Ten Fallacies about the King James Version Leland Ryken

he King James Version of the Bible (KJV) Bible in English and American history. Not all of Thas received well-deserved recognition for the claims are true, and that is the subject of the four hundred years of distinguished service. article that follows. I will explore ten common New books on the KJV, academic conferences claims about the KJV and explain why I think the on it, and exhibitions in museums, libraries, and claims are false. bookstores have made 2011 the Year of the KJV. As the festivities have unfolded, this book of Fallacy #1: William books has emerged more clearly than ever as a Shakespeare helped to book of superlatives. It is the best- translate the KJV. Leland Ryken is Professor of selling book of all time. It is the This claim belongs especially (but not only) to English at Wheaton College, where most influential English-language internet sources, where a common formula is that he has served on the faculty for over forty years. He is the author book, the most often reprinted, the Shakespeare “wrote” the KJV! But this is only the or editor of dozens of publications, most quoted, and the most written beginning of wonders. It is commonly claimed including The ESV and the English about. Gordon Campbell offers in some quarters that Shakespeare (or a fellow Bible Legacy (Crossway, 2011), the summary verdict the KJV is translator) in effect signed Shakespeare’s name The Legacy of the King James Bible: Celebrating 400 Years of the Most “the most important book in the right into the text to signal that he had helped 1 Influential English Translation English language.” with the translation. The claim for a “signature” (Crossway, 2011), and The Word A book with this much visibil- rests on an alleged cryptogram in Psalm 46. of God in English: Criteria for ity naturally elicits a multitude of According to the theory, Shakespeare was forty- Excellence in Bible Translation (Crossway, 2002). In addition, verdicts on it. Especially in this six years-old as the work of translation reached Dr. Ryken served as literary stylist anniversary year, there has been closure. The forty-sixth word from the beginning for the English Standard Version no shortage of claims and coun- of Psalm 46 is the word shake, and the forty-sixth translation committee. terclaims about the most famous word from the end is spear—Shakespeare.

4 SBJT 15.4 (2011): 4-17. How can a theory that ingenious possibly be on the committee. wrong? Let me count the ways. But before I show Although the KJV was conceived in a moment that Shakespeare was not in the running to be of religious contentiousness (see below), when a member of the King James translation com- King James and Archbishop Richard Bancroft mittee, I want to make sure that we understand formulated the list of translators, they rose above that his ineligibility was not due to disinterest in sectarian spirit. The translators were selected the Bible. On the contrary, Shakespeare, whom I solely on the basis of known scholarly ability. They consider to be a Christian writer in the intellec- were the best of the best that England possessed tual allegiance of his plays, was thoroughly con- in regard to biblical knowledge and facility with versant with the Bible.2 There are approximately the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible. All of the two thousand biblical allusions in Shakespeare’s translators were ordained members of the Church plays. Additionally, biblical passages often func- of England, and within that parameter they were tion as subtexts for episodes in the plays, as when either ministers with a scholarly bent, like Lance- Lady Macbeth washes her hands as Pontius Pilate lot Andrewes of London, or professors at Oxford did in a futile effort to clear herself of guilt. There University or Cambridge University. Obviously are so many references to the first four chapters Shakespeare, even with his genius for language of Genesis in Shakespeare’s plays that schol- and familiarity with the Bible, did not qualify for ars regularly make statements to the effect that serving on the translation committee, nor would Shakespeare must have known these chapters he have had the time. by heart. The scholars and biographers who have If Shakespeare did not help to produce the studied the matter most thoroughly tend toward KJV or allude to it in his plays, did he have any the opinion not only that Shakespeare was a contact with the new translation that came into reader of the English Bible during his adult years existence during the last phase of his career as but also that he owned a copy. a playwright? We cannot know with certainty, This is entirely plausible (after all, Shakespeare but an intriguing possibility exists. When Shake- was a thoroughly “bookish” person and must have speare retired from his active career in London had a personal library), but if true, it was not the and moved home to his native Stratford around KJV that Shakespeare read. Surprise of surprises, 1611 (note the year), he became a lay rector, also it was the Geneva Bible—the so-called Puritan called lay reader, in Holy Trinity Church, the translation—that Shakespeare primarily used in local Anglican church. The author of a literary his plays starting in 1598, having used the Bish- pilgrim’s guide to England waxes eloquent about ops’ Bible before that point. One scholar finds a how thrilling it must have been for Shakespeare biographical cause for this shift, namely, Shake- to stand in church on Sunday mornings