrorism would leave an unhealed wound Sixteen years after Hampton Court, in 1620, on the nation’s psyche for centuries to come. A English religious dissidents gave up on both the mere four months after the Hampton Court Con- Established Church and their own nation and fled to ference, on May 20, 1604, a group of Catholic Plymouth, Massachusetts, to set up a new church and radicals met in London’s Strand. At the innocu- a new state. These were the “Pilgrims” of Thanks- e Houses of Parlia M ously named “Duck and Drake,” the conspira- giving fame. They shared many of the convictions of tors worked out the details of a monstrous plan. the more conservative Puritans and Presbyterians, So shocking, so heinous was the act of terrorism but wanted the state to be removed from church af-

Library of Congress these men proposed to commit that, as Adam Nicol- fairs altogether—hence the public label “separatist.” : i

es son puts it, the plot “would come to define Jacobean Though their exodus from James’s England was little- ent : (1566-1625) in t H M England [that is, England during the reign of James noticed at the time, the king would come to call the arlia M in G a P K I] as much as September 11, 2001, would shape the colonies “a seminary for a fractious Parliament.”

Issue 100 7 “come out from among them, and Be ye Separate.” Above: selfishly motivated—trip to Scotland from London Religious dissent, always bubbling below the surface of James’s England, to bring James the news of Elizabeth’s death had boiled over in 1620 as the Pilgrims gave up on the Established Church and taken just over 3 days.) He arrived in London May 7. headed for the New World. James’s journey south was a kind of extended tri- umphal procession as the populace came out to cele- brate and welcome him in the towns and villages along And on it would go: in 1642, the the way. Although still wondering what this new king began. The following year, James’s son Charles I was would bring to their land, the canny and the wise were made prisoner at this very same Hampton Court Pal- determined to be on his good side when he brought it. ace—the place of his own honeymoon. Then Charles This happy tour was marked by an important inter- was executed by Parliament itself, under the Puritan ruption. Along the way, James was approached by a leader —a regicide that horrified the Puritan delegation, who presented the new king with crowned heads of Europe. the petition that would lead to the Hampton Court Conference and the eventual commissioning of the The Puritans make their case King James Version of the Bible. As James prepared to take the throne, these events were The document must have come from well-coordi- still in the future, but portents abounded. His was a nated organizations among the Puritans. It outlined nation whose apparently calm surface hid powerful their grievances to the king, stating the additional stirrings of discontent. From the first, he worked with reforms they implored James to implement. Known a kind of monomaniacal passion to preserve unity, as the because, although no copy law, and order within his kingdom. has survived, it is supposed to have borne over 1,000 James received word of his cousin Elizabeth’s clergy signatures (some 10 percent of the clergy in the death and his appointment to the throne while he was land), the plea of this group to their king calls to mind ress in Edinburgh. It didn’t take him long to head south. various 20th-century movements of “10 percenters.” On April 5, 1603, he began his journey to London to Ten percent can make a huge difference and have be crowned. He was in no hurry, his trip taking a dramatic impact, especially when comprising those ibrary of Con G

little over a month. (Sir Robert Carey’s urgent—and continued on page 10 l

8 Christian History who beat him regularly at his lessons, with an abiding love for learning. He became, says Nicolson, “immensely intellec- tual, speaking ‘Greek before breakfast, before Scots,’ composing stiff Renaissance poetry . . . translating the Psalms, capable on sight of turning any passage of the Bible from Latin to French and then from French to English.” We get a glimpse of James’s developing character in the report of an envoy from his exiled mother, Mary Queen of Scots. This man, a Mr. Fontenay, came to James’s court when the young king was 18 to try to strike a deal making Mary co-ruler with him. Though James said he would sup- port his mother, he already showed his wiliness by refusing to sign the agreement. An unlikely hero: Fontenay had little to gain by inflating James’s reputation, but his report on the boy-king was, at least in part, glowing: The KJ of the KJV “Three qualities of the mind he possesses in perfection: he understands clearly, judges wisely, and has a retentive memory. His questions are keen and penetrat- beaten regularly at his lessons, the ing and his replies are sound. In any argument, boy king of scotland became “immensely whatever it is about, he maintains the view that intellectual” . . . and the instigator of appears to him most just, and I have heard him england’s greatest bible translation. support Catholic against Protestant opinions. He is well instructed in languages, science, affairs King James I of England (simultaneously James of state, better, I dare say, than anyone else in the kingdom. VI of Scotland) was certainly, as Adam Nicolson In short, he has a remarkable intelligence, as well as lofty has said, an unlikely hero: “ugly, restless, red- and virtuous ideals and a high opinion of himself.” haired, pale-skinned, his tongue . . . too big for his mouth, Not all of Fontenay’s observations were so flattering. impatient, vulgar, clever, nervous.” What made him the man He saw the rough manner and vulgar speech into which the he became: patron of the most widely used and influential king would frequently descend even in his years on England’s English translation of the Bible in history? throne: “In speaking and eating, in his dress and in his James’s childhood in the brutal Scottish court would sports, in his conversation in the presence of women, his have permanently scarred most men. When he was still in manners are crude and uncivil and display a lack of proper the womb of his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, her secretary- instruction.” Fontenay saw, too, the physical oddness that lover David Rizzio was, as Nicolson tells it, “brutally mur- would always hamper the king: “His body is feeble and yet he dered in an adjoining room as she listened to his screams.” is not delicate. In a word, he is an old young man.” Nor did the carnage stop during his youth. “His father, the James also notoriously indulged in escapism, both as a charming Henry Darnley, was murdered by his mother’s youth and as an adult, spending money like water and half next lover, the Earl of Bothwell, blown up when lying ill in his his waking hours hunting. But these were small scars to Edinburgh house.” The last time James ever saw his mother carry from “the brutal world of Scottish politics” that was was when he was one year old. From then on, he endured the his childhood nursery. When in his mid-30s he took the

or K care of “a string of terrifying Presbyterian governors.” English throne, he was a remarkably resilient—even wise— y ew

n The most influential of these in his life was George man, with a deep and abiding desire for a peace in England Buchanan, “a towering European intellectual,” who shaped that he had never experienced in Scotland. tion, the young man’s mind even as James found himself “a James adopted as his motto Jesus’ beatitude “blessed

er Colle C trophy in the hands of rival noble factions in Scotland, are the peacemakers,” and his project of creating a new kidnapped, held, threatened and imprisoned.” James sur- Bible translation was one of the chief ways he sought to prisingly emerged from his training with Buchanan, achieve that peace. —by Chris R. Armstrong tH e Gran G

Issue 100 9 The petition asked for an overhaul of the church’s worship, ministry, ecclesiastical fi- nance, and discipline. It implored James to allow no “popish opinions” in worship, no bowing at the name of Jesus, and no use of “apocryphal” biblical —books of the Christian that were not part of the but were traditionally included in Bibles as deuterocanonical (“sec- ond canon”). The reforms were to be thoroughgoing, at- tending even to matters that may sound triv- ial today but were deadly serious to the Pu- ritans, with their devotion to things spiritual and their suspicion of things material. No more wedding rings, no more use of the sign of the cross, and no more wearing of certain liturgical clothing were to be countenanced. KJB9b Ministers must be able to preach effec- tively—away with those who wouldn’t, or couldn’t. And away with the abuse known as “pluralism,” in which ministers and bishops enjoyed jurisdiction over (and income from!) far more churches than they could reasonably serve. Finally, the church courts must cease arbitrary and inappro- priate uses of canon law. In closing, the Puritans appealed to the king with a rationale they trusted would move him to action: “Thus your majesty shall do that which we are persuaded a puritan in JameS’S den. Above: (Reynolds), leader shall be acceptable to God . . . profitable to his Church of the Puritans at the Hampton Court Conference, made the fateful sug- which shall be thereby increased; comfortable to your gestion of a new Bible translation and himself worked on the Prophets. ministers which shall be no more suspended, silenced, disgraced, imprisoned for men’s traditions; and pre- judicial to none but to those that seek their own quiet, who have felt marginalized and are highly motivated, credit, and profit in the world.” well organized, and clear in their goals. They can de- With boldness, the authors reminded James that he mand attention, and they often do gain it. too was under authority—God’s: “Thus with all duti- ful submission referring ourselves to your Majesty’s “. . . longing for the redress of pleasure for your gracious answer as God shall direct diverse abuses of the Church . . .” you, we most humbly recommend your Highness to At 1,100 words long and respectful in tone, the petition the Divine Majesty, whom we beseech for Christ’s sake assured the king of the Puritans’ loyalty to the crown to dispose your royal heart to do herein what shall be and commitment to national unity. It began: to his glory, the good of his Church, and your endless [W]e, the ministers of the in this land, nei- comfort.” With their last words, they assured their king ther as factious men affecting a popular parity in that they were his obedient servants, who desired “not a the Church, nor as schismatics aiming at the disso- disorderly innovation but a due and godly reformation.” lution of the state ecclesiastical, but as the faithful What did not appear in the Millenary Petition was servants of Christ and loyal subjects to your Maj- any mention of a new Bible translation. esty, desiring and longing for the redress of divers abuses of the Church, could do no less . . . than Conference called acquaint your princely Majesty with our particu- James took these Puritan ministers seriously enough lar griefs. For as your princely pen writeth, “The to call a conference. In a royal proclamation in October King, as a good physician, must first know what 1603, the king announced a meeting to take place before peccant humours his patient naturally is most sub- “himself and counsel, his bishops, and other learned

ject unto before he can begin his cure.” men on the first day of the next month.” Courtesy of Jerry Griffit H

10 Christian History A few of King James’s approved rules for the new translation Rule 1 instructed the Translators to leave texts from their model, the Bishops’ Bible, “as little altered as the Truth of the original will permit.” Rules 8 – 14 concerned accuracy. Rule 8 required “every particular Man of each Company, to take the same Chapter or Chapters, and having translated or amended them sever- ally by himself, where he thinketh good, all to meet together, confer what they have done, and agree for their Parts what shall stand.” Rule 9 added, “As any one Company hath dispatched any one Book in this Manner they shall send it to the rest, to be considered of seriously and judiciously, for His Majesty is very careful in this Point.” Rule 11 provided, “When any Place of special Obscurity is doubted of, Letters to be directed by Authority, to send to any Learned Man in the Land, for his Judgment of such a Place.” Rule 12 required “letters to be sent from every to the rest of his Clergy, admonishing them of this Translation in hand; and to move and charge as many skilful in the Tongues; and hav- ing taken pains in that kind, to send his particular Observations to the Company, either at Westminster, Cambridge, or Oxford.”

“if it pleaSe your maJeSty. . .” Above: The Puritans James wanted a popular translation that supported standard were used to coming to King James I with their hats in Church of England usages. So he insisted that the translation their hands. Here in 1607, they were requesting church use old familiar terms and names. Rules 2 – 5 focused on this. reform from the monarch, who began the Ulster Planta- About 90 percent of the actual translation used solid Anglo- tion of English and Scottish Protestant settlers in Ireland. Saxon words. Further, the whole was made readable (if formal) in the idiom of the day. However, the conference did not convene as Consistent with his conservative religious views against the planned on November 1, but had to be postponed “by reason of sickness reigning in many places of our radical ideas of the Puritans, James desired “the Old Ecclesiasti- kingdom.” Both the later date and the choice of the cal Words to be kept, viz. the Word Church not to be translated Hampton Court venue may have arisen because of the Congregation &c.” plague ravaging London. The Translators were instructed, “When a Word hath divers Built by Cardinal Wolsey in the era of Henry VIII, Significations, that to be kept which hath been most commonly Hampton Court Palace is a magnificent estate 15 miles southwest of London on the Thames River. used by the most of the Ancient Fathers, being agreeable to the Wolsey, the son of a butcher, had risen to become Lord Propriety of the Place, and the Analogy of the Faith.” In addition, Chancellor of England, cardinal, and the ’s “the Division of the Chapters to be altered, either not at all, or as representative. He began to build the opulent Palace little as may be, if Necessity so require.” in 1515. 2,500 workers were hired to build the 1,000- James wanted no biased notes included in the translation. room palace, and 500 staff were employed to keep it running smoothly. Rule 6 stated, “No Marginal Notes at all to be affixed, but only for James came to Hampton Court that first year for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek Words, which cannot without es

G lavish Christmas and New Year’s events. William some circumlocution, so briefly and fitly be expressed in the Text.” iM a Shakespeare’s “King’s Men” players (so named James constantly pushed his committee to advance the transla- because they had procured James’s personal spon- tion with dispatch: “Your Majesty did never desist, to urge and to sorship) performed before the king in the Great Hall

CH ive/Getty excite those to whom it was commended, that the work might be r on Boxing Day in 1603. Shakespeare himself a performed there in A Midsummer Night’s Dream on hastened, and that the business might be expedited in so decent a

Hulton New Year’s Day. manner, as a matter of such importance might justly require.”

Issue 100 11 12 scripts oftheconferenceproceedings werepermitted, and thenalsoonthe16th 18th.Noofficialtran- voice, itwasclearthedeck stackedagainstthem. preacher. But,althoughthe Puritans weregivena in Suffolk;andThomasSparks,arelativelyunknown another hour”);JohnKnewstubs,RectorofCockfield up andshouted,‘ForGod’ssakegoon!’Hegavethem a Cambridgesermon.Theentirecongregationstood son: “Chaderton.oncepausedaftertwohoursof in thePuritanstrongholdofCambridge(saysNicol- a notedpreacherandMasterofEmmanuelCollege Corpus ChristiCollege,Oxford;LaurenceChaderton, erate men:Dr.JohnReynolds(orRainolds),headof tan cause,knowntobemature,experienced,andmod- stance, significance,andpermanence. palace, therewouldhavebeenaspecialfeelingofsub- As theparticipantsinconferencegathered The players,thestage,andaction Canterbury, and , the . Canterbury, andRichardBancroft,thebishopofLondon. of The bishopsincludedJohnWhitgift,the Privy Councilofadvisors,andninebishopsdeans. or privateapartment.Theparticipantsweretheking,his The Conference met onSaturday, January 14,1604, Also presentwerefourrepresentativesofthePuri- They metintheking’ssanctum—his“PrivyChamber” ference. On that day, James discussed with his advisors, ference. Onthatday,Jamesdiscussed withhisadvisors, allowthePuritanstoattend firstdayofthecon- but frivolous..” them, ifdangerous;andtakeknowledgeof thereof, ifscandalous;cure to removetheoccasions sician,” “toexamineandtrythecomplaints,fully with agreatfallingawaytopopery.” many disorders,andmuchdisobediencetothelaws, plaints, sinceourfirstentranceintothiskingdom,of he acknowledgedthat“wehavereceivedmanycom- best ofsystemsissubjecttocorruptionovertime.And innovation,” hebegan.Yetadmittedthateventhe “I assureyouwehavenotcalledthisassemblyforany there mightberoomforsomecosmeticenhancement. tural changesindoctrineandpracticewerenotneeded, previous frustrationinScotland: please his delegates,healso made no effort to hidehis ingly self-revealing.Thoughheobviouslyintendedto firsthand inScotland.Atthispointhewassurpris- the Presbyterianmodelhehadwitnessed to contrast structure andhierarchyoftheEnglishchurch,in was notupforevaluationorreconsideration: the tone.Thedoctrineandpolityofstatechurch delivered theopeningaddress.Hiswordsset ficial report ports. The two main sourcesare Thomas Barlow’sof- so resultshavetobepiecedtogetherfromvariousre- at HamptonCourt project. Hewaspassionatelyanti-Puritan. sity, servedasoverseer(thoughnotaTranslator)oftheKJV Archbishop ofCanterburyandChancellorOxfordUniver- S courge Despite this apparent concession, James did not Despite thisapparentconcession, Jamesdidnot Therefore hewouldtaketheroleof“goodphy- James thenmadeitclearthatalthoughbasicstruc- beardless boyswouldbraveustotheface. a Kingwithoutstate,honour,where learned andreveredmen,notasbefore,elsewhere, gion ispurelyprofessed,whereIsitamonggrave, me intothePromisedLandwherereli- brought For blessedbeGod’sgraciousgoodness,whohath James hintedthathefoundgreatsecurityinthe find settledalready. I seeyetnosuchcausetochangeasconfirmwhat to alter all thingstheyfound established, whereas in Iamhappierthanthey,becausetheywerefain memory) settledreligionasitnowstandeth.Here- reversed all,andlastlyQueenElizabeth(offamous tered much,KingEdwardVImore,QueenMary King HenryVIIItowardstotheendofhisreignal- doctrine andpolicy..Particularlyinthisland, course fortheestablishingofChurchbothin first Kings totakethe for of allChristianprinces, It isnonoveldevice,butaccordingtotheexample Like ConstantineattheCouncilofNicea,James