and read speare’s renting a room in a Huguenot household from the Bible in the English language that he on Silver Street in London.3 himself had elevated and influenced. I was ini- Nonetheless, in spite of Shakespeare’s skill tially skeptical of this claim, but upon reflection with the English language and interest in the I think it possible. When the KJV was published English Bible, he was not in the running to serve in 1611, it “immediately superseded the Bishops’ on the translation committee of the KJV. If being Bible for use in [English] churches.”4 Shakespeare the greatest master of the English language did might, in fact, have read from it in church as a lay not qualify a person to serve on the translation reader until his death in 1616. committee of the KJV, what did qualify a person? Another interesting sidelight exists in regard We can answer that question on the basis of what to the connection between Shakespeare’s plays we know about the forty-seven men who served and the KJV. According to oral history, when

5 American pioneers journeyed westward in their surprised everyone by granting the request. But covered wagons, they sometimes carried two he granted the request with a sneering put-down books—Shakespeare’s collected works and the of the Geneva Bible. He is reported to have said King James Bible. What meaning can we extract that he “could never yet see a Bible well trans- from this pairing of books? Shakespeare repre- lated in English, but the worst of all his Majesty sented human culture at its best, and the KJV thought the Geneva to be.” represented the authoritative word of God. But Nonetheless, it is possible to make a case for the two books had something important in com- there being an important Puritan component in mon: they were the greatest examples of the Eng- the formation and reception history of the KJV. lish language that existed, and the pioneers who To begin, the event that initiated the new trans- carried them were guardians of a standard of lan- lation was a request from the Puritans, so in a guage amidst circumstances that might seem to sense the KJV owes its origin to the Puritans. threaten it. Approximately a fourth of the forty-seven trans- lators were men of Puritan sympathies.6 One of Fallacy #2: The KJV was an anti- the committee chairmen was the Puritan John Puritan Bible, designed to Reynolds, who in a demoralized mood had made dethrone the Geneva Bible. the request for a new translation at the Hamp- There is a kernel of truth in this claim, but the ton Court Conference. Furthermore, we hear so KJV is not an anti-Puritan Bible. It is true that much about how 80-90 percent of the King James the King James Bible was conceived in a moment Bible was carried over from William Tyndale’s of spite toward the Puritans. The background is translation that we have been lulled into believ- as follows. Upon being named king to succeed ing it. Those figures are true for the parts of the Queen Elizabeth after her death in 1603, King Bible that Tyndale translated, but he translated James I of Scotland processed southward toward no more than two-thirds of the Bible before his London. He was intercepted at one point by Puri- martyrdom. In the final analysis, the Geneva tans bearing the Millenary Petition, so-called Bible contributed most to the KJV, with one because it had allegedly been signed by a thousand source claiming that the Geneva Bible “is textu- Anglican clerics with Puritan leanings. The peti- ally 95% the same as the King James Version.”7 tion was a list of Puritan grievances and requests. If we turn from the origins of the KJV to The Puritans had hopes that the new king might its reception history, we again find that the be sympathetic to their viewpoint. After all, King Puritans played a role. The last edition of the James had cast scorn on high-church Anglicanism Geneva Bible published in England appeared with his verdict that the Church of England “is an in 1616, just five years after the first publication ill-mumbled Mass in English.”5 of the KJV. Additionally, it might be expected The king responded to the Millenary Peti- that when the Puritans gained the ascendancy tion by granting the Puritans a hearing at the around 1642 they would have thrown their Hampton Court Conference of 1604. It turned weight behind the Geneva Bible, but they did out that the Puritans had been misguided in not do so. In another surprise, between 1642 thinking that the king might be “one of them.” and 1715 at least nine editions of the KJV were The king rejected all requests that the Puri- printed with the Geneva Bible notes.8 Another tans put on the table. He threatened to “harry interesting sidelight is that the language of the them out of the land—or worse.” At the last KJV appears in Westminster Confession of Faith minute, the Puritans requested that the king and Catechisms.9 commission a new English Bible, and the king