of

The SummeandSubstanceoftheConference the

p and uritan An AnonymousAccount. S . Left: Richard Bancroft, later RichardBancroft,later Christian History

library of ConGress wiKiPeDia Issue 100 he had“livedamongPuritans andwaskeptforthe PuritansfromhistimeinScotland whenhesaidthat own performanceinresponsetothePuritans: described his James Earl ofNorthampton, Howard the contemporaneous totheconference,writtenHenry But thesentimentcannotbefaroff,forinaletteralmost direct wordsofJamesbuthigh-churchpropaganda. thenticity, suggestingthatitmighthavebeennotthe them outoftheland,orelsedoworse!” make themconformthemselves,orelseIwillharrie Reynolds: “Ifthisbeallyourpartyhathtosay,Iwill quoted thathassurvivedtheconference,ashewarned mous phrase,perhapsthemostmemorableand pacy, therecanbenoproperlyfunctioningmonarchy. “No bishop,noKing!”Thatis,withouttheepisco- me andmycouncil,allourproceedings.” and Tom,Will,Dick,shallmeetcensure well withMonarchyasGodandtheDevil!ThenJack, aim ataScotsPresbyterie,itagreethas fore abull.Thekingexploded:“Ifyou presence waslikewavingaredflagbe- of theChurch?” their brethrenthepastorsandministers ops governjointlywitha tion thisway:“Whyshouldn’tthebish- base. Unfortunately,heposedhisques- broadening ofthedecision-making administration mightbeinorder—a a morecollegialapproachtochurch and nodoubtunintended,reference. being heard,helostitbyoneinopportune, ment. ButifReynoldshadanychanceof raised thequestionofchurchgovern- and atonepointinthedeliberations Reynolds tooktheleadontheirbehalf, were allowedtojoininthemeeting.John excommunication. tices suchasbaptism,absolution,and bishops, anddeansvariouschurchprac- James alsorevealedhistrue feelings towardthe been plieduponthepoorboys’ buttocks. up in place ofareplyandshouldtherodhave them inthatsort,theywouldhavefetchedhim scholars, ifanyoftheirdiscipleshadanswered of them had beenina college disputing withtheir if any that them, say unto last to I wasforcedat gument, withouteveransweringmedirectly,and papists. .Theyfledmesofromargumenttoar- peppered themassoundlyyouhavedonethe last twodaysaswasneverheardthelike.Ihave We havekeptsucharevelwiththepuritansthese Some Britishscholarsquestionthisstatement’sau- He followedthisheartfeltcrywiththeotherfa- He thenutteredwhatcanbeconsideredhismotto: Using the word Using Reynolds wantedtoknowwhether On theseconddayfourPuritans

presbyterie presbyterie in James’s inJames’s of the chairmanshipofproject. ly changedhismind—to be rewardedbyJames with translation project,thebishopquicklyandconvenient- Bancroft, butoncethekingshowedhissupportfor came immediatelyfromthebishopofLondon,Richard and notanswerabletothetruthoforiginal.” Henry theEighthandEdwardSixthwerecorrupt cause thosewhichwereallowedinthereignofKing that theremightbeanewtranslationofthe and ahistoriclandmark.Reynolds“movedhismajesty to bethemostsignificantachievementofconference credit foronemoveonthisseconddaythatturnedout did get he terie” mayhavedamagedthePuritancase, lived amongthem,hewasnotofthem.’” opinions; astheSaviorofworldsaid,‘thoughhe the ageofhisSon,tenyearsold,heeverdislikedtheir most partasaWardunderthem,yet,sincehewasof translation oftheGenevaBible thatbotheredJames. Geneva tobe.”Itwasn’tsomuch thequalityof English; buttheworstofall,his Majestythoughtthe He “couldneveryetseeaBible welltranslatedin reasons. First,hedespisedthe popularGenevaBible. The kinglikedtheideaofanewtranslationforfew the heartofking Why anewtranslationwarmed to JameswasevenpartofU.S.Biblesformanyyears. in thefrontofalmostallBiblesland.Thetwo-pageDedication d efender James warmedtothesuggestion.Strongresistance While Reynolds’sindiscreetuseoftheterm“presby-

of

the

faith . Above: It is not every king who gets his name Itisnoteverykingwhogetshisname Bible, be-

13 Knight of the KJV’S round taBle. Left: Once sympa- thetic to the Puritans but later a lover of church ceremony, Lancelot Andrewes was James’s choice for lead Translator.

Genesis – II Kings, but also as general editor of the whole project. He very likely, as Benson Bobrick suggests, drafted the final form of “such celebrated passages as the Creation and Fall; Abraham and Isaac; the Exodus; David’s laments for Saul, Jonathan, and Absalom; and ’s encounter with the ‘still small voice.’” Born in 1555, Andrewes studied at Cambridge with Fairie Queene author Edmund Spenser. Early in his life he sympathized with the Puritan cause, but over time he soured on Calvinist dogma and turned to a more liturgi- cal piety. In fact, he was to become one of Elizabeth’s “heavies,” interrogating Puritan separatists imprisoned deep in some of London’s foulest jails. Master of language: Ordained at 25, Andrewes worked his way up the ecclesiastical ladder to dean of Westminster and chaplain Lancelot Andrewes to Queen Elizabeth. Nicolson calls him “an ecclesiastical politician who in the Roman Church would have become The top Translator and overseer a cardinal, perhaps even pope” as well as a who of the KJV translation, Lancelot was “deeply engaged in pastoral care, generous, loving, Andrewes was perhaps the most in public bewitched by ceremony, in private troubled by brilliant man of his age, and one persistent guilt and self-abasement.” He would wait every of the most pious. A man of high day, no matter how busy he was, in the transepts of his ecclesiastical office during both church “for any Londoner in need of solace or advice.” Elizabeth’s and James’s reigns, It was for his linguistic mastery that Andrewes caught bishop in three different cities James’s eye as the perfect lead Translator. After all, the under James, Andrewes is still man spoke 15 modern and 6 ancient languages! Andrewes highly enough regarded in the Church of England to also possessed a memory bordering on the photographic. merit his own minor feast on the church calendar. So sought-after was he by scholars from around the world Though Andrewes never wrote “,” modern that , the great Dutch legal authority and as diverse as T. S. Eliot and Kurt Vonnegut historian, called meeting Andrewes “one of the special Jr. have called him one of the great literary writers in attractions of a visit to England.” English. His sermons feel too stiff and artificial and are If this were not enough, however, Andrewes had clotted with too many Latin phrases to appeal to most quite possibly also saved his king’s life. His own conse- today, but they are also filled with strikingly beautiful cration as Bishop of Chichester in the fateful November passages. Eliot, a great modern poet in his own right, of 1603 delayed the start of Parliament by a day, thus took a section of an Andrewes sermon and started one of helping to foil the Gunpowder Plot. Whether for this his own poems with it (“The Journey of the Magi”): reason or others, James showered Andrewes with A cold coming we had of it, honors and positions, had him preach often at his court, Just the worst time of the year slept (it was rumored) with Andrewes’s sermons under For a journey, and such a long journey: his pillow, and even restrained his famously foul mouth The ways deep and the weather sharp, in the great divine’s presence. The very dead of winter. The secret to Andrewes’s character, however, was to ia D

Andrewes served not only as the leader of the First be found not in his pulpit, nor in his study, nor in James’s e P i K i

Westminster Company of Translators, which translated court. Rather, it was in his private chapel. Bobrick w

14 describes this sanctum as “richly furnished . . . with its silver candlesticks, cushion for the service What irked him most were the marginal notes, which contained commentary and interpretation that he book, and elaborate Communion plate (‘a silver-gilt found politically subversive. He urged, “Let errors, in canister for the wafers, like a wicker basket lined with matters of faith, be amended, and indifferent things be cambric lace, the flagon on a cradle, and the chalice interpreted, and a gloss added unto them.” covered with a napkin on a credence,’ as scornfully So, a project to create a new, reliable translation com- described in a Puritan tract).” mended itself to this new king. It would displace the despised , throw a bone to the Puritans, pro- A man of intense piety who spent five hours every vide a single Scripture for public reading in the churches, morning in prayer, Andrewes kept in that chapel a represent a symbol of unity in his realm, and not least, book of private devotions which, when published edify the lives of his subjects, the church, and the nation. after his death, became a classic Anglican guide to James spoke of the “special pains” he wanted taken prayer. According to some accounts, he died with on this translation. The mandate issued by Archbishop Bancroft insisted that this translation was to be accurate, pop- that book in his hands, stained with the many tears ular, non-sectarian, speedy, national, and authoritative. he had cried over the years as he prayed for himself He also mentioned getting the translation right accord- and others. (This perhaps accounts, as Nicolson has ing to the originals. He had 47 of the nation’s finest scholars speculated, for the “large and absorbent handker- of the biblical languages and of English appointed to do chief” with which Andrewes appears in his portraits.) the work. Then he approved rules, written by Bancroft, for carefully checking the results (see sidebar on p. 11). The devotion that so characterized him in private also suffused his preaching and writing. For though his Did King James get what he wanted? preaching was always theological, dealing with every James was looking for a single translation that the doctrine he felt would edify his congregations, he also whole nation could rely on. “To be read in the whole Church, and none other,” as he phrased it. understood theology as had the : it was no In his original statement calling for a translation, the abstracted exercise or speculative indulgence for him, but king insisted that he wanted a translation with schol- an expression of intimacy between the believer and God. arly and royal authority, observing: “I wish some spe- Andrewes’s experience of God was not just spiri- cial pains were taken for an uniform translation, which tual but visual, physical—and in that sense “Catholic” should be done by the best learned men in both Univer- sities, then reviewed by the Bishops, presented to the or “.” For he took what Nicholas Lossky Privy Council, lastly ratified by the Royal authority.” calls “an extremely ‘realistic’ approach to the Incar- How can we assess these men’s work? Did they serve nation.” The fact that God had taken on humanity in their king well in this matter of a Bible translation? The the person of Jesus Christ meant for Andrewes that easiest answer to this is that the KJV achieved an un- not just our but our bodies must take active rivaled accuracy (even, at certain points, rendering im- penetrable Hebrew expressions in equally impenetrable part in prayer. So he insisted on “worshipping, falling English. See “A fly in the ointment,” p. 16). For Prot- down, kneeling before the Lord” (:6). estants only generations removed from the Reforma- “For me, O Lord,” he wrote in one of his prayers, tion—James among them—this was certainly its highest “sinning and not repenting, and so utterly unworthy, value. By this measure, the KJV is a tremendous success. it were more becoming to lie prostrate before Thee Then there are the qualities of the language itself. It is surely these qualities that make the KJV still today, and with weeping and groaning to ask pardon for my by most measures, the most beloved Bible translation sins, than with polluted mouth to praise Thee.” in the . Adam Nicolson celebrates This was the man who met, in the famous Jerusa- the KJV’s “sense of clarity and directness” combined lem Chamber in the abbot’s house at Westminster, with “majestic substance . . . the great ceremonial at- with the First Westminster Company of Translators. mosphere of its long, carefully organized, musical rhythms.” This is surely just what James must have There, in Nicolson’s words, this “scholarly, political, wanted: a Bible that breathed “an atmosphere both passionate, agonized” man, “in love with the English godly and kingly.” language, endlessly investigating its possibilities, No wonder the KJV has shaped the English lan- wordly, saintly, serene, sensuous, courageous,” guage more than any other book. James’s Translators set upon the King James Bible the stamp of his own created a Bible version that is “an exact and almost literal translation of the original,” infused at the same character, “as broad as the great Bible itself.” time with “a sense of beauty and ceremony.” Truly —by Chris R. Armstrong this was a translation fit for a king. CH

Issue 100 15 The blind leading The blind. Above: “If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into How the King James Bible the ditch.” Matt. 15:14. (Painting by Peter Bruegel, 1568) brought a “fly in the ointment” ury), ury),

to English h cen T

From the “skin oF your teeth” The introduction of classical Hebrew phrases into the

language—one of the most interesting developments in h School, (19 T

to “sour grapes,” many english li S G

the shaping of —dates from the early n idioms are hebrew sayings the kJV with the arrival of the King James Bible. er) ) by e

translated literally. The authors of The Story of English, a companion to Wal K

the PBS television series on the history of the English ravin G o by d language, point out that “the King James Bible was pub- lished in the year Shakespeare began work on his last ore, Pho T d By Alister McGrath play, The Tempest. Both the play and the Bible are mas- hed 1833 (en G Have you ever fallen flat on your face? Can you read terpieces of English, but there is one crucial difference ubli S the writing on the wall? Do you ever think about escap- between them. Whereas Shakespeare ransacked the lexi- P ibrary l by Gu ST ave

ing, perhaps by the skin of your teeth before it’s too late? con, the King James Bible employs a bare 8,000 words— rai TS ’, T r When things are going well, do you look for the fly in the God’s teaching in homely English for everyman.” a ravin G G eman ointment? If you answered “Yes” to these questions, you True, the Bible used plain and common words, but as n

are in good company. American Rabbi William Rosenau observes, it took those rid G

Shakespeare, however, never fell flat on his face. He words and “molded new forms and phrases, which, o.com ( e

couldn’t read the writing on the wall, never once escaped while foreign to the English, became with it and h/ The b ec T o.com

by the skin of his teeth, and his ointment was always free bone.” Here’s what happened: The translators believed oc KP ho T

of flies. The Bard, that great master of vocabulary and the best way of ensuring accuracy was to translate each Pro J all : iS T oc KP ho T

wordplay, could do none of these things, for these meta- and every word of the original, one by one. This literal ion/ Ken Wel S orc K

phors did not enter the English language until close to translation of the Old Testament’s Hebrew introduced a he W XT: iS T ollec T on T the time of his death in 1616. Like so much of the English large number of new, and somewhat unusual, phrases c e edia / The y in G

language, these quaint and timeless expressions were into the English language. P i K ri T i Priva T hebre W T e John Selden (1584-1654) from ‘The Gallery of Por T W borrowed from another tongue—in this case, Hebrew. “The [King James Bible] is an almost literal translation W

16 Christian History english? noT so Much. Below: What do you get when you translate Hebrew idioms word-for-word into English? Fascinating phrases that have lodged themselves in the English language. (Test your knowledge of KJV phrases with our quiz on p. 1.)