6 Fallacy #3: The KJV was uted smite them hip and thigh; vanity of vanities; the first great English my cup runneth over; except a man be born again; translation of the Bible and comfort ye, comfort ye my people; Solomon in all his appeared on the scene like a glory; my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. sudden miracle. The Bishops’ Bible added the following touches The KJV came at the end of a whole century to existing statements: blessed are they that have of English Bible translation. In fact, six transla- been persecuted for righteousness’ sake; made in the tions preceded the KJV, and they were in effect a likeness of men; joint heirs with Christ; love wor- cooperative venture. The six translations and the keth no ill to his neighbor; a more excellent sacrifice; dates of their appearance are as follows: Tyndale’s the power of his resurrection. The KJV produced New Testament of 1525, Coverdale’s Bible of 1535 how are the mighty fallen; a still small voice; the root (by Miles Coverdale, who had been an assistant to of the matter; beat their swords into plowshares; a Tyndale), Matthew’s Bible of 1537 (by John Rog- thorn in the flesh. ers, who had also been an assistant to Tyndale), Literary scholar John Livingston Lowes once the Great Bible of 1539, the Geneva Bible of 1560, wrote that “The ‘Authorized Version’ represents a the Bishops’ Bible of 1568. The modern syndrome slow, almost impersonal evolution. For it is, in real- of translators’s striving for originality and viewing ity, itself a revision, resting upon earlier versions, others as competitors was foreign to the sixteenth and these, in turn, depend in varying degrees upon century project of English Bible translation. Each each other, so that through the gradual exercise of of the translations built on its predecessors, and something which approaches natural selection, each contributed improvements to the ongoing there has come about, in both diction and phrase- process that climaxed in the KJV. Improvements ology, a true survival of the fittest…. The long pro- occurred in format, for example, as chapter divi- cess of version upon version served (to use Dante’s sions were added and then verse divisions, as phrase) as ‘a sieve for noble words.’”10 scholarly and interpretive notes became a standard We can see this not only in the phrases that part of an English Bible, as the hard-to-read gothic various translations added to the accumulating typeface gave way to the more legible roman type- English Bible, but also in the small changes that face, and as the enormous size of the first Bibles were introduced into formulations of previous was replaced by a more portable size. translations. Here are successive versions of Mat- More subtly, each of the translations made thew 6:34b: refinements and contributed apt formulations and • “For the daye present hath ever ynough of his turns of phrase that were retained by subsequent awne trouble” (Tyndale). translations. Tyndale gave us such famous formu- • “Every daye hath ynough of his owne travayll” lations as be not weary in well doing; my brother’s (Coverdale). keeper; the salt of the earth; the signs of the times; a • “Sufficient unto the daye is the travayle therof” law unto themselves; the spirit is willing, but the flesh (Great Bible). is weak; fight the good fight; with God all things are • “The day hathe ynough with his owne grief” possible; the patience of Job; an eye for an eye; O ye (Geneva). of little faith. • “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” To Coverdale we owe the valley of the shadow (King James). of death; thou anointest my head with oil; baptized “In a cumulative way,” writes Benson Bobrick, into his death; tender mercies; lovingkindness; respect “all the virtues of the various translations which of persons; even, neither, and yea to introduce a preceded it were gathered up” in the KJV.11 Craig Hebrew parallelism. The Geneva Bible contrib- Thompson writes similarly that the KJV “was no

7 sudden miracle but rather the harvesting or refin- call this Bible the Authorized Version or the A.V. ing of the previous century’s experience of trans- But who authorized the KJV? If it bears the name lating the Bible into English.”12 And someone else of King James I of England, and if King James writes, “It forms a mosaic of all that was best in initiated the entire project and then remained the work of preceding translators.”13 involved as the translation process unfolded, In a truly frivolous claim, Eugene Peterson and if King James envisioned the new Bible as accuses the King James translators of having pla- something that would unify a religiously divided giarized Tyndale.14 On the contrary, underlying nation—then it stands to reason that King James the cooperative venture among successive trans- reciprocated to the honor of having the trans- lators is a whole theory of knowledge that the lation named after him by authorizing it for his Renaissance accepted but that the modern era kingdom. Yes, it stands to reason, but to our sur- has rejected. Alister McGrath has written about prise, King James did not authorize the Bible that it with his usual good sense: bears his name. Surely, then, Archbishop Bancroft and other The King James translators … stood in a long bishops in the Church of England must have line of translators, and were conscious that authorized the translation. After all, upon its their task would be influenced … by the Eng- publication it became the translation used in all lish translations already in circulation…. Lying Anglican churches, and additionally the origi- behind this is an attitude toward wisdom that nal title page contains the line “appointed to be has largely been lost in the modern period…. read in churches.” But that phrase carries the The King James Bible … is to be seen in the light force of “intended for public and oral reading of the Renaissance approach to human wisdom, in church services and the liturgy.” There is no in which one generation is nourished and sus- record of official church authorization of the tained by the intellectual achievements of its KJV, even though precedent for such authoriza- predecessors. Each