Mene, Mene, Tekel, upharsin. Above: If you’ve ever seen “the writing of the , and is thus on every page replete on the wall,” then you, like master engraver Gustave Dore, have spoken with Hebrew idioms,” writes Rosenau in Hebraisms in the language of the King James Version. the Authorized Version of the Bible, a careful study of the way in which the King James Bible translated Hebrew expressions. “The fact that Bible English has to a I say `it is cold,’ not `it makes cold,’” he explained. “But marvellous extent shaped our speech, giving peculiar the Bible is translated into English words rather than connotations to many words and sanctioning strange English phrases. The Hebraisms are kept and the phrase

ury), ury), constructions, is not any less patent.” of that language is kept. As for example, `he uncovered Because the Bible’s publicly accessible style could be her shame,’ which is well enough so long as scholars h cen T widely imitated, the new phrases were easily absorbed, have to do with it, but when it comes among the com- often unconsciously, within everyday language. Soon, mon people, Lord what gear do they make of it.” It is without anyone completely appreciating what was hap- interesting to note that Selden’s English makes perfect

h School, (19 T pening, they began to shape written and spoken English. sense to modern readers until he uses the slang of his li S G

n Initially, the language of the King James Bible might period. (“Gear” is here best translated as “nonsense”!) er) have seemed odd. We know that some people found Selden’s fears proved unfounded. Continuity of usage, ) by e

Wal K it unnatural, artificial, and stilted. John Selden, a 17th- through private and public reading of the King James Bible,

ravin G century Hebrew scholar of considerable distinction, soon diminished the apparent strangeness of the trans- o by d doubted whether the widespread use of Hebrew idioms lation. Hebraic phrases—initially regarded with some amuse- would make sense to the unlearned English public. He ment—became standard parts of the English language. ore, Pho T d hed 1833 (en G insisted that translation required conversion of Hebrew English is remarkable in its willingness to invent new idioms into real English, not Hebraised English. words and borrow existing words. Again and again, ubli S P linguists find changes that reflect encounters with other ibrary l by Gu ST ave

rai TS ’, “Lord, what gear . . .” cultures, so that studying the history of the language T r a “If I translate a French book into English, I turn it into is a bit like looking into a verbal melting pot. Hebrew ravin G G eman n English phrase and not into French English. `Il fait froid’: idioms, for example, were easily absorbed into Modern

rid G English, even while their origins lay at the dawn of civi-

o.com ( e lization in the Ancient Near East.

h/ The b half-baked hebrew. So today, when we remind our colleagues that pride ec T o.com

oc KP ho T Right: John Selden, goes before a fall [Prov 16:18], or from time to time ac-

Pro J a 17th-c. Hebrew cuse them of sour grapes [Jer 31:30], or pour out our all : iS T oc KP ho T

ion/ Ken Wel S hearts to them about everything under the sun, let us orc K scholar, doubted whether

he W the widespread use of remember that we are using the vocabulary of ancient XT: iS T ollec T on T c Hebrew idioms would Israel, given a new lease on life. Maybe there is nothing e edia / The y in G

P new under the sun after all [Eccles 1:9]. Now wouldn’t i make sense to the K ri T i hebre W T e Priva T W John Selden (1584-1654) from ‘The Gallery of Por T W unlearned English public. that be a fly in our ointment [Eccles 10:1]. CH

Issue 100 17 Pre-KJV English translations

So far as anyone Credit for the first com- knows, the Bible first plete English transla- touched English soil near the end of the 6th cen- tion of the Bible goes to tury A.D. when a missionary, St. Augustine, car- John Wyclif, who ren- ried one across the Channel. Of course, this was dered the into not an English version, but the Latin Vulgate of in the 14th century. Two versions St. . For centuries, it would be virtually the of the Wyclif Bible appeared between 1380 and only written Bible in Britain. 1397, of which around 180 manuscripts survive. How, then, did ordinary folk—mostly illiter- ate—obtain their biblical knowledge? Essentially, from a variety of oral and visual sources. Preach- ers delivering sermons would preface their homi- lies with paraphrases of relevant texts. Artwork on church windows and walls might depict the expul- sion of Adam and Eve from the Garden or Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Later, the mystery play helped communicate the stories of Abraham t C HICAGO and Isaac, Noah, the Christmas shepherds, and, A indeed, the entire cycle of biblical narrative from

Genesis to Revelation. tHEOLOG y f O CHOOL

To be sure, from the 7th century on, a series of Anglo-Saxon versions of parts of the Bible t HE Lut HERAN S emerged. Credit for the first A

usually goes to Caedmon, ION whose “Hymn” (ca. 670) para- phrased the Genesis creation

story in verse form. Around OO k C OLLEC t The development of the Gutenberg Press (1455),

700, Aldhelm translated the ARE B Psalms, and several years later its introduction into England by Caxton (1475), BER R Bede himself may have trans- and the onset of the Protestant Reformation paved u lated at least the Gospel of John the way for the flurry of new translations that IPEDIA

appeared in the . The first was the MAR ty RS

(ca. 735), though his work has f not survived. In the 9th centu- work of , whose New Testament O ry, King Alfred rendered por- (ca. 1525) was the first part of the Bible printed in tions of Exodus, Psalms, and the English language. Tyndale was the first to go OXE’S BOO k beyond the Vulgate to a Greek text for his New f ARNE : WI k

Acts into Old English. From E: k

Testament, and a Hebrew text for the portion of the A the 10th century on, there ap- t peared a series of Anglo-Saxon Old Testament he completed. Unfortunately, his S work stirred up such English concern over possible S, LINDIS f gospels, including the famous IN u RNED A t Lindisfarne Gospels (actually an earlier Latin MS “heresy” that it had to be published in Germany. with an interlinear Anglo-Saxon translation added). Tyndale himself was burned at the stake in 1536. , GENEVA BISHOPS’ BIBLE: G R CODEX AMIA t ty NDALE B u

18 Christian History COVERDALE BIBLE, GENEVA BIBLE, BISHOPS’ BIBLE: GRuBER RARE BOOk COLLECtION At tHE LutHERAN SCHOOL Of tHEOLOGy At CHICAGO Issue 100 (GrandRapids,MI:Eerdmans,1992). A BriefHistoryofTranslation,”inDictionaryBiblicalTradition Adapted by permission from David Lyle Jeffrey, “The English Bible: Adapted bypermissionfromDavid LyleJeffrey,“TheEnglishBible: Bible, see“Noovernightsuccess,”p.22). as thepre-KJVRomanCatholicDouay-Rheims the GenevaBible,aswell Bible (1560) the of alltimes: influential translations duced oneofthemost And theretheypro- monarch, MaryTudor. cutions oftheirCatholic refuge fromtheperse- English Puritanssought land. Thereagroupof turn toGeneva,Switzer- this prolificcenturywe product of For thenext Bible the pseudonym“ThomasMatthew”).

a ppeared in1539—requestedbyHenryVIII. (for more on (for moreon Geneva Geneva Rogers (who used Rogers (whoused Coverdale byJohn of ally acom Bible source for in turnbecamea Two yearslater,it German translation. Tyndale, andLuther’s on theVulgate, (1535). Itwasbased of English wasthework Bible printedin The firstcomplete England. the officialversionin Bible (1568)became The resultingBishops’ of theGreatBible. rized itsownrevision Church soonautho- ism thattheAnglican English Protestant- threat tomainline represented sucha This Puritanversion Tyndale and Tyndaleand Miles Coverdale Miles Coverdale

(1537)—actu- The Great The Great bination bination Matthew’s Matthew’s

19 temptacio, ButtdelivervsfromevyllAmen. even weforgeveeverymanthattraspasethus;andleddeusnotinto Oure daylybredgeveusthisdaye.Andforgeveouresynnes;For kyngdo come.Theywillbefulfillet,eveninerthasitisheven. Oure Fatherwhicharteinheve,halowedbethyname.Lett Tyndale NewTestament,1525 thu usoncostnunge,acalysofyfele,sothlice. us uregyltasswasawweforgyfathurumgyltendum;andnegalaed heofonum; urnegedaeghwamlicanhalfsyleustodaeg;andforgyf to-becume thinrice;gewurthewillaoneorthanswasaw Faeder urethutheeartonheofonum,sithinnamagehalgod; West Sa÷onGospels,ca.1ooo early English Lord’s Prayer Theshorter temptation, but deliuer vsfromeuill. also forgiueeueryonethatisindebted tovs.Andleadvsnotinto vs daybyourdaylybread.And forgiuevsoursinnes:forwee kingdome come,Thywillbedone asinheauen,soearth.Giue Our Fatherwhichartinheauen, Halowed bethyname,Thy King JamesBible, 1611 leade vsnotintotemptation,butdeyuerfromeuyil. synnes: Foreuenweforgeueeuerymanthattrespassethvs.And in heauen.Ourdaylybreadegeuevsthisday.Andforgeueour kyngdome come,thywyllbefulfylied,eueninearthalso,asitis O ourfatherwhichartinheauen,halowedbethyname, Bishops’ Bible,1568 into temptation,butdeliuervsfromeuil. euen weforgiueeueriemanthatisindettedtovs.Andleadvsnot Our dailybreadgiuevsfortheday.Andforgiueoursinnes: come. Letthywillbedoneeueinearth,asitisheauen; OurFather,weartinheaue,halowedbethyName:Thykingdome Geneva Bible,1560 temptacyon. Butdelyuervsfromeuyll. eue weforgeueeuerymanthattreaspasethvs.AndLeadevsnotito Oure daylybreedgeuevsthysdaye.Andforgeueoursynnes:For gdome come.Thywillbefulfylied,eueinerthalsoasitisheaue. O ourefatherwhichartIheauen,halowedbethyname.Thykyn- Great Bible,1539 to temptacion,butdelyuervsfromeuell. we alsoforgeueallthemthataredettersuntovs.Andledevsnotin Geue vsthisdayeouredayliebred.Andforgeuesynnes:for kyngdome come.Thywilbefulfilleduponearth,asitisinheauen. O ourefatherwhichartinheauen,halowedbethyname.Thy Coverdale Bible,1535 { Luke 11:2–4}

in in versions The King James Bible

1604 1605 James’s first parlia- Inigo Jones and 1603 ment, which refuses write March 24: Queen union of England the play Masque Elizabeth dies Catholic Bye and and Scotland of Blackness Main plots to turn Spanish envoys James VI of Scot- James writes November: England Catholic sign peace Gunpowder Plot 1600 land proclaimed effectively neutral- Counterblast with England in August 19: James I of England; ised by Robert against Tobacco Somerset House. Shakespeare writes Charles Stuart, begins to promote Cecil, 1st Earl of Shakespeare The peace is Merchant of Venice, future Charles I union of England Salisbury and writes Othello, sworn on a copy King Lear of England and Scotland counselor to both Merry Wives of of the Vulgate, Francis Bacon’s (and future victim Outbreak of plague Elizabeth and Windsor, and St Jerome’s Advancement of of regicide), born in England James Measure for Measure Latin Bible Learning published

1603 1604 1605 April: Millenary James convenes Richard Bancroft Petition presented Hampton Court becomes Archbishop [2B] dies of Canterbury; to James requesting Conference Lancelot Andrewes work begins on reform of church as response to [1A] becomes the initial phases Millenary Petition Bishop of Chichester of translation King James and Lancelot Andrewes Henry Savile [6E] Richard Bancroft [1A], William knighted (chief overseer of the Barlow [4A], and (for £1,000 fee) KJV work) draw up Thomas Ravis Rules for Translators Scandal as [6A] preach against Translators ’s [1B] Gunpowder Plot appointed wife elopes

Despite King James I’s aversion to Puritan accounts list forty-seven scholars. One or (teaching officers) of Oxford or Cambridge radicalism, he wanted the best possible two of these men are now hardly known colleges, a dozen being Heads. The Regius scholars as translators, and so he allowed (the mysterious ‘Dr Ravens’ is ‘apparently Professors of Hebrew and Greek in both many Puritans to work on his Bible transla- an error’): but the offices held are impres- universities are present. A. W. Pollard tion. As David Daniell tells us, “The best sive. Most of the forty-seven are Fellows noted, ‘The choice of revisers seems to have

1. First Westminster Company 2. First Cambridge Company 3. First Oxford Company 4. Second Westminster Company Translated the historical books, Translated Chronicles – Translated Isaiah – end of Translated NT Genesis – II Kings Old Testament A. William Barlow, Director A. Lancelot Andrewes, Director A. Edward Lively, Director A. John Harding, Director (fanatically anti-Puritan) B. John Overall B. John Richardson B. John Reynolds or Rainolds B. John Spencer C. Hadrian À Saravia C. Lawrence Chaderton (Puritan) C. Roger Fenton D. Richard Clarke (Puritan) C. Thomas Holland (Puritan) D. Ralph Hutchinson E. John Layfield D. D. (president of St. John’s F. Robert Tighe (Lancelot’s brother) E. Miles Smith (Puritan, College, Oxford) G. Geoffrey King E. Thomas Harrison (Puritan) author of Preface) E. William Dakins H. Richard Thompson F. F. Richard Brett F. Michael Rabbet I. G. G. Richard Fairclough G. Thomas Sanderson (or Featley) J. Francis Burleigh H. Francis Dillingham (Puritan) Translators { THE CHRISTIAN HISTORy TIMELINE } 1613 Globe Theater burns down dur- 1606 ing a performance Gunpowder of Henry VIII Plotters mutilated and executed 1617 at St. Paul’s Native Ameri- can princess Jesuit Henry 1611 Pocahontas Garnet hanged, Walter Raleigh visits James at drawn, and in the Tower Whitehall quartered for his writes History connection to 1610 of the World 1618 the plotters Walter Raleigh 1607 Henry IV of William Bedwell 120 colonists sent on expedition Shakespeare’s France stabbed to [1I] gives leave for Virginia, 1609 to find El Dorado Macbeth completed James brokers death; James turns communion to settle Jamestown and performed truce between white at the news Henry Hudson 1620 (first official for James at Spain and the Shakespeare’s before he embarks Mayflower sails English settlement 1608 Whitehall; William United Provinces Sonnets published; on exploratory for America in America) Parliament reas- Brewster’s as part of his The Tempest voyage to Cathay 1625 sembles; anti- Thames freezes Scrooby Separatists program for played at via Northwest March 27: papist legislation over flee to Amsterdam universal peace Whitehall passage James I dies

1606 1607 1608 1609 1610 1611 Ralph Hutchinson William Dakins Lancelot Andrewes Andrewes [1A] Revision King James Bible [4D] dies [4E] dies [1A] involved in becomes Privy Committee meets published John Reynolds controversy with Councillor to in Stationers’ Hall [3B] dies Cardinal the king in London (of consumption) Bellarmine Thomas Ravis Henry Savile (a Jesuit theologian Thomas Ravis [6A] dies [6E] begins involved in the publication of [6A] becomes Galileo affair) Bishop of London Chrysostom James demands that the KJV be completed “as soone as may be”

been determined solely by their fitness, and both parties in the Church [that is, the “Mountagu embodies all the unclassifiability of Jacobean attitudes to state and religion, to ho- Puritans and the Established Churchmen] liness and power. He would in time become . . . were represented by some of their best a bishop. He edited . . . the king’s own collected men.’”(436) works. He was a beautifully mannered aristocrat, with one brother an earl, the other a baron. . . . Second Cambridge Company Second Oxford Company Surely a figure such as Mountagu should have 5. 6. been repulsed by Calvinist severity and strictness, Translated the Translated the Gospels, Acts, by the whole notion of Puritanism? He wasn’t. He A. , Director and Revelation was deeply sympathetic to the reformist camp, B. John Boys or Bois A. Thomas Ravis, Director having been Master of the Puritan Sidney Sussex B. College in Cambridge. At this period, at the head C. William Branthwaite of each of his letters, he used to put the word D. Andrew Downes C. Richard Eedes (died ‘Emmanuel,’ meaning ‘God be with us’, a signal E. Jeremiah Radcliffe before contributing) among the stricter sort of the supremacy of scrip- D. Giles Tomson ture over the worldly structures of the church. He F. Robert Ward did his best to promote the hotter Protestants E. G. (Puritan) Sir Henry Savile (the only within the church and would not accept any kind non-clergyman Translator) of lush ceremonial, nor any hint of a drift back F. John Peryn or Perne to Rome.” —Adam Nicolson, God’s Secretaries G. Ralph Ravens H. John Harmar (Puritan) I. Leonard Hutten J. K. James Mountague or Mountagu (Puritan) RAR y lI b RT IR e/ The bRI dge MAN A lANCAS h bURN ley, UM , AN d M US e y gA lle R RAR y hA ll A RT lI b RT eley ARN / The bRI dge MAN A e l RRIN g S NR (1795-1865), Tow N AN d e h ook l / N

No overnight success ede RIC k R F Theology AT Ch ICA go fans of the kjv like to think their hool o F AT e Colle CTI o

of this committee of bickering intellectuals came one of C favorite bible burst onto the scene the most popular and enduring works in the history of AS ) by Joh N CAN v in 1611 with all the fanfare such a the English language. But no one at the time, or even lUT he RAN S l o N NTUR y), P RI v ,

decades later, would have guessed at this iconic status. e N masterpiece deserved. here’s the C From the beginning, the King James Version had plenty h real story. By Dr. A. Kenneth Curtis of enemies. hool (20 T ook Colle CTI o

It was not a promising start. King James I of England “I require it to be burnt.” b

had inherited a kingdom still reeling from centuries of The Translators of the KJV (the collective noun AR e R

religious strife. Anglicans, Puritans, and Catholics each was always capitalized) prepared a long preface to the RUN del Ch URC h, 1847-51 (o I

sought dominance in church and government, and each 1611 edition, as if they felt the need to explain what they AN A gRU be R NC e by eN gl IS h S C e AT

R

had their own version of the Bible (respectively, the Bish- had done: S d ops’, Geneva, and Douay-Rheims versions, as we shall “Truly, good Christian Reader, we never thought see). Unity, always James’s ruling motive, seemed re- from the beginning that we should need to make a new ble TIT le PA ge : I mote. He tried to foster it in the realm of religion by hav- translation. Nor yet to make a bad one a good one . . . but Co URT NF e b N

ing 47 scholars work together to create one Bible version, to make a good one better . . .” ev A PURITANS: Ro UN dhe A ge N to be read in all English churches. And miraculously, out The Translators clearly expected resistance to the hAMPT o

22 Christian History ominous origin. Left: The tension in the room at the 1604 Hampton Court Conference foreshadowed the storm the KJV would face upon its debut in 1611.

new translation, and they got it. Dr. , the distinguished but widely dis- liked Hebrew scholar, fired the first salvo. His disgruntled missive to the king showed the fa- RAR y

lI b mous irascibility that had kept him off the trans-

RT lators’ list in the first place. Said Broughton: “The late Bible . . . was sent to me to censure: which bred in me a sadness that will grieve me while I breathe, it is so ill done. Tell His Majesty that I had rather be rent to pieces with wild IR e/ The bRI dge MAN A horses than any such translation by my consent should be urged upon poor churches. . . . The lANCAS h new edition crosseth me. I require it to be burnt.” We at Christ Church, Oxford; Christopher Good- may suspect Broughton of more than sour grapes: for man, a Nonconformist; Thomas Sampson, a

bURN ley, the past 30 years, he had been doing his own translation, Calvinist later ordained by Bishop Ridley in the

UM , based on the beloved Geneva Bible. Anglican Orders; and Richard Cox, a Lutheran In the politically charged environment of the day, and headmaster of Eton. These men used the

AN d M US e much of the resistance to the new version was passive. best scholarly resources available and made y The Bishops’ Bible continued to be read in churches; corrections of the English text from the original

gA lle R the Geneva Bible continued to be a favorite for personal languages—resulting in a translation that im- devotions. For years, lead translator Bishop Lancelot proved considerably on earlier versions. RAR y hA ll A RT Andrewes himself continued to quote from an older First printed abroad in 1560, by 1576 Geneva Bibles Puritan lI b version. Adam Nicolson, author of God’s Secretaries, were pouring from the presses of England. In Scotland, favorite RT eley . summarized the KJV’s early reception: “It didn’t work the fiery Reformer John Knox loved its Calvinist pedi- Above: The at all. It was a catastrophe . . . universally loathed.” gree. In 1579, the year the Geneva Bible was first printed Geneva was All the Puritans, including the Massachusetts émigrés, in that country, Scottish law required that every house- the favorite continued to use the Geneva Bible. Even in the KJV’s hold with sufficient means buy a copy. By 1604, when Bible of 17th-c. own preface, it quotes not from itself but from the the Puritans at Hampton Court successfully petitioned

ARN / The bRI dge MAN A Puritans e l Geneva Bible. It was “deeply unloved.” King James to create the KJV, the Geneva Bible had be- such as the RRIN g S NR (1795-1865), Tow N AN d e come the runaway favorite of English Protestants every- h “Roundheads” ook l The KJV’s Puritan competitor where, far outstripping such more official but less loved pictured here. / N The biggest competitor to the King James Version versions as the 1538 Great Bible and its revised succes- ede RIC k R F Theology AT Ch ICA go in the people’s affections was the Geneva Bible. In fact, sor, the Bishops’ Bible of 1568. soon after his own version was produced, James had After 1611 the nation’s official Bible printers, Barker, hool o F AT e Colle CTI o

C to ban the printing of any new Geneva Bibles, so that Norton, and Bill, still printed the Geneva Bible in at least AS ) by Joh N people would take up the King James Bible. This did ten editions, along with four separate editions of the CAN v not check the flow. Printers got around the production New Testament. After the king’s 1616 proscription of lUT he RAN S l o N NTUR y), P RI v , e ban by printing new Geneva Bibles with the earlier date Geneva Bible printing in England, copies continued to N C h on the title page, so it looked as though they were older flow in from Amsterdam and Dort well into the 1630s. copies. What made the Geneva Bible such a formidable Indeed, Barker went on to print both versions to the

hool (20 T competitor to the king’s new version? year 1617 and probably later. Finally in 1640 the anti- ook Colle CTI o

b It all becomes clear when we know the Geneva Bible’s Puritan Archbishop Laud, seeking to limit distribution

AR e origins. Under the Roman Catholic Queen Mary, whose of this version with its divisive marginal notes, made R

RUN del Ch URC h, 1847-51 (o I reign began in 1553, militant Protestants protected importing it illegal. Laud used the excuse that bringing

AN A their ability to practice their religion unhindered—and in Geneva Bibles from abroad created unfair competi- gRU be R NC e by eN gl IS h S C e AT

R

S potentially their lives—by fleeing to Geneva, Switzer- tion for the English printing trade. d land. There they set to work producing a new transla- Whence the popularity that required actual legisla- tion, named after the city that Calvin had helped to turn tion to uproot the Geneva Bible? For one thing, its lan- ble TIT le PA ge : I Co URT NF e into a Protestant mecca. The translating team, scholars guage was clearer and more vigorous than the often dull b N

ev A all, bore impeccable Puritan credentials. The four chief Bishops’ Bible, the translation authorized by the Church PURITANS: Ro UN dhe A ge N hAMPT o translators were William Whittingham, a former student of England under Elizabeth I. The Geneva was also

Issue 100 23 Geneva Bible King James Bible

the “mac” and “Pc” of 17th-c. BiBles?

The open Roman of the Geneva Bible helped to The KJV’s dense Gothic typeface, while lending douay-rheims: BiBle for a Persecuted PeoPle. Above: Mapledurham, a Recusant ensure its continued popularity for decades after the KJV a certain weightiness to the text, could be tiring to read over House (“recusant” meant a Catholic who refused to attend Anglican services), complete came on the scene. long blocks. with hiding places for priests on the run. Right Top: A “priest’s hole” in the attic of Maple- durham. Right: Recusant priest’s trunk with vestments; its owner was hanged in 1628.

smaller than earlier Bibles, and even available in pocket lation (as the modern “King James Only” movement in editions. More important for wide distribution, it was America also attests) beloved old versions die hard. ness and liberty in translating.” In places, then, it was the Authorized Version than it was to the original. This less expensive than the Bishops’ or Great Bibles. In the unintelligible to those unfamiliar with Latin. Both text became the standard text for Roman Catholics until the late 16th century it is likely that the Geneva New Testa- Bible of the Catholic exiles and notes were designed to show the Catholic tradition’s 20th century. ment cost less than a week’s wages even for the lowest- The Geneva Bible was not the King James Version’s opposition to the interpretations of the Reformation. No In its early decades, the King James Version had to paid laborers. only competitor. English Roman Catholics had their less argumentative than the Geneva, the Douay-Rheims contend not only with people’s preference for rival Perhaps even more important was the substance own favorite: the Douay-Rheims. During Elizabeth’s took plenty of potshots at Protestants. versions, but also with more direct, even violent criticism of the Geneva’s prefaces, annotations, and marginal reign, the English Roman Catholics no longer enjoyed Later, however, the Douay-Rheims succumbed to the from both the Protestant and the Catholic camp. From the notes—all of them speaking loudly with the voice of the of the Catholic Queen Mary and found rising popularity of the King James Version. During the beginning, the wide and unified support James had en- Puritanism. Though not nearly as “hot” as those in the themselves persecuted—even martyred—and forbid- first half of the 18th century, the Authorized Version so visioned for his Bible seemed unlikely. In fact, the stakes , which had gotten its translator strangled den to worship publicly. Some pursued the same route flooded England that in 1752 the Roman here were much larger than decisions over versions. The and burned in 1536, the Geneva Bible’s notes were still as the Puritans—working from exile to establish them- in England issued a revision of the 1610 Douay-Rheims divisions expressed in this “Bible war” led to physical firmly Protestant. Later versions turned up the anti- selves with the hope of returning to an England more in Bible by that was very much closer to conflict: the Puritan-led Civil War of the 1640s and 50s. Catholic flames. A 1595 edition interpreted the beast line with their beliefs. from :7’s bottomless pit as “the Pope which In 1568, a group of these exiles founded a Roman hath his power out of and cometh thence.” Catholic English College called Douay (or Douai) in The form of the notes was also important. They Flanders. Here, as the Roman Church sent missionaries American Jews and the KJV were created to serve a clarifying, teaching function. back to England to restore the Catholic religion, a man Rabbi Isaac Leeser, a respected clergyman, author, translator, and founder of the Jewish Press of America, The Geneva translators had absorbed Calvin’s under- named Gregory Martin began the first English transla- objected to headings and marginal comments in English language Bibles, such as “The Prediction for Christ” for RAR y standing that Bible reading and theology teaching must tion for Roman Catholics. Starting with the Old Testa- RAR y , “A Description of Christ” for the Song of , and “Christ’s birth and Kingdom” for Isaiah 9. lI b lI b be “accommodated to the ability of the individual.” To ment, Martin, a former Fellow of St. John’s College, His solution was to single-handedly translate into English the entire Hebrew Bible (1853) and the Sephardic and AR e AR e yh URST College yh URST College N err is human—or at least too typical of the simple human Oxford, worked at a feverish pace. Each day he trans- N Ashkenazic prayer books (1837 and 1848). Mark A. Noll has written about the checkered history of the King James o o T T ke SP e ke SP e S S lle U NI ve RSIT y lle U NI ve RSIT y F F I reading his or her Bible—and so to explain and illustrate lated two full chapters and then passed them on to two I Version in the American Jewish world: Sh A Sh A RS o was divine. The Geneva Bible aimed to remove as many other scholars for revision. RS o For American Jews, the dominance of the KJV posed a special problem because of the way that Protestant difficulties as possible for the sake of the reader’s clear In 1582, the first part of the project was printed at marginal notes and Protestant traditions of interpretation Christianized the Hebrew Scriptures. One of the impulses .P. .P. .P. .P. o o ove RN o ove RN o he Folge R understanding. Rheims—the New Testament. The translation of the he Folge R stimulating Isaac Leeser to his pioneering English translation of 1853 was the Christianizing propensity he found in the KJV: g g RAR y, Ced AR v RAR y, Ced AR v T T

ew, ew, F F l l lI b lI b he he o Simply put, in its readability as well as (for many) its Old Testament, however, was slowed by a lack of funds, o “Whenever it was possible for the translators to introduce Christianity into the Scriptures, they have uniformly done so in T T

N N F F NC e NC e o o e theological slant, the Geneva Bible was “user friendly.” hindering its publication until nearly 30 years later. Both e order ‘to assail Israel’s hope and faith.’” NNIA l NNIA l N N R R M M o This was enough to ensure that under both Elizabeth were welcomed with relief by English Catholics. No o Noll adds, M M C C lA w lA w o o bR bR RMISSI o and James it would remain the most widely read Bible more would they be forced to read Protestant versions. RMISSI o Throughout the nineteenth century, almost all of America’s publicly funded primary schools provided for from the y Pe RMISSI o y Pe RMISSI o : : e e ld. C ld. C b b P P A A IP ed IA . IP ed IA . e e y in England. The King James did not finally begin to sup- Although it made use of much modern scholarship, y Bible. Invariably these Bible readings were from the King James Version which was the nearly universal Bible of choice for b b wI k wI k ho US e ho US e ble PA ge : Ce NT e ble PA ge : Ce NT e I I o: plant the Geneva in its native land until the period of the Douay-Rheims translation was made from the Latin o: America’s Protestants . . . For Jews, mandated readings from the KJV in the public schools were almost always felt as a civil b b AM AM ble PA ge : ble PA ge : S S I I TRUN k: TRUN k:

hole: o R (1660s), and in Scotland the Geneva lasted Vulgate which, in the view of the editors, was “truer than hole: o R and religious imposition. Readings from the King James Version in public schools . . . and more general efforts of mainstream b b Pho T Pho T S S S S R R e e JAM e JAM e ST ’ ST ’ even longer—as late as 1674 at least one Scottish parish the vulgar Greek text.” Also, the translation was literal, ST ’ ST ’ Protestants to define the United States as a Christian nation . . . sharpened Jewish understanding of what they themselves ev A ev A RI e RI e IN g IN g ee S ee S l MAP led UR h PRI e P MAP led UR h PRI e l P ge N k was still using it in worship. In the realm of Bible trans- in opposition to the Protestants’ “presumptuous bold- ge N k desired from the Scriptures. —by Ann T. Snyder

24 Christian History Issue 100 25 douay-rheims: BiBle for a Persecuted PeoPle. Above: Mapledurham, a Recusant House (“recusant” meant a Catholic who refused to attend Anglican services), complete with hiding places for priests on the run. Right Top: A “priest’s hole” in the attic of Maple- durham. Right: Recusant priest’s trunk with vestments; its owner was hanged in 1628.

ness and liberty in translating.” In places, then, it was the Authorized Version than it was to the original. This unintelligible to those unfamiliar with Latin. Both text became the standard text for Roman Catholics until the and notes were designed to show the Catholic tradition’s 20th century. opposition to the interpretations of the Reformation. No In its early decades, the King James Version had to less argumentative than the Geneva, the Douay-Rheims contend not only with people’s preference for rival took plenty of potshots at Protestants. versions, but also with more direct, even violent criticism Later, however, the Douay-Rheims succumbed to the from both the Protestant and the Catholic camp. From the rising popularity of the King James Version. During the beginning, the wide and unified support James had en- first half of the 18th century, the Authorized Version so visioned for his Bible seemed unlikely. In fact, the stakes flooded England that in 1752 the Roman Catholic Church here were much larger than decisions over versions. The in England issued a revision of the 1610 Douay-Rheims divisions expressed in this “Bible war” led to physical Bible by Richard Challoner that was very much closer to conflict: the Puritan-led Civil War of the 1640s and 50s. American Jews and the KJV Rabbi Isaac Leeser, a respected clergyman, author, translator, and founder of the Jewish Press of America, objected to headings and marginal comments in English language Bibles, such as “The Prediction for Christ” for RAR y Psalm 110, “A Description of Christ” for the Song of Solomon, and “Christ’s birth and Kingdom” for Isaiah 9. lI b His solution was to single-handedly translate into English the entire Hebrew Bible (1853) and the Sephardic and AR e yh URST College N Ashkenazic prayer books (1837 and 1848). Mark A. Noll has written about the checkered history of the King James o T ke SP e S lle U NI ve RSIT y F I Version in the American Jewish world: Sh A

RS o For American Jews, the dominance of the KJV posed a special problem because of the way that Protestant marginal notes and Protestant traditions of interpretation Christianized the Hebrew Scriptures. One of the impulses .P. .P. o ove RN o he Folge R stimulating Isaac Leeser to his pioneering English translation of 1853 was the Christianizing propensity he found in the KJV: g RAR y, Ced AR v T

ew, F l lI b he

o “Whenever it was possible for the translators to introduce Christianity into the Scriptures, they have uniformly done so in T

N F NC e o e order ‘to assail Israel’s hope and faith.’” NNIA l N R M

o Noll adds, M C lA w o bR

RMISSI o Throughout the nineteenth century, almost all of America’s publicly funded primary schools provided for readings from the y Pe RMISSI o : e ld. C b P A IP ed IA . e y Bible. Invariably these Bible readings were from the King James Version which was the nearly universal Bible of choice for b wI k ho US e ble PA ge : Ce NT e I o: America’s Protestants . . . For Jews, mandated readings from the KJV in the public schools were almost always felt as a civil b AM ble PA ge : S I TRUN k:

hole: o R and religious imposition. Readings from the King James Version in public schools . . . and more general efforts of mainstream b Pho T S S R e JAM e ST ’ ST ’ Protestants to define the United States as a Christian nation . . . sharpened Jewish understanding of what they themselves ev A RI e IN g ee S MAP led UR h PRI e l P ge N k desired from the Scriptures. —by Ann T. Snyder

Issue 100 25 hazard process led the printer to some- times mix pages of corrected and un- corrected editions when binding them. Such was the mud- dle in Barker’s print shop that in the end, no two copies of the Bible contained ex- actly the same set of sheets. Another problem with early editions was readability. The

first printing of the RAR y lI b

Authorized Version RT was as a folio, avail- able loose-leaf for 10 shillings, or bound for 12. These ver- sions were large, ./ The bRI dge MAN A

designed for use y) U. k on lecterns. In later gA lle R printings smaller sizes were available. (C IT y A RT