era draws on the wisdom of tion existed in the form of the Great Bible and the past, and builds upon it, before handing a the Bishops’ Bible. greater wisdom on to its successors.15 Does this mean, then, that the KJV was never authorized? Surprise upon surprise: the King The King James translators themselves James Bible was authorized. As Geddes Mac- asserted this philosophy in a famous statement Gregor astutely notes, the fact that the KJV did in the prefatory document entitled “the transla- not receive official authorization allows us to tors to the reader.” Here is the statement: “Truly see even more clearly the actual authority that (good Christian reader) we never thought from the KJV commanded. Lacking official authori- the beginning, that we should need to make a zation, the King James Bible “made its own way new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a as a book whose excellence was admitted on all good one, … but to make a good one better, or sides,” an authority “far greater than could have out of many good ones, one principal good one.” been conferred upon it by any legal instrument or official decree.” The King James Bible “was Fallacy #4: The KJV was authorized, not by an edict imposed upon the officially authorized by the people, but by popular acclamation.”16 king whose name it bears. The KJV quickly became known as the Autho- rized Version. To this day many people studiously avoid the title King James Version and instead

8 Fallacy #5: The KJV fell flat Fallacy #6: The King James and was ignored when it was translators spoiled a good first published. thing by reversing the This view is so widely accepted that I need translation philosophy and to signal that the verdict I am about to assert is style that William Tyndale a distinctly minority opinion. Adam Nicolson, had established as the norm. author of a book on the KJV entitled God’s Secre- The impetus for attempting to drive a wedge taries: The Making of the King James Bible, a book between Tyndale and the King James translators that praises the KJV, said in an interview that the comes from people who advocate a colloquial King James Bible was “a complete failure when it English Bible based on the translation philosophy was produced, no one liked it.”17 Alister McGrath known as dynamic equivalence. Eugene Peterson similarly claims that the reception history of the can be taken as the spokesman for this group.20 King James Bible is “the story of how an ugly According to Peterson, the King James translators duckling became a swan.”18 not only “plagiarized” Tyndale’s translation but My own research does not support the major- then also made a “violation” of it by putting “lace ity viewpoint. It is true that the release of the KJV cuffs on Tyndale’s sentences.” They “desecrated was surrounded by misfortunes that could easily language upward” and “skillfully and thoroughly have subverted the entire publishing venture. The shifted the tone of the language from the rough- first printer of the KJV found himself in almost ness of Tyndale’s plowboy to the smooth speech immediate financial difficulty, and the early years of the royal court.” of printing were bound up in litigation. Further- I submit that all of these claims are false and more, someone named Hugh Broughton, a per- that William Tyndale would have thoroughly son of known scholarly ability who had been approved of the refinements that the King James bypassed for the translation committee because translators made on his baseline. How can I be of his equally known cantankerous personality, so bold as to make these claims? For five reasons. published an attack in which he claimed that First, Tyndale himself expressed discontent with there were hundreds of mistranslated words. his own translation. In the preface to his 1526 He also warned the translators that they would New Testament, Tyndale stated a wish “that the be judged for their misconduct at the last day. rudeness of the work now at the first time offend Finally, the new translation was in immediate not [my readers], but that they consider how that competition with the entrenched best-selling I had no man to [imitate], neither was [helped] Bible of the day, the Geneva Bible. with English of any that had interpreted the same Despite this, the KJV did very well. In its or such like thing in the scripture before time…. first five years of existence, readers called for Many things are lacking, which necessarily are seventeen editions, compared with six editions required. Count it as a thing not having his full of the Geneva Bible during those same years.19 shape, but as it were born afore his time, even as Expanding the time frame, in the first 35 years of a thing begun rather than finished.”21 Nothing its existence the KJV went through a whopping could be clearer than this as a statement of Tyn- 182 editions. The KJV supplanted the Geneva dale’s discontent with what he had produced with Bible within fifty years of its publication, very his first New Testament. Tyndale did not regard good indeed. The last Geneva Bible published his pioneering work as having established a norm. in England appeared in 1616, just five years after Secondly, Tyndale was sufficiently dissatis- the publication of the KJV, and on the Continent fied with his New Testament that after its first in 1644. publication he immediately spent time revising