The pages had, in S Nicolson’s words, theology & muskets. Above: The Puritan-Establishment tensions that “a heavy antique feel,” with a dense, Gothic-style black- gA lle RI e dogged the KJV exploded into the Civil War of the 1640s and 50s. letter typeface creating “a certain airlessness on the page.” AN d

In contrast, Geneva Bibles and other popular English UMS

Bibles from French and Swiss presses had been printed US e M Ridiculous and bogus for decades using open, more legible Roman . Religious and political minefields were not the only On top of that, the new Bible was punctuated heav- eed S hazards on the landscape of the KJV’s early history. The ily in an effort to help those who read the Bible aloud text itself was also pockmarked with potholes—some- in church to do so with the proper pronunciation and times quite deep—left by poor . Misprints in- emphasis. Paragraph marks (¶) appeared up to Acts FTS (1847-1911), l o cluded hoopes for hookes, she for he, the repetition of three 20:36, but not after that. This added to the complexity of R

ST C whole lines in Exodus, and even, in one of the Gospels, each page. Later editions were available in smaller sizes ) UM Judas for Jesus! The 1631 edition unwittingly revised the and with a Roman face. Surely its inaccuracies and read- Ten Commandments themselves, insisting, “Thou shalt ability issues help account for the fact that, early on, very TT y I MA ge S AS ) by eRN e e commit adultery”—for which the printers were fined few copies were bound and sent to churches. bI ble M US e AM CAN v ve/ g

£300 (over £33,000 in today’s money) and deprived of Critics also raised their voices against the Transla- I RC h dUN h l o N

their license. tors’ choice of source texts: “The Translators appear to A N o y o F T

Printers’ errors only added fuel to the flames of have . . . made no first-hand study of ancient manuscript S . Christopher and Robert Barker secured sources, even those which—like the — URT e US e, 1900 (o I o C o o by hU l

an extensive patent from Queen Elizabeth to print the would have been readily available to them,” wrote his- h Scriptures, embracing “all Bibles and Testaments what- torian Benson Bobrick. The Authorized Version of the (Pho T M bASIN g

o soever, in the English language, of whatever transla- New Testament did owe something to the Vulgate. gRIFFIT h, o. C

tion, with notes, or without notes, printed before then, In its defense, however, a large amount of Tyndale’s . S ho T P

or afterwards to be printed by our command.” The work from the Greek and Hebrew was carried over into RMIN g o F bR o k

o C R o by Je RR y o

Barkers printed at least two separate issues of the KJV the new translation, with a full 80 percent of Tyndale’s T S I he S T T

bearing the 1611 date. The first one was completed and words appearing unaltered in the King James Version. wARN e AT ho P: ble : Pho T I el I: rushed out the door in a single effort. The second and And more than other translations before it, “the S b F o well

subsequent editions, however, were printed piecemeal, Authorized Version profited by all the controversy M o IC ked R PRINTIN g w book during “down-time” from other work. This more hap- regarding previous translations. Practically every word C

26 Christian History CRoMwell AT The SToRMINg oF bASINg hoUSe, 1900 (oIl oN CANvAS) by eRNeST CRoFTS (1847-1911), leedS MUSeUMS ANd gAlleRIeS (CITy ART gAlleRy) U.k./ The bRIdgeMAN ART lIbRARy

PRINTINg ShoP: ISToCkPhoTo.CoM (PhoTo by hUlToN ARChIve/geTTy IMAgeS) wICked bIble: PhoTo by JeRRy gRIFFITh, CoURTeSy oF dUNhAM bIble MUSeUM book oF elI: wARNeR bRoS. Issue 100 language and culture. languageandculture. all competitors,tofindanunparalleledplaceinour ble achieved.Itweatheredallstormsandoutstripped success.” Intheend,thiswaswhatKingJamesBi- Symbol ofunityandoptimism p. 16.) p. 16.) James BibleBroughta‘FlyintheOintment’toEnglish,” no parallelinidiomaticEnglish.( Hebraisms—directrenderingsofHebrewphraseswith not intheEnglishoftimeKingJames.” familiar,andthatwhateveristobesaiditis,atanyrate, uncouth phrasesandinwordswhosemeaningisnot that theEnglishof“theKingJamesVersionaboundsin by historianHenryHallam(1777–1859),whoremarked spoken) madeitridiculousandbogus.” though itsEnglishwasinfactaformnoonehadever which seemedsixtyorseventyyearsoutofdate(al- Nicolson,“thoughtitsdependenceonakindofEnglish , alsodrewcomplaints.“Somecritics,”says that couldbechallengedhadbeenchallenged.” “that you are a human being with a and the divine “that youareahumanbeingwith asoulandthedivine Henry McGrathquotesBernardShaw’s Pygmalion,inwhich were unawarethatthey readinga McGrath,“fornearlytwocenturies, mostofitsreaders of theEnglishlanguagethat,inwordsAlister in thelater17thcentury. hope optimistic became thesymbolof at itsfirstprinting disaster that wasa might be.”Theversion what England wholeness—a sort of, bythen,ratherantiquedreamof King JamesBibleaswhatNicolsoncalls“atemplateof huge ruptureintheircountry,theybegantotakeupthe in 1660,whentheEnglishpeoplewantedtomend In theshortterm,afterrestorationof “The bestrevenge,”saidFrankSinatra,“ismassive In fact many of those unfamiliar phrases were In factmanyofthoseunfamiliarphraseswere This complaintwasechoedtwocenturiesafterthefact The language,perceivedtobearchaiceveninthe In the longer term, the KJV became so much a part In thelongerterm,KJVbecamesomuchapart

Pickering chides Eliza Doolittle to remember PickeringchidesElizaDoolittle toremember See “How the King See “HowtheKing translation monarchy monarchy .” .” for allourillsinanagetocome? the past400yearsandemergeas theimaginedsolution the resistanceandcompetitors it hasencounteredover in ourculturalmemory,suchthat itcouldovercomeall us toask:Whatistheuniqueplace andpoweroftheKJV storing humancultureafterafutureholocaustprompts premise thattheKingJamesBiblewillbekeytore- wide. Thesuccessofamodernactionthrillerbuiltonthe weeks and exceeded $150,000,000 ingrossreceiptsworld- as aninstrumentofsocialcontrol. KJV andwillgotoanylengthcon But theeviltyrantCarnegieopposes hope ofcivilizationturnsouttobetheKingJamesBible. and restored. where artifactsofculturalheritagearebeingrecovered book toasmallsurvivingcommunityonAlcatrazIsland, Denzel Washington,launchesoutonamissiontogetthat recoveryofabookthathasbeenlost.Thehero,playedby squalid wasteland;thefutureofhumanityliesin Small pocketsofsurvivorsstruggleinalawlessand years afteranuclearholocausthasdevastatedthe Warner Brothers. of an80-million-dollaractionthrillermoviereleasedby happened in2010theform to theKJVinitslonghistory of theresilienceandresistance of themostintriguingexamples the NIVcomingnext.Andone translation mostconsulted,with century thatthe KJV was the Google reportedintheearly21st regarding Bibletranslations, The Bible.” of ShakespeareandMilton native languageisthe gift ofarticulatespeech:your The movie played in first-run theaters for over 17 The movieplayedinfirst-runtheatersforover17 The singletreasurethatmustbesavedforthefuture The BookofEliissetinapost-apocalypticworld,30 In a breakdown of queries In abreakdownofqueries Left & Below: & Left opponents’ ire. many otherinconsistenciesprovidedfuelfor famous misprintinthe“WickedBible”butalso the KJVforitsprintingerrors.Notjust P u B lish CH

and fiscate it, as he sees it fiscate it,asheseesit

From the first, critics scorned Fromthefirst,criticsscorned P erish recovery of the recovery ofthe .

planet. planet. the have believed have believed No one in the No oneinthe popularity. In popularity. In 17th c. would 17th c.would film, it is the film, itisthe world’s last, world’s last, one modern one modern best hope. the KJV’s the KJV’s eventual eventual B Above: ook 27 .

Launching out with the BiBLe. As the Pilgrims left Delft Haven, Holland, aboard the Mayflower on July 22, 1620, they turned to the Scriptures for guidance ( William Brewster holding Bible).

usa / ork, old book in y nEW rt, um of a us E a new world m

the colonies started fresh in a lot of areas, but rooklyn bible translation wasn’t one of them. overwhelmingly,

the KJv has been the u.s. bible of choice. ir (1803-89), b r W E

In 1630, Massachusetts founding that version at the time, Winthrop’s KJV seemed des- rt Walt E

governor —of “city tined to remain a mere curiosity. ob E on a hill” sermon fame—brought Within two decades, however, the KJV was well on his own personal copy of the KJV its way to becoming The Bible of the New World. As ashore: the first known KJV on the Geneva ceased publication in 1644, British-printed American soil. But this was some- KJVs began flowing into American churches, homes, thing of an aberration; a solid ma- and . And when, in the late 1700s, KJVs began jority of the earliest colonists preferred their Puritan- issuing from American presses, the floodgates opened. friendly Geneva Bible. In fact, given the popularity of By the 1800s, American editions numbered in the mil- lions, and the KJV was singing its cadences through the greatest American novels, shaping the solemn phrases ibrary ibrary Pilgrims, 1620, 1857 (oil on canvas) by r of presidential speeches, and changing the American l rt By Chris R. Armstrong a language itself with hundreds of new idiomatic phrases. Beloved above all in the churches, the KJV be- man ridg E

came so dominant by the 1900s that in 1936, a scholar b

E h Embarkation of th E t

28 Christian History complained that many Americans “seemed to think that the King James Version is the original Bible which God handed down out of heaven, all done up in English by the Lord himself.” 1777 saw the first publication of the KJV on Ameri- can soil. The printer was Robert Aitken of Philadelphia, and that year he released his New Testament. Four years later he released his full Bible after petitioning Congress for support in his enterprise. Said Aitken, “In every well regulated Government in Christendom The Sacred Books of the Old and New Testament, commonly called the Holy Bible, are printed and published under the Authority of the Sovereign Powers, in order to prevent the fatal confusion that would arise, and the alarming injuries the Christian Faith might suffer from the Spurious and erroneous Editions of Divine Revelation . . .” Congress responded with a resolution, printed in the “i take as my text . . .” Above: A revivalist preaches front of Aitken’s 1782 KJV: “Resolved, That the United a Sunday service on the levee at St. Louis, Missouri. States in Congress assembled highly approve the pious (Wood engraving, American, 1882.) and laudable undertaking of Mr Aitken, as subservient to the interest of religion as well as an instance of the progress of the arts in this country . . . they recommend this edi- full of pictures and massive extra matter, sold in colos- tion of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States . . .” sal numbers right across the States as an essential piece A nice sentiment, and Aitken printed a full ten thou- of furniture in the American home.” sand copies of the edition—just stunning for a print- One of those who capitalized early on the Bible- ing project of that size and complexity with the tech- publishing boom was the craftsman-scholar Isaiah nology of that time. But the Aitken Bible struggled Thomas. This self-educated printer, one of Paul Revere’s against better-printed, cheaper editions shipped from group of 1775 riders before the fighting began at England—in fact, he took a significant financial hit on Lexington and Concord, made himself the leading pub- the project, losing over £3,000. lisher and bookseller in the postwar years. He printed magazines, an almanac, the first dictionary in Ameri- Revival sells Bibles ca, and what he hoped would be the first “completely But soon after Aitken’s edition, American Bible pub- correct” KJV. This he pursued by working from almost lishing broke wide open, and for an unexpected reason. 30 KJV editions, imported from various printers. He also With the dawning of the 1790s came the first stirrings of drafted and scholars into the work of correction. renewed revivalism since the of the Thomas printed KJVs for many markets, both with 1740s. These would quickly build into a veritable evan- and without the Apocrypha, according to folks’ tastes. gelistic tidal wave. His most remarkable innovation was his unique pay- First came the emotional frontier camp meetings ment arrangement. Seven dollars, the price of his Bible, in places like Cane Ridge, Kentucky. Then the aggres- was a lot of money in those days. So Thomas agreed to sive revivalism of Charles Finney in the “burned-over take up to half of that payment in “Wheat, Rye, Indian district” of upstate New York, the sudden eruption in the Corn, Butter, or Pork.” late 1850s of noon-time prayer-and-testimony meetings in major East Coast cities, and the genteel but power- First American packed mid-century parlor meetings and camp meetings Despite Thomas’s valiant attempts at precision, it was of Phoebe Palmer and her Wesleyan holiness colleagues. Delaware Quaker Isaac Collins’s 1791 Bible that became Eventually the movement culminated in the late- the standard for accuracy. That Bible was something century mass evangelism and Bible conferences of D. new on the American horizon: “the American Bible ork y L. Moody. Countless conversions and a boom in church embellished for home study,” including a longer con- nEW growth created a nationwide thirst for more Bibles. cordance, plus frequent marginal notes and, between the By 1800, 70 different printings could be had from two testaments, a detailed account of the basic argument ction, the presses in 11 different towns. By 1840, that number of each book in the Bible. oll E c ballooned to over a thousand. And by the 1850s, says It also goes all the way in “Americanness,” deleting r David Daniell in his panoramic The Bible in English, the standard dedication to King James and putting in rang E g

America was being inundated by “an avalanche of its place an address to the reader by John Witherspoon, E h t giant, heavily bound Family Bibles, all of them KJVs, president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton

Issue 100 29 30 H these heirloomBiblesbecausetheyrepresentpartofthefamily’sheritageandhistory. was engravedonthecover.Manyfamiliestodaypossessoneormoreof highly sculptedcoverswithmetalclasps.Oftenthenameoffamily family birthsanddeaths,allenclosedinornamentalsometimes illustrations, Biblestoriesforchildren,andpagesrecording explanatory articles,Bibledictionaries,lithographsandcolor prominence intheAmericanhome.SuchBiblesoftenincluded In thelate19thc.,largefamilyBiblegained eritage

of

biblical not includedtheApocrypha. first halfofthatcentury,morethemthan at leastthe throughout the19thcentury,Danielldiscoveredthatin the apocryphalbooks.HavingexaminedKJVsprinted including theApocrypha.” everything betweensmallcovers,usuallytheresultof of themugly.Thosethatareover-packedstrainedtoget years tomakemoney,Biblescameinmanyshapes,some Says DavidDaniell,“Intherushofprintersinthese produced inAmericaduringtheyears1791and1792. University)whoservedfor12yearsasacongressman. ter of public appetite at this time.” ter ofpublicappetiteatthistime.” what orwhose,all,willgodown—so wideisthecra- lin’s Bibles,Clarke’sKimptor’s Bibles,nomatter ries—Bibles plainorparaphrased, Carey’sBibles,Col- age oftheBible.BibleDictionaries, Bibletales,sto- he wasretailing:“Itellyouthisistheveryseasonand publisher inPhiladelphiaaboutthevariousKJVeditions Shortly after1800WeemswrotefromVirginiatohis times earnedhislivingasatravelingBiblesalesman. about GeorgeWashingtonandthecherrytree,some- Mason Weems,whoisfamousformakingupthestory notes that Mark Noll inundating themarket.Historian By theearly1800s,multipleversionsofKJVwere 19th century:proliferation It is a myth that Protestant Bibles did not include It isamyththatProtestantBiblesdidnotinclude Nearly adozenotherBiblesorNewTestamentswere

proportions .

smaller publishers to beat. Soon they stopped trying smaller publisherstobeat.Soon theystoppedtrying whole Biblesat45cents—prices almostimpossiblefor Testamentsforanunbeatable sixcentsapiece,and the economiesofscale,they were abletosellNew were attackedasamonopoly. Andindeed,through quality-improving andcost-cuttingmeasuresthatthey multiplied output,andin-housebindingreducedcosts. stereo novations intheirindustry:paperqualityimproved, America duringthe1800sthattheydrovetechnicalin- year ofthe1860s,ABSprintedoveramillionBibles. In 1845,thatnumberincreasedtoover417,000;ineach editions ofbooksusuallytoppedoutataround2,000! an astounding360,000Bibles—this,atatimewhenfirst ferent formsby1850.Theiroutputin1829alonewas had printedtheKingJamesVersioninalmost60dif- this goalwithawill.Avowedlynon-sectarian,theABS American BibleSocieties,theylaunchedintoachieving ery American. neighbors. Theirgoal:toputaBibleinthehandsofev- of citizenswhoboughtBiblesatcostforresaletotheir tract societies.Manysuchsocietieswerelocalgroups the 1800s,alongwith associated Sundayschooland were the newBibleSocietiesfoundedinAmerica The ABS itself pioneered so effectively in such The ABSitselfpioneeredsoeffectivelyinsuch Such powerhousesweretheBiblepublishersin When in1816,34ofthesesocietiesjoinedtoformthe Crucial to this mushrooming growth of Bible sales Crucial tothismushroominggrowthofBiblesales types replaced costly standing type, power presses types replacedcostlystandingtype,powerpresses Christian History

HoLy bibLe & iLLUsTraTeD bibLe: CenTenniaL Library, CeDarviLLe UniversiTy famiLy bibLe reCorD Page: brooks geneaLogy HisToriCaL arCHive anD referenCe Library

Library of Congress library of congrEss Issue 100 “canon” of American literature. “canon” ofAmericanliterature. of theKingJamesworkedtheir wayespeciallyintothe KJV phrasesonp.1).Thethemesandstatelycadences everyday languageoftheAmerican public(seequizof phors, andidiomaticphraseswordsallenteredthe very language.KJVstories,proverbialsayings,meta- This saturationofAmerica’ssoilwithKJVschangedour Music toAmericanears direct fromtheVulgate. those wereCatholicDouay-Rheimseditionsor 1840 to1900,onlyahandfulwerenotKJVs—andmostof of theEnglishBible(orNewTestament)publishedfrom in America.”Ofthemorethan1,000differenteditions dred separateeditionsoftheKJVhadbeenpublished Bible wasprintedonAmericansoil,“nearlyfifteenhun- days? poured fromAmerica’spressesduringthoseheady publishers followedsuit.Andwhatversionwasitthat a nationalnetworkofthesehardyfolks,andother door-to-door Biblesalesman.TheABSsoonemployed of the“colporteur”—the innovation the the 1840ssaw illustrations. KJV editionswith and beganto a complimentinhisAmerica! by someonewhowas“morethanhalfaCatholick”—not translation byKingJamesthefirst”asbeingcarriedout president, JohnAdams(1735–1826),denounced“the be passedoverbychildren.”AndAmerica’ssecond which intheirpresentunfortunatetranslation,should several chapters,andmanyversesintheOldTestament, KJV bycallingit,ineffect,R-rated:“Thereare,Igrant, Rush (1746–1813)oncewarnedparentsawayfromthe of ithimself.ProminentPhiladelphiaphysicianBenjamin lete” and“disagreeable”)thatheretranslatedasection KJV’s renderingofJob(hecalledthelanguage“obso- Franklin (1706–1790)wassodissatisfiedwiththe 1900s), noteveryAmericanwaspleased.Benjamin through nearlythreecenturies(mid1600s–mid becoming theoverwhelmingfavoriteofAmericans Although theKJVsucceededhugelyinAmerica, From Daniell notesthatby1850,73yearsafterthefirst Of course,someonehadtosellalltheseBibles,and Almost exclusively the KJV. AlmostexclusivelytheKJV.

“Call me Ishmael” to William Moby Dick’s“CallmeIshmael”toWilliam - r capitalize on that other trend, toward huge capitalize onthatothertrend,towardhuge ated Bible thousands of annotations and lavish thousands ofannotationsandlavish [Source:MarkNoll]

31 hope, patient in tribulation.’ ” hope, patientintribulation.’” bear theburdenofalongtwilightstruggleyearinandout,‘rejoicing in urginghishearerstorespond“thetrumpet”thatsummonscitizens“to burdens .[and]lettheoppressedgofree’”)andthenfromRomans12:12 heed inallcornersoftheearthcommandIsaiah—to‘undoheavy 58:6 withreferencetotheCommunistworld(“Letbothsidesunite quoted theKJVtwiceinhispresidentialinauguraladdress:firstfromIsaiah to alesserextent,the21stcentury.OnJanuary20,1961,JohnF.Kennedy storm?”—a combination ofKJVtextsfromEcclesiastes 9and12. the strong.Doyounotthinkanangel ridesinthewhirlwindanddirectsthis Jefferson saying,“Weknowtherace isnottotheswiftnorbattle George W.Bush,inhisfirstinaugural address,quotedalettertoPresident 6:8; “keepthefaith”fromRev.14:12; and“newcovenant”fromJer.31:31). the KJVatstrategicmomentsinhis address(“eyesoftheLord,”fromGen. vision, thepeopleperish”).Healsousedatleastthreeotherphrases from Bible, includingonedirectlyfromtheKJV(Prov.29:18—“Wherethere isno candidate forpresidentonJuly16,1992,twicequotedpassagesfrom the sword againstnation,neithershalltheylearnwaranymore”). into plowsharesandtheirspearspruning-hooks;nationshallnot liftup the nations,andshallrebukemanypeople:theybeattheir swords placed onaKJVBibleopenedtoIsaiah2:4(“AndHeshalljudgeamong Both NixonandJohnsontookthepresidentialoathofofficewiththeir hands over anyotherpeople,butthepeacethatcomes‘withhealinginitswings’”). Standard modernizationoftheKJV(“Thepeaceweseek.isnotvictory in beforethispeople:forwhocanjudgethis,thypeople,thatissogreat?’”) ancient leader:‘GivemenowwisdomandknowledgethatImaygooutcome quoting theKJVfromIIChronicles1:10(“Formyself,Iaskonlyinwordsofan poor and the oppressed . . . the most democratic book in the world.” poor andtheoppressed.mostdemocraticbookinworld.” great scientistHuxley,”whohadcalledtheKJV“theMagnaChartaof fected thelifeofEnglish-speakingpeoples.”Rooseveltalsoquoted“the the wholelifeofapeopleasthisauthorizedversionScriptureshasaf- Hail tothechief Four years later Lyndon Baines Johnson ended his inaugural address by Four yearslaterLyndonBainesJohnsonendedhisinauguraladdressby [Source: MarkNoll] Then-governor BillClinton,inhisacceptancespeechastheDemocratic In hisinaugural,RichardNixonquotedMalachi4:2fromtheRevised Presidential appreciation for the KJV has continued into the 20th and, Presidential appreciationfortheKJVhascontinuedinto20thand, book ever written in any other tongue—has ever so affected book everwritteninanyothertongue—hassoaffected book ofanykindeverwritteninEnglish—perhapsnoother former presidentTheodoreRooseveltproclaimed,“Noother In 1911,onthe300thanniversaryofKJV’sfirstprinting, ’ s Bible “

(March 4,1873) of office. taking theoath President Grant so swear i

do L emn

.” L

y

of the KJV. values oftheKJV. just thelanguageandstylebutindeedworldview not most,oftheAmerican“greats”—alsoabsorbed were atoddswithChristianity—andthatwasmany,if sources freely.Butironically,saysAlter,novelistswho a homespunsimplicity”—andtheyplundereditsre- KJV’s “powerfuleloquence,paradoxicallycoupledwith matters ofhighimportandgrandspiritualscope.” usage, wasassumedtobethevehicleforexpressing ioned, thatstoodatadistancefromcontemporary in whichalanguagethatwaselaboratelyold-fash- “created astylisticprecedentfortheAmericanear church, andechoedineverypublicmeeting,theKJV Because itwaspresentineveryhome,quoted language andsymbolicimageryofawholeculture.” in America,theKJVdetermined“thefoundational pact oftheKJVonAmericanliterature,hassaidthat the Bibleperse,butasknownfromKJV.” ple phrasedependedonwide-spreadreading,notjustin “the abilitytoevokevastworldsofmeaningwithasim- author MarilynneRobinsonandherGilead,notesNoll, Faulkner’s After all, since they wove KJV language into the After all,sincetheywoveKJVlanguageintothe Not surprisingly,then,Americanwriterslovedthe Robert Alter,inhisPenofIron,astudytheim- (Exod. 19:21), to the modern-day Pulitzer-winning (Exod. 19:21),tothemodern-dayPulitzer-winning Go Down Absalom, Absalom!(IISam.19:4)andGoDown every 32 1774 can words andphrasestoexpresstheirvisionofAmeri- during theRevolutionaryperiodusedKJV’s KJV wasthere.Nolldescribeshowcountless At everydefiningmomentofAmericanhistory,the The swordofpublicspeech affirmingitastheywrote. with it, were the Biblewassayingaboutworld.Andsothey fabricoftheirstories,theycouldhardlyignorewhat language into his own powerful oratory. For example, language intohisownpowerfuloratory.Forexample, of theKingJamesringinginhisears,Lincolnwovethat spoke oftheCivilWar,itwasthroughthatlens. that sometimesdescendedintofatalism.Wheneverhe superintendingprovidenceandakindof dency, LincolnretainedbothastrongsenseofGod’s life andpresi- required. Throughouthis vention was and wouldsavethosehewantedto—no lar interpretationofCalvinism:Godhadpre that spoke outagainst missions on the basisof a particu- parents’“hard-shellBaptist”affiliation.Thiswasagroup he hadseeninthecampmeetingsofhisyouth. gion becauseoftheexcessiveemotionandbitterquarrels In fact,healwaysharboredsuspicionsoforganizedreli- never joinedachurchormadeclearprofessionoffaith. Avenue PresbyterianChurchwhileintheWhiteHouse, speeches. Lincoln,althoughhedidattendNewYork rhetoric moreevidentthaninAbrahamLincoln’sfamous is hardened,thathewillnotletIsraelgo.” politicalbondage,buttheheartofourmodernPharaoh tribes soughttogoforthinpeacefromthehouseof II Chron.6:34–35todescribethesectionalcrisis: One SouthernerevenadaptedtheKJVwordingof Col. 2:21.DuringtheCivilWar,itwassamestory. Above: sa d Brought up as he no doubt was with the phrasings Brought upashenodoubtwaswiththephrasings But Lincoln did absorb some ofthetenets of his Nowhere istheeffectofKJVlanguageonAmerican id liberty. “Touch not; taste not; handle not,” said a handle not,”saida “Touch not;taste liberty. L Presbyterian esman

always in dialogue with the Bible, wrestling alwaysindialoguewiththeBible,wrestling you arguing with it, even (almost against their will) arguing withit,even(almostagainsttheirwill) A Massachusetts colporteur. AMassachusettsBibleSocietycolporteur.

hear ?

Left:

the in the words of KJV’s Sermon onTeainthewordsofKJV’s African-American Bible salesman. AnAfrican-AmericanBiblesalesman.

one

a B out

the Christian History

trave continued onpage34 human inter- determinism determinism L ing preachers preachers destined destined “Eleven “Eleven B i BL e

african-amErican biblE salEsman: archivEs biblE colPortEur With cart: WikiPEdia The Bible Riots

On a spring night in 1844, the men and boys of St. Patrick’s parish in Philadelphia manned the roof of their church, rifles in hand, waiting for an anticipated attack that never came. St. Patrick’s was spared, but other churches were not: St. Michael’s at Second and Jefferson and St. Augustine’s on Fourth below Vine were engulfed in the flames of hatred during May and July of 1844. This was not the first act of terror against American Catho- Above: St. Augustine’s Church, set ablaze during the lics. In 1834 an angry Boston mob had burned down a convent “Bible Riots” of Philadelphia because of Catholic protests against required readings from the Protestant KJV in public schools. And earlier in 1844, from the roof and the windows in front, and finally the steeple Roman Catholics in New York had also objected to the reading was on fire, and when the cross which crowned the height of the King James Bible in their schools. This helped to inflame yielded to the flames and fell in, plaudits arose with savage the anti-immigrant “Know Nothing” party in a crusade exultation from many in the streets.” Firemen, under orders against Irish Catholics in Philadelphia. from the Know Nothings, let the buildings burn. The “Know Nothing” term reflected the secret style of If anything good can be said to come from such brutality, organization. If someone was asked about the party’s activi- at least the riots fed rising opposition to nativist groups such ties, he responded: “I know nothing.” The party insisted that as the Know Nothings, resulting in a loss of popular support. all foreigners should be required to wait 21 years before being The Know Nothings, despite having a strong coalition in place, permitted to vote, that the Bible should be used in public were astounded when the Democratic party swept the election schools to teach reading, that church and state should remain on October 9, 1854. The following year the Know Nothing separate, and that only native-born Americans should be ap- Party renamed itself the American Party. pointed to office. The fears of the Know Nothings seemed validated when a rumor spread that the Catholics in Philadelphia wanted the MorE trouBlE ovEr BiBlE King James Version of the Bible removed from the public rEADing in ScHoolS schools. In denial of the charge, Francis Patrick Kenrick, In a sense, the “Bible Wars” did not end after those violent Catholic bishop of Philadelphia, made a public statement on days of 1844. In 1886, Catholic parents in Edgerton, Wiscon- March 12, 1842: “Catholics have not asked that the Bible be sin, petitioned their local school board to stop daily readings excluded from public schools. They have merely desired for from the KJV. The school board countered that “to read the their children the liberty of using the Catholic version in case Bible without comment was non-sectarian; to stop reading it the reading of the Bible be prescribed by the controller or because it offended Roman Catholics was sectarian.” After directors of the schools.” failing to convince the school board to end the practice, the domain The troubles began May 3, 1844, when the Know Noth- parents took their case to court. ings held a meeting in the predominately Irish Catholic district In November 1888 the circuit court decided that the read- of Kensington in Philadelphia. Some residents attempted to ings were not sectarian because both the KJV and Catholic attack the people on the platform. Three days later the group translations were of the same work. The parents took their ay 8, 1844/ P ublic m reassembled; a quarrel arose with onlookers and a pistol was case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. In the famous action

hia, fired. There was an answering shot from one of the windows known as the Edgerton Bible Case, the judges overruled the P l of the hose-house of the Hibernia fire company, and before circuit court’s decision, concluding that it illegally united long there was a full-scale battle. the functions of church and state. In the end, the Wisconsin On May 6, more nativists arrived in the area and a fight Supreme Court reversed a ruling in favor of the parents and hurch, Philad E broke out in the market, resulting in the death of two party forbade local boards to mandate readings from the KJV. c

’s members. As a result, a few Catholic homes and the School of The Edgerton Bible case was not the only, or even the first, the Sisters of were attacked. The next day the nativists challenge to sectarian religious practices in public schools, but ugustin E a were back in full force, destroying the market, more homes it was especially well researched and well argued by the parties t. and the Hibernia fire station. The mayor called the militia and involved. Seventy-five years later, when the U.S. Supreme things quieted down a bit. But the following day the convent Court banned prayer from the public schools in 1963, the and St. Augustine’s Church were burned: “Pew led the fire to Edgerton Bible case was one of the precedents that Justice urning of s b pew, the galleries caught and at length the flames broke forth William Brennan cited. —by Ann T. Snyder