9 it even though he was presumably eager to make even unto myself, that where I am, there may ye progress on his translation of the Old Testament. be also.” Thirdly, during this process of revision, Tyndale Exhibit D: “If ye be then risen again with Christ, introduced more than five thousand changes into seek those things which are above, where Christ his New Testament translation.22 Fourthly and sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection most importantly, the revisions that Tyndale made on things that are above, and not on things which were of exactly the same type that the King James are on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is translators made with the material they inherited. hid with Christ in God. When Christ which is our For example, Tyndale changed “O ye endued with life, shall show himself, then shall ye also appear little faith” to “O ye of little faith.” He reversed the with him in glory.” word order from “behold here is a greater than I am sure that many of my readers will have Solomon” to “and behold a greater than Solomon picked up on the fact that all four passages are is here.” Tyndale had the same instinct for better- from Tyndale. However, that conclusion is based ment that the King James translators possessed on utter familiarity with the KJV, not on a cleavage (and that all five intervening translations exhibit). in lexical and syntactic register between the two If this constitutes putting lace cuffs on Tyndale’s translations. To use our own idiom, we can say initial New Testament translation, Tyndale him- that the King James translators tweaked Tyndale’s self started the process. baseline. They smoothed out Tyndale’s infelicities Finally, we should not exaggerate the differ- and produced something more elegant, beauti- ences between Tyndale and the KJV. Tyndale’s ful, and fluent. They changed Tyndale’s rendition baseline, though needing refinement, is in the “when Christ which is our life shall show himself” same stylistic register as the KJV. I will quote to read “when Christ who is our life shall appear.” four passages, and I leave it to my readers to guess Adam Nicolson summarizes the situation accu- which is from Tyndale and which from the KJV. rately when he writes, “Tyndale was working Exhibit A: “Though I spake with the tongues alone, in extraordinary isolation. His only audi- of men and angels, and yet had no love, I were ence was himself. And surely as a result there is even as sounding brass: or as a tinkling cymbal. a slightly bumpy, stripped straightforwardness And though I could prophesy, and understood all about his matter and his rhythm…. [The King secrets, and all knowledge: yea, if I had all faith so James translators] are memorable where Tyndale that I could move mountains out of their places, stumbles.”23 and yet had no love, I were nothing.” But doesn’t everyone know that Tyndale’s vocab- Exhibit B: “When he saw the people, he went ulary was ninety percent Anglo-Saxon in origin, in up into a mountain, and when he was set, his dis- contrast to the King James translators’s fondness ciples came to him, and he opened his mouth, for polysyllabic, Latinate words? Surprise: the per- and taught them saying: Blessed are the poor in centage of Anglo-Saxon words is approximately the spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed same for Tyndale and the KJV.24 are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the Fallacy #7: The King James earth. Blessed are they which hunger and thirst style is uniformly exalted, for righteousness: for they shall be filled.” ornate, and embellished. Exhibit C: “In my father’s house are many man- The King James style is one-of-a-kind, but it is sions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go hard to find the right terms by which to name its to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a unique quality. Certainly we can use such designa- place for you, I will come again, and receive you tions as elegant, polished, beautiful, sonorous, and

10 dignified. But the King James style is not uniform, the verdict of Greek playwright Aristophanes that not usually eloquent, not predominantly embel- “high thoughts must have high language.” lished, and certainly not stilted, as debunkers But the narrative parts of the KJV tend toward today try to make us believe. a straightforward and simple style—elegant, but One reason the King James style is misinter- simple. Here is an example (Luke 2:7-10): preted by people today as being a high style is that the archaic quality of Renaissance English And she brought forth her first born son, and automatically registers with modern readers wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him as an exalted style. But for the most part such in a manger, because there was no room for them archaic features as the thee and thou pronouns in the inn. And there were in the same country and the inflected verb endings in such words as shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over walketh and goest were how the person on the their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord street spoke. They belonged to ordinary speech, came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone not formalized discourse. round about them, and they were sore afraid. And My own conclusion is that the King James style the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold, I is as flexible and varied as what we find in the origi- bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall nal text. This was virtually assured because the be to all people. King James translators accepted an essentially lit- eral translation philosophy that preserved the