Issue 100 33 34 Nov. 19,1863 dedication oftheGettysburgNationalCemetery, t hose

ro LL ing weighty andsolemnthan“eighty-seven”? 111 timesinthattranslation.Doesn’tsoundmore way ofrenderingthesacrednumber70—thatappears intentional echoingofthe“threescoreandten”—KJV’s burg address:The“fourscoreandsevenyearsago”isan says Alter,thinkofthefamousopeninghisGettys- God.’” All of that with a simple turn of phrase. God.’” Allofthatwithasimpleturnphrase. of thenation“realizinganewandhopefuldestiny‘under “cosmic perspective,”a“senseofmagnitude,”thesense Rather, saysAlter,thislanguagegivesLincoln’spoint point heismakingaboutthelongevityofrepublic. to thoseScriptures,whichhavenothingdowiththe What Lincolnisdoingherenotmakingdirectreference without the“not”—inJob18:17,Jer.10:11,andMic.7:2. the KingJames.Itappearstherethreetimes,eachtime not perishfromtheearth.”Thisisadirectquotation mistakable inLincoln’swords. selves andwithallnations.”EchoesoftheKJVareun- achieve andcherishajustlastingpeaceamongour- and forhiswidoworphan,todoallwhichmay wounds, to care forhimwhoshallhavebornethebattle on tofinishtheworkwearein,bindupnation’s the rightasGodgivesustoseeright,letstrive ice towardnone,withcharityforall,firmnessin ered near the conclusion ofthe Civil War.“With mal- final phrasesoftheSecondInauguralAddress,deliv- Lincoln’s speeches.Listen,forexample,tothegrand slaves toreadandwrite,moststill heardtheBibleread During thetimeofslavery,while itwasillegaltoteach Bible oftheoppressed

k ing Similar King James rhetoric can be found in all of Similar KingJamesrhetoriccanbefoundinallof Consider, too,theaddress’sverylastphrase:“Shall J ames

cadences . Lincoln at the Lincoln atthe

of the Bible, done by “a company of learned black men.” of theBible,doneby“acompanylearnedblackmen.” jectionable totheNegro.”Hissolution:anewtranslation suit thewhiteman,andmadeit,inmanyrespects,ob- white man”had“coloredtheBibleinhistranslationto that “the complained Turner pal bishopHenryMcNeal them. In1899,Nolltellsus,AfricanMethodistEpisco- by whitemasterstodefendtheinstitutionthatoppressed the liberatingmessageofgospelwasalsobeingused cipation realizedthatthesameKJVinwhichtheyfound African-American use,suchas theOriginalAfrican preference fortheKJV.Bibles published especiallyfor Publishers havetakennoteof thisAfrican-American rituals ofthechurchwhen we usethislanguage.” special dignity and graceareaddedtothesesymbolic the Son,andofHolyGhost.’Somehow,itseemsthat and whenwebaptize,‘inthenameofFather, for you,’‘Thiscupisthenewtestamentinmyblood,’ paraphrase. Wesay,‘Thisismybody,whichbroken we alwaystendtousetheKJVlanguage,evenin the Lord’sSupperorbaptizingbelieversbyimmersion, the KJVinherownworshipservices:“Whencelebrating language andimageryoftheKingJamesBible.” cated forfreedomusingwordandthoughtsteepedinthe Douglass, DavidWalker,andMariaStewart,eachadvo- slave population,mostnotablySojournerTruth, Cheryl Sanders,“Thebest-knownabolitionistsamongthe AfricanrhythmsandtheKingJamesVersionofBible.” its pages).Slavespiritualshavebeendescribedas“native (and manystoleawaytoteachthemselvesreadfrom Sanders reflects on when and why she chooses to use Sanders reflectsonwhenandwhyshechoosestouse Nonetheless, says modern black historian and pastor Nonetheless, saysmodernblackhistorianandpastor Of course,African-AmericansbeforeandafterEman- Christian History continued onpage36 Frederick Frederick

library of congrEss rEutErs/Jason rEEd Issue 100 equivalent to is a great gain. equivalenttoKoineGreekisagreat gain. James Bible.Tohavepeopleread theBibletodayinanEnglish the Biblemuchmoreclearlythan wasthecasewithKing translationsopeneduptheScriptures andthemessageof for theChristiancommunity,useofmodernlanguage people knowwherethey’recomingfrom. writerscan’tusebiblicalphraseswiththeexpectationthat Christian cultureingeneralwhenauthors,speakers,and by loss whencommunicationamongChristiansiscomplicated is crowdedoutoroverwhelmedbyothermessages.Ita like thecase100yearsago. of the Bible in English today that is just not anything manuscripts, butthereisapluralizationintheuse translations areusuallybasedonbetterGreek better thantheKingJameswas,becausenewer when theBibleisreadtoday,itunderstoodalot them withverybroadsupport.Whichmeansthat at least40or50differenttranslations,someof the Biblearebeingpublishedtoday,butitmustbe extreme. Idon’tknowhowmanytranslationsof James Version. if youwereProtestantcertainly,itmeanttheKing when yousaid“Bible”intheUnitedStates1911, other translationshadcaughton.Thatmeantthat used theDouay-Rheimsversion.Butnoneof that cameoutin1901.TheCatholics,ofcourse, and 1885,alsotheAmericanRevisedVersion Version, theRevisedVersionthatcameoutin1881 is reallystark.In1911AmericahadtheKingJames 300th anniversary? tion comparedto100yearsago,duringthetranslation’s CH: HowdoestheKJVstandtodayinpublicimagina- of Professor McAnaney A. Francis the Noll, Dr. History at the University of Notre Dame and author author and Dame Notre of University the at History contemporary audience? contemporary audience? when usedinpublicrhetoricoftendon’tregisterwitha of many books and articles on American religious religious American on articles and books many of history, reflects on the changing role of the King King the of role changing the on reflects history, James Bible within American culture. American within Bible James An interviewwithMarkA.Noll KJV: Theviewfromtoday having multiple texts of the Scripture. It is a loss for the having multipletextsoftheScripture.Itisalossfor CH: Arecent I dothinktherearesignificantgainsaswell.Certainly, Noll: IdothinkitisalosswhenthemessageofScripture CH: DoesthatmeanfiguresofspeechfromtheKJV Noll: Thecontrasttodaycouldnotbemore CH: Andtoday? Noll: Thecontrastfromahundredyearsago

New York Times York New editorial on the 400th anniversary editorialonthe400thanniversary

Lincoln’s firstinauguration. on the1853“LincolnBible”(KJV),usedin sworn intoofficein2009,withhishand L ink

to

Do youagreewiththeirassessment? had littleinfluenceontherhythmsofEnglishlanguage. of theKJVnotesthatbothT.S.EliotandC.Lewisfelt start youhavetopickwhichtrans possibility formanyChristiangroups, butbeforeyoucaneven ence ofasingletext.Biblememorization remainsatleasta Catholic groups.Thatemphasiswas reinforcedbythepres- a majorpartofallProtestantyouth groupsandevensome by theKingJamesBible. James Bibleorweregivenastrongplaceinthelanguage in many people. But I am amazed at the number of words that are “take upyourcross”stillhaveafaintbiblicalresonancefor James Bible.Weknowphraseslike“pearlsbeforeswine”and phrases fromtheordinaryvocabularyareindebtedtoKing the common English usage that either appeared first in the King common EnglishusagethateitherappearedfirstintheKing One loss is in terms of Bible memorization, which was Noll: OnelossisintermsofBiblememorization,whichwas CH: SoistherealossinnothavingtheKJVascommonparlance? Noll: Iammorealerttoandawareofhowwords

past . Barack Obama is BarackObamais lation you lation you (continued)

35 History, The Bible in America: Essays in Cultural Cultural in Essays America: in Bible The been afrequentthemeforDr. The historyoftheBibleinAmerica has when theBibleinprintwillbeathingofpast? particular andBiblereadingingeneral?Doyouseeatimecoming poor—diminished interestintheKJV? up—whether fromtheperspectiveofwomen,peoplecolor,or pendulum everswinginthatdirection? in adifferentmediaworldtodaythan1611—oreven1911. things we’vegainedfromtheKingJamesBible.Butwedolive of Biblereadingandmemorization,includingallthese as wegaininnovation,don’tlosethetremendousheritage include innovationwiththenewermedia.Ihopemyselfthat cation inthebroadculturenowandfutureisgoingto songwriters usetheKingJamestranslation. use ofScripture.Whenthathappens,atleastsomethetime, music isthatsomeofitatleasthasgonebacktojustthedirect positive thingstobesaidaboutthenewwaveofChristian that theirhymnsreflectedbiblicaltraining.Oneofthe John Newton,HoratiusBonar—weresosteepedintheBible writers—like IsaacWatts,CharlesWesley,WilliamCowper, or 35identifiableBibleallusions.Thereallyskillfulhymn or quotationperline.Some16-24-linehymnshave30 that doesnothaveatleastonebiblicalillusionorparaphrase realizing it.ItistherarehymnthatCharlesWesleywrote century, yougetanawfullotofKingJamesBiblewithout important resourceforneglectedandmarginalizedpeople. 20th centurythewidespreadKingJamesBibleservedasan whom nooneelsewillattendto.Certainlyinthe19thandearly entire listeningworld. or marginalizedcouldusethattranslationtospeakthe when therewasonecommontranslation,thedisadvantaged Scriptures betterforeverybodyinallsociallocations.But the KingJamesVersion. competing moderntranslationsandnotsomuchoverusing exercised abouttranslations,it’susuallyindisputesover going totakethetranslationseriously,butwhenpeopleget previous generation.FolksthattaketheBibleseriouslyare undergirdedsomuchoftheBibleunderstanding comes backintowidespreadpopularuseofthekindthat to thememorization. are goingtomemorize.Wealreadyhaveaserious University Bethel —Interview conducted and revised by Dr. Phyllis Alsdurf, Alsdurf, Phyllis Dr. by revised and conducted —Interview Noll: MyhunchisthatthereallyeffectiveBiblecommuni- CH: WhatdoyouseeastheimpactofnewmediaonKJVin Noll: InclassicalProtestanthymnsfromthe18thand19th CH: HowhastheKJVaffectedcanonofAmericanhymns? Scripture ingeneral,howevertranslated,favorsthose Noll: Moderntranslationsopenupthemeaningof CH: HastheimpulsetolookatChristianityfrombottom-side Noll: IreallywouldbesurprisediftheKingJamesVersion CH:DoyouseearenaissanceofinterestintheKJV?Will co-editedwithNathanO.Hatch n , as in oll, asin impediment impediment Dr. n oll

36 music, drama, and other modes of cultural performance.” music,drama,andothermodesofculturalperformance.” and lessons,stimulatecreativeexpressioninart, continue toundergirdferventprayers,informsermons ment, andpropheticinsight.Itslanguageimagery Christians asasourceofcomfort,inspiration,empower- has beencherishedbygenerationsofAfrican-American used ofGod.ConcludesSanders,“TheKingJamesBible right downtothe“Thee,”“Thou,”and“Thy”language centuries ofprayersshowtheclearstampKJV, James MelvinWashington, language, Mark Noll is right when he says that “now language, MarkNollisrightwhenhesaysthat“now has passed away, and a new world has taken its place. has passedaway,andanewworld hastakenitsplace. cal worldofanAmericadominatedbybiblicallocutions ‘Google’ foranobscurefact.”Inotherwords,therhetori- refer to‘x-ratedtestimony’or‘soft-ballquestions,’and tion, describe a political‘fullcourtpress’ or ‘media blitz,’ we speakof‘theDNA’orthe‘hardwiring’anorganiza- day,’ ‘where’sthebeef?’or‘beammeup,Scottie,’when sumer culturedominatedbythemedia—asin‘makemy and liberationinthetwenty-firstcentury.” mark forpeopleseriouslyseekingjustice,redemption, KJV “willholditsownasasignificantspiritualland- tions willincreasinglyattractblackreaders,she feels the KJV), anewtranslationwillarise forthisnewseason. Perhaps since“foreverythingthere isaseason”(Eccl.3, and moralinfluenceinAmerica thattheKJVoncehad? backwards, or even incomprehensible. backwards, orevenincomprehensible. language oftheKingJamesVersionsoundsquaint, of choice.TomanytheInformationGeneration, ing booksandmagazinesasournation’smediacontent rati. Reality TVshowsand YouTube clipsaresupplant- life, thespeechesofpresidents,andnovelslite- Bible translationwillbewovenintothefabricofpublic versions asheretical. disputes haveturnedrancorous,condemningallother languages. Inthe“KingJamesOnly”movement,these versions are“mostaccurate”—thatis,truetotheoriginal the languageofScripture.Debatesaboundoverwhich of suchamultitudetonguesclaimingtobestspeak benefit comestheconfusion this But alongwith to. relate language theycanbothunderstandand in a the people lations: ItisalwaysgoodtohaveBiblesthatspeak the churchalsoapplytocornucopiaofnewtrans- course, manyofthereasonsKJVwasablessingto that theageofKJVisfinallypassinginAmerica.Of From thevantagepointof21stcentury,itseems Legacy ofaversion offer aKJVversion. Bible, andthe HeritageStudyBible,theAfrican-AmericanDevotional often-repeated phrasesaremorelikelytocomefroma While SanderspredictsthatmodernBibletransla- In a1994collectionofAfrican-Americanprayersby Will any Bible translation again have the cultural Will anyBibletranslationagain havethecultural Although manyphrasesfromtheKJVstillliveinour More troubling, the day is quickly passing when any More troubling,thedayisquicklypassingwhenany , always African AmericanJubileeEdition,always , two Conversations withGod,two Christian History con- CH

univErsity of notrE damE Was Paul against sex? The plain sense of a KJV TexT from one of his leTTers cer- y R a Tainly seems To proVe iT. BuT ib R l waiT . . . aRT an By Roger L. Omanson I grew up on a farm in Illinois in the 1950s. One of the still-vivid images I have of those years is of my father opening his black leather-bound King James Bible on Saturday night after the television western Gunsmoke ondon/ The bR idge M l and preparing the Sunday school lesson. It was his Bible, ies, and it was mine. alle R

g In 1964 I became involved with the Navigators. I

R e attended a Navigator conference one weekend, and I still remember the main speaker quoting I Cor. 7:1 in eices T the King James: “Now concerning the things whereof ye The l

T wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a wom- a an.” The speaker then proceeded to tell us young hor- ahu M n mone-crazed college men that we didn’t need to “touch” R e a young lady when we helped her take off her coat nor

o, Pe T when we opened the door to help her get into the car. This personal story illustrates how the KJV affected omance ion/ Pho T the biblical view of marriage for thousands, indeed mil- Since the Middle Ages, interpreters have attributed R , lions, of Christian readers over the last four centuries. the words of I Cor. 7:1b to Paul himself. That is, inter- schmomance. ollec T c William Smalley has correctly stated, “So close is the preters thought that Paul himself was encouraging men Above: Did e identification of ‘Bible’ with ‘translation’ that for many not to have sexual relations with women. But once we Paul forget iva T people in the world their translated Bible is the Bible.” recognize that Paul is quoting in 7:1 from a letter writ- the Hebrew Let me explain. ten to him, then the sense of verses 1–7 is quite different. Bible’s many Most American Christians have assumed that Paul An increasing number of interpreters and translators celebrations of (1806-1893), P R had very negative attitudes toward sex and marriage. are now accepting that these verses make more sense if romance and sexuality? Jacob ugus T But when we recognize that the KJV translation of I Cor. verse 7:1b is read as a quotation. These translators are a 7:1 misleads us, our perspective may change. making the following points clear: falling so hard fR anz What Paul is doing in I Cor. 7–14 is taking up, one by (a) Paul is quoting from a letter from Corinth. for (as one, questions that the Corinthians have written to him, (b) The end of the verse has to do with sexual relations; in this 19th-c. and giving his answers. But in each case, he agrees only translations such as “not to marry” (NIV, TLA) are incorrect. painting) that he chube RT , in part with what they say. At the beginning of chapter 7 (c) Paul does not agree completely with what some labored seven we see the same approach. Some Christians had written, Corinthians have written to him. years for her “It is well for a man not to touch a woman.” Paul agrees While the KJV has, in general, been helpful to many hand in mar- in part, but he immediately qualifies his agreement by lay readers over the years, biblical texts such as I Cor. riage? Or Adam writing, “But because of cases of sexual immorality, each 7:1 can end up misleading readers. For many readers in and Eve, Boaz man should have his own wife . . .” As one reads all of today’s world, Paul has seemed like an ascetic unsympa- and Ruth, David 7:1–7 it is clear that some Christians had suggested that a thetic toward marriage. The general consensus of schol- and Abigail, the man may be more spiritual by giving up sexual relations ars today is that the translation of I Cor. 7:1–7 in the KJV lovers of Song with his wife. Paul agrees in part that a person may be is no longer the best way to translate these verses. of Songs, and able to devote himself or herself more fully to prayer if Adapted from a paper by Roger L. Omanson, “The King many more? they abstain from sexual relations for a short time. But James New Testament: How a Translation Determined

ing of Jacob and Rachel, 1835 (oil on canvas) by s Paul advises that abstinence be practiced only by agree- Christian Thought on Marriage and Celibacy for Nearly ment between the husband and the wife, and that it be Four Hundred Years,” given at the 2010 Society of Biblical

The Mee T for a limited time only. Literature annual meeting in Atlanta, GA.

Issue 100 37 The translation was extraordinarily well done because to the translators what they were translating was not merely a curious collection of ancient books written by different authors in different stages of culture, but the word of God divinely revealed through His chosen and expressly inspired scribes. In this conviction they carried out their work with boundless reverence and care and achieved a beautifully artistic result . . . they made a translation so magnificent that to this day the common human Britisher or citizen Over the past several centuries it’s been the single book in most of the United States of North America accepts and households, an enormous force in shaping the development of worships it as a single the English language. Carried around the world by missionaries, book by a single author, it provided the base by which English is about to become the the book being the Book lingua franca of the world in the next century. Exploring it during of Books and the author this shoot {Ten Commandments} was one of the most rewarding being God. creative experiences of my life. — (1923–2008) — George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Quoted in G. S. Paine, The Men Behind the King James Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1959, They said it best 1977), pp. 182-183

It is the most beautiful of all the translations of the Bible; indeed, it England is probably the most beautiful piece of writing in all the literature has two books: of the world. Many attempts have been made to purge it of its er- the Bible and rors and obscurities. An English was published Shakespeare. in 1885 and an American Revised Version in 1901, and since then England made many learned but misguided men have sought to produce trans- Shakespeare, but lations that should be mathematically accurate, and in the plain the Bible made speech of everyday. But the Authorized Version has never yielded England. to any of them, for it is palpably and overwhelmingly better than — Victor Hugo they are, just as it is better than the Greek (1802–1885) ore, Maryland The scholars who produced this New Testament, or the Vulgate, or the masterpiece are mostly unknown . Its English is extraordinarily and unremembered. But they forged simple, pure, eloquent, lovely. It is a mine an enduring link, literary of lordly and incomparable poetry, at once e Center, Balti M and religious, between the English- the most stirring and the most touching speaking people of the world.

ever heard of. esour C r — Winston Churchill (1874–1965) — H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

Mencken was the agnostic reporter for the Scopes trial and a rary

Olga S. Opfell, The King James Bible Translators B i (Jefferson and London: McFarland, 1982) literary critic. l tate

TesT your BiBle knowledge Quiz Answers – From p. 1

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him, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Lord, the saith Thus him, unto said and him, Set thine thine Set temptation: the the temptation: spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh flesh the but willing, is indeed spirit

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the voice together shall they sing: for they shall shall they for sing: they shall together voice the 15. “Because “Because a of are that them unto nigh is Lord The “ 1. see eye eye see strait is the gate, and narrow narrow and gate, the is strait 7:14: Matthew 34:18: Psalms

38 Christian History Resources for further reading

If thIs Issue of ChrIstIan hIstory has the theological ins and outs of the transla- pIqued your Interest In the KJV, here are tion and the translation’s influence on the some further wIndows Into the hIstory, English language. McGrath is always a language, and legaCy of thIs translatIon: top-notch “translator” of scholarly knowl- edge into dramatic and readable form. • Alter, Robert. (2010). Pen of Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible. Princeton: Princeton University • Nicolson, Adam. (2003). God’s Secretaries: The Making Press. This is a detailed analysis of the KJV’s in- of the King James Bible. New York: Harper Collins. fluence on the style of such American writers as Hands down the most “novelistic” of the accounts we’ve Abraham Lincoln (the ), Her- read, but nothing here is fictionalized. man Melville (Moby Dick), William Faulkner (Ab- Nicolson explains the KJV’s compel- salom, Absalom), and Marilynne Robinson (Gilead). ling combination of clarity and richness by showing us the England of King • Bobrick, Benson. (2001). Wide as the Waters: James I in all of its intricacy. His char- The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution acter sketches are wonderful: we see it Inspired. New York: Simon Shuster. the brilliance of the translators and the power-plays of the church politicians • Brake, Donald L., and Shelly Beach. (2011). A Visual His- (often the same people!) with equal tory of the King James Bible: The Dramatic clarity. The darker side is here as well. Story of the World’s Best-Known Transla- A compelling read. tion. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books. This survey follows up on a previous by the • Norton, David. (2005). A Textual History of the King same authors on the history of the English Bible. James Bible. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Detailed, scholarly, from the dean of KJV studies. • Burke, David G., ed. (2009). Translation That Openeth the Window: Reflections on the History • Rhodes, Errol F. and Liana Lupas, eds. (1997). The Trans- and Legacy of the King James Bible. Atlanta: So- lators to the Reader: The Original Preface of the King ciety of Biblical Literature. This edited volume con- James Version of 1611 Revisited. New York: American tains fascinating essays on the King James Bible and its influence. Bible Society. The long preface of the 1611 KJV, often re- printed in later editions, is worth studying. This wonder- • Campbell, Gordon. (2010). Bible: The Story of the King ful little volume provides the preface in three versions: James Version, 1611-2011. Oxford and New York: Oxford first, in its original typography; second, in a modern type University Press. with modernized ; and third, in modern- ized English—because let’s face it, 17th-century English • Crystal, David. (2010). Begat: The King James Bible and isn’t always the easiest for modern readers to understand! the English Language. Oxford and New York: . Crystal’s insightful books chronicle facts • Ryken, Leland. (2011). The Legacy of the and foibles of the English language; this one will appeal to King James Bible: Celebrating 400 Years “word nerds” with a Bible interest. of the World’s Most Influential English Translation. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway • Hamlin, Hannibal, and Norman W. Jones. (2010). The King Books. This Wheaton College professor James Bible after Four Hundred Years: Liter- has written fascinating books on the Bible ary, Linguistic, and Cultural Influences. Cam- and literary topics—and here is another, bridge: Cambridge University Press. which deals with the literary impact of the KJV. • Long, Lynne. (2001). Translating the Bible: From the Seventh to the Seventeenth Century. • Teems, David. (2010). Majestie: The King Behind the King London Ashgate Publishing. This book presents James Bible. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. scholarly but readable essays not only on the KJV but also on many other versions. • Wilson, Derek. (2010). The People’s Bible: The Remarkable History of the King • McGrath, Alister. (2001). In the Begin- James Version. Oxford: Lion Hudson. ning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and Culture. New York: Random House. This book is especially good on — Compiled by the editors

Issue 100 39 HOCW+AC_Layout 1 2/25/11 8:18 AM Page 1

NEW DVDS EXPLORE HISTORY Two Takes OF WORSHIP & FAITH on the kJV A History of Christian Worship Review by David Neff, For followers of Jesus Christ, worship has spanned over two thousand years to editor of Christianity Today include a long and diverse history of sacred practices. The faithful have preserved Historical documentaries inhabit two worlds as and celebrated God’s story in a diversity of forms limited only by the human they blend entertainment and information. In imagination. A History of Christian Worship is a six-part series that explores the world of the written word—strong in its abil- centuries of worship practices, as seen through the eyes of Protestant, Catholic and ity to convey information—the artist always faces Orthodox churches and discussed by leading voices from a cross-section of the a challenge to appeal to readers’ senses and arrest their attention. In the world of dramatic film— Christian community. Viewers will discover the significant people and events that with its ability to portray action, convey tone of have shaped history and learn how modern worship practices are rooted in the voice, and deliver visual and audio stimulation— earliest foundations of the Christian faith. Each episode includes two 30-minute the artist faces a challenge to slow down enough to engage the brain along with the eye and the ear. programs. Three episodes have been completed, with three more coming soon. Two new films on the King James Version tilt in opposite directions as they try to exploit film’s Part 1: The Word explores how the written and spoken word consisting of scriptures, possibilities while teaching viewers about a monumen- sermons and has celebrated God’s story throughout centuries of Christianity. tal 17th-century event. With a minimum of historical context and at only half DVD - #501367D KJB: The Book that Changed the World (Lionsgate), the length of Stone’s 90-minute treatment, KJV: The Mak- produced and directed by Norman Stone (Florence ing of the King James Bible provides text samples from Part 2: The Body explores how individuals are joined with the body of Christ through Nightingale, C. S. Lewis: Beyond Narnia), tilts toward the Bishops’ Bible (a lazy translation from Elizabeth’s and how the idea of community is essential to the worship experience. DVD - #501381D $ 99 arresting dramatic reconstructions. Robert Cecil cajoles reign), the Geneva Bible (a rigorous but agenda-laden 19. each the aging Elizabeth and orchestrates the transition to translation built on the foundations of William Tyndale), Part 3: The Feast explores the significance of Communion in worship and reveals how the $ 99 the newly crowned James I. Young James spars with and the Latin Vulgate (the 1,200-year-old official Catho- observance of special days and seasons of remembrance and anticipation such as Advent and set of 3, his strict Calvinist tutor about the observance of Epiph- lic Bible). In Psalm 23, does the Lord lead me as a shep- 49. If It’s drama any. The newly crowned James I colorfully abuses herd? Or does he rule me? In I Cor. 13, does Paul praise Lent is essential to the worship experience. DVD - #501386D #98053D you want: both bishops and Puritans at the 1604 Hampton Court the virtues of love or of charity? Theology and political Below: Norman conference. (Luther-like, James calls the Puritan requests philosophy will color the expectations of the translator. Stone’s KJB: “a litany of dullness blown out your buttocks.”) Are society’s leaders to exercise care or dominion? Is the The Apostles’ The Book that The film capitalizes on dramatic developments Christian life about affection or ? The choices Changed the (which keeps it from exploring historians’ challenges to favored by the Puritans, says Adam Nicolson, author of The Apostles’ Creed is a living link that takes us back over centuries to the Early Church. World features a the story that the Gunpowder Plot conspirators tried to the 2003 book God’s Secretaries, are deeply subversive. This curriculum series traces the origin of the Apostles’ Creed, placing it in its historical suitably brilliant, tunnel under Parliament). Colorful host/narrator John Nicolson is one of the best things about this film. Each context. An international and interdenominational cast of notable theologians discusses bawdy, and Rhys-Davies (The Lord of the Rings’s Gimli the Dwarf) documentary has its lineup of experts, but Nicolson’s wit argumentative intensifies the drama with his grand manner. and chipmunkish charm trumps them all. While Stone’s each phrase of the Creed, emphasizing its relevance and application to our lives today. King James For all its theatrics, however, the film doesn’t show film plays Bishop Richard Bancroft as a scheming comic Theologians include Dr. Timothy George, Dr. N.T. Wright, Dr. Robert Mulholland, Dr. (Andrew Rothney). the drama of translation itself. For that, we have KJV: villain, Nicolson roots Bancroft’s ruthlessness in his Alister McGrath, Dr. Derek Tidball, Dr. Kallistos Ware, Dr. Martin Marty, Dr. Tony Lane, The Making of the King James Bible (Vision Video). rough, rural Cumbrian origins. While Stone presents a James who protects his power by imposing his will on Dr. William Johnson, Dr. Peter Contrell, Mark Galli, Rev. Richard Bewes, Rt. Rev.

the competing religious parties, Nicolson gives us a wily Timothy Dudley-Smith, and Dr. Susan Schreiner. Available in two versions: James who grants the Puritan leader John Rainolds only one request—a he World Full-length (17 sessions in 9 hours) — also includes a bonus program, Faith of Our Fathers: fresh translation of the Scriptures— Hymns of our Fathers, and audio sermons by Pastor Langdon Palmer. A comprehensive

and then hands the Puritan project Changed T study guide in PDF can be downloaded at www.visionvideo.com. DVD - #501308D

ha T $ 99

to Rainolds’s nemesis Bancroft for T 79. full-length implementation. By forcing the parties to Abridged (four 30-minute sessions) — a companion guide in PDF for this version can be work together, he hoped to bridge the gap. $ 99 abridged The triumph of the KJV, both films point out, downloaded at www.visionvideo.com. DVD - #501176D 29. was more in its craftsmanship than in its popularity. It took a nation torn by civil war and wounded by both monarchist and Puritan excesses to embrace the KJV TO ORDER, CALL: MAIL TO (include $5.99 s/h): ON THE WEB: Courtesy of KJB: The Boo K some 50 years later as a symbol of religious unity. 1-800-523-0226 Vision Video – Dept CHMKJV2 www.visionvideo.com Please mention source code PO Box 540 Please reference code “CHMKJV2” in catalog 40 Christian History “CHMKJV2” when ordering. Worcester, PA 19490 source field when ordering. HOCW+AC_Layout 1 2/25/11 8:18 AM Page 1

NEW DVDS EXPLORE HISTORY OF WORSHIP & FAITH A History of Christian Worship For followers of Jesus Christ, worship has spanned over two thousand years to include a long and diverse history of sacred practices. The faithful have preserved and celebrated God’s story in a diversity of forms limited only by the human imagination. A History of Christian Worship is a six-part series that explores centuries of worship practices, as seen through the eyes of Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox churches and discussed by leading voices from a cross-section of the Christian community. Viewers will discover the significant people and events that have shaped history and learn how modern worship practices are rooted in the earliest foundations of the Christian faith. Each episode includes two 30-minute programs. Three episodes have been completed, with three more coming soon.

Part 1: The Word explores how the written and spoken word consisting of scriptures, sermons and creeds has celebrated God’s story throughout centuries of Christianity. DVD - #501367D Part 2: The Body explores how individuals are joined with the body of Christ through baptism and how the idea of community is essential to the worship experience. DVD - #501381D $19.99 each Part 3: The Feast explores the significance of Communion in worship and reveals how the $ 99 observance of special days and seasons of remembrance and anticipation such as Advent and 49. set of 3, Lent is essential to the worship experience. DVD - #501386D #98053D The Apostles’ Creed The Apostles’ Creed is a living link that takes us back over centuries to the Early Church. This curriculum series traces the origin of the Apostles’ Creed, placing it in its historical context. An international and interdenominational cast of notable theologians discusses each phrase of the Creed, emphasizing its relevance and application to our lives today. Theologians include Dr. Timothy George, Dr. N.T. Wright, Dr. Robert Mulholland, Dr. Alister McGrath, Dr. Derek Tidball, Dr. Kallistos Ware, Dr. Martin Marty, Dr. Tony Lane, Dr. William Johnson, Dr. Peter Contrell, Mark Galli, Rev. Richard Bewes, Rt. Rev. Timothy Dudley-Smith, and Dr. Susan Schreiner. Available in two versions:

Full-length (17 sessions in 9 hours) — also includes a bonus program, Faith of Our Fathers: Hymns of our Fathers, and audio sermons by Pastor Langdon Palmer. A comprehensive study guide in PDF can be downloaded at www.visionvideo.com. DVD - #501308D $79.99 full-length Abridged (four 30-minute sessions) — a companion guide in PDF for this version can be $ 99 downloaded at www.visionvideo.com. DVD - #501176D 29. abridged

TO ORDER, CALL: MAIL TO (include $5.99 s/h): ON THE WEB: 1-800-523-0226 Vision Video – Dept CHMKJV2 www.visionvideo.com Please mention source code PO Box 540 Please reference code “CHMKJV2” in catalog “CHMKJV2” when ordering. Worcester, PA 19490 source field when ordering. KJV_Ad_Layout 1 2/25/11 8:09 AM Page 1

In celebration of the 400th Anniversary of the King James Bible

THE MAKING OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE Still a after 400 years! The year 2011 marks the 400th anniversary of the creation of the King James Bible, arguably the greatest piece of English Literature ever produced. King James had a love of beautiful things, including language to stir the soul. With several English translations in use across the Kingdom, the Puritan leader John Rainolds took his opportunity to suggest that a new, more accurate translation was needed for the people. With the new king’s blessing, a committee of 47 professors began the daunting task of creating a translation that was accurate, acceptable to all, and beautiful enough for the king! While Shakespeare’s rich language lit up the stage, this committee penned a beautiful translation that would eventually bring new life to the churches.

Award-winning director Jerry Griffith doesn’t disappoint as he brings to life the fascinating history of this great work, along with its impact for us today. KJV: The Making of the King James Bible brings the viewer right into the heart of the translation process through specific passage examples. While exploring the varying viewpoints of the different scholars, we get a firsthand look at the translators’ careful attention to detail. This presentation gives the The Making of the King James Bible film is viewer a renewed appreciation for the sacred scriptures and their place in our both highly accurate to its history as well as homes, churches, and the English-speaking world. a moving experience to view. This film draws the viewer into appreciation of both the $ 99 scholarly accuracy of the King James Bible DVD - #501373D, 19. as well as the richness of language.... Live drama, pictures, narration, scholarly • Main feature is 46 minutes interviews, and costumed actors...all combine to lead the viewer to participate in the drama • Includes extended interviews with Ward Allen, Leonard Greenspoon, of the birth of the King James Bible. and Adam Nicolson ~ Dr. John R. Hellstern, President, • Optional English subtitles on main feature The Living Word National Bible Museum, Fort Worth, TX

TO ORDER, CALL: MAIL TO (include $5.99 s/h): ON THE WEB: 1-800-523-0226 Vision Video – Dept CHMKJV1 www.visionvideo.com Please mention source code PO Box 540 Please reference code “CHMKJV1” in catalog “CHMKJV1” when ordering. Worcester, PA 19490 source field when ordering.