sty- The prevailing style here is simple, though the listic range of the original text of the Bible. When effect is grand and awe-inspiring. the original text of the Bible is exalted, the KJV Often the King James style combines simplic- naturally rises to that level. Consider some of the ity of form with majesty of effect. We can take words that King Solomon uttered on the most sol- Luke 11:9-10 as epitomizing the King James emn day of his life—the dedication of the temple style: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and (1 Kgs 8: 27-30): ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh, receiveth; and he But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it the heaven, and heaven of heavens, cannot con- shall be opened.” This does not stoop to the level tain thee: how much less this house that I have of everyday colloquial conversation, but neither is builded? Yet have thou respect unto the prayer of it exalted or difficult to assimilate. It is simple in thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord my form, yet majestic in effect. God, to hearken unto the cry and to the prayer, I want to stay with the quoted passage a which thy servant prayeth before thee to day. That moment longer. While the vocabulary is simple, thine eyes may be open toward this house, night the passage is so rhetorically embellished that I and day, even toward the place of which thou hast would call it a rhetorical tour de force. It is replete said, My name shall be there: that thou mayest with antithesis, parallelism, and balance. It is arti- hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall ficial (“characterized by artifice”) and beautiful, make towards this place. And hearken thou to and certainly not the way we speak at the corner the supplication of thy servant, and of thy people coffee shop. Israel, when they shall pray towards this place: Advocates of colloquial translations are quick and hear in heaven thy dwelling place, and when to say that the King James translators polished a thou hearest, forgive. passage like this to make it literary, thereby rob- bing it of an alleged (and illusory) rough vigor in That is the highest of the high style, confirming the original text. But the King James translators

11 are not the ones who made the passage a small shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you classic of rhetorical patterning. Jesus as speaker free” (John 8:32). The two million visitors who made it such. And to return to the cleavage file past the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia each between Tyndale and the KJV that is incorrectly year would still read Leviticus 25:10 in its King claimed, in the quoted passage there is only one James form: “Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all small discrepancy between Tyndale and the KJV: the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof.” Every the King James translators reversed the word order Christmas thousands and probably millions of of Tyndale’s “shall it be opened” and made it read people would continue to hear Gospel passages “it shall be opened.” from the KJV while listening to Handel’s Messiah. The genius of the King James style is that it The KJV is not on the verge of extinction in Ameri- is elegant without being stilted, polished and at can society. the same time infused with energy, and dignified instead of colloquial or demeaning to the Bible. Fallacy #9: The proliferation Literary scholar Northrop Frye states it well: “The of modern translations simplicity of the AV has often been praised, and and corresponding eclipse this too is a quality that belongs to the original. of the KJV as the common But there are different kinds of simplicity…. The English Bible has been a great simplicity of the Bible is the simplicity of majesty, advantage to the church. not of equality, must less of naiveté: its simplicity In order to assess this claim, we need to get expressed the voice of authority.”25 a picture of what life was like in England and America during the three and half centuries when Fallacy #8: For all practical the KJV was the only major English Bible on the purposes, the KJV of 1611 is now scene. Former Yale University professor George out of circulation and has Lindbeck paints the following picture: been relegated to a shelf in the museum of the past. Until recently, most people in traditionally To adapt a quip that Mark Twain uttered when Christian countries lived in the linguistic and he read an obituary of himself in a newspaper, the imaginative world of the Bible. It was not the only rumors of the death of the KJV have been greatly world in which they dwelt…. Yet the text above exaggerated. If we consult the current sales figures all texts was the Bible. Its stories, images, concep- for English Bibles, year after year the KJV comes in tual patterns, and turns of phrase permeated the either second or third on the list. A survey of web- culture from top to bottom. This was true even sites reveals a whole segment of the evangelical for illiterates and those who did not go to church, world that never stopped using the KJV. Further- for knowledge of the Bible was transmitted not more, among literary authors and literary scholars, only directly by its reading, hearing, and ritual the English Bible is still synonymous with the KJV. enactment, but also indirectly by an interwoven Even if all copies of the KJV suddenly vanished, net of intellectual, literary, artistic, folkloric, and the King James Bible would live on as a pervasive proverbial traditions…. There was a time when cultural presence. People who pass through the every educated person, no matter how profess- gate of Harvard University would still read the edly unbelieving or secular, knew the actual text inscription, “Open ye the gates that the righteous from Genesis to Revelation…. [The Bible came] nation which keepeth the truth may enter in” (Isa to supply the conceptual and imaginative vocabu- 26:2). Students entering the library of the Uni- laries … with which we construe and construct versity of Oregon could still look up and read, “Ye reality…. So pervasive is this scriptural idiom

12 that much of western literature consists of sub- a Bible study or Sunday school class carrying four texts of the biblical text…. Thus all of experience, or five or six different versions of the Bible. A vast including sacred texts from other religions, such democracy sets in. “What does your translation as the classics of Greece and Rome, was absorbed say?” “That’s interesting.” “I had never thought of into the scriptural framework…. Christendom the passage like that before.” The result is a thor- dwelt imaginatively in the biblical world.26 oughgoing skepticism about our ability to know that the Bible says. After all, who is to say which The picture that Lindbeck paints came to an translation is correct? Furthermore, a look at end in the middle of the twentieth century. It coin- dynamic equivalent translations shows a bewil- cided with two other developments: the essen- dering multiplicity and contradiction in the trans- tially literal translation philosophy on which the lation of the same passage. KJV was based was replaced by dynamic equiva- I am not proposing a return to the KJV as our lence, and the phenomenon of a single or common common Bible. I am sounding an alarm about an English Bible that virtually everyone in England unquestioned assumption that our current situa- and the United States used was replaced by a pro- tion of a proliferation of English Bible translations liferation of English Bible translations. is a good thing. Instead of celebrating our sup- All of this was accompanied by an unstated posed liberation from the dominance of the KJV, assumption that still prevails, namely, that the we should be addressing the problem of neglect of proliferation of English Bible translations has the Bible that set in when the KJV ceased to be the been a great liberation from the dominance of the common English Bible. magisterial KJV. I believe this assumption to be wrong. The proliferation of English Bible transla- Fallacy #10: The best way to tions has not ushered in a golden age of biblical appropriate the greatness literacy but the opposite—a well-documented of the KJV is to use it as our biblical illiteracy not only in society but in the primary English Bible. evangelical church. In the very essay in which I need to anticipate where my discussion will George Lindbeck describes the effects of a com- end. I am an advocate of appropriating the great- mon Bible, he observes that when he came to Yale ness of the KJV, not of abandoning it in favor of in the mid-fifties even students from nonreligious modern translations that repudiate the King James backgrounds knew the Bible better than students tradition or lineage. But this does not require use from churchgoing families knew it when he retired of the KJV itself. (I will explain myself later.) in the mid-nineties. Although I believe that the KJV is demonstra- When the KJV went into eclipse, the Bible bly the greatest English Bible ever, I myself do not went into eclipse. Twenty years ago, a majority regard it as the best English Bible to use today. of evangelical young people would have said that Why not? For two reasons. First, scholarship has the small group inductive Bible study had been advanced beyond what prevailed at the time of a major ingredient in their high school religious the translation of the KJV. The technicalities of experience. Today virtually none of them would this are beyond my expertise, but the consensus say that. Evangelical pulpits from which the Sun- among biblical scholars is that the case for the day morning sermon is an exposition of a Bible superiority of the Textus Receptus is a lost cause. passage are, if not statistically insignificant, not For me personally, this is not a major issue. The far from that. passages affected by the textual preferences of Surely most of my readers are familiar with the the King James translators are so few, and mod- following scenario. A group of Christians come to ern scholarly editions and commentaries are so

13 plentiful, that I do not worry that people will be tradition—a century of English Bible transla- misled by the KJV. In fact, I trust the KJV more tion that took on the shape of a natural evolution than I trust translations in which the translators toward the culminating KJV. There is a tradi- feel free to add commentary to the biblical text, tion continuing right to the present day of mod- omit material that is in the biblical text, and sub- ern translations that consciously perpetuate the stitute something in place of what is in the origi- essentially literal translation philosophy coupled nal text. with the stylistic excellence and even the cadences I believe that the major stricture against the of the KJV. I find a comment by Alister McGrath KJV is the extreme archaism of vocabulary and particularly insightful on how a modern transla- grammar, archaism that baffles most modern read- tion can perpetuate the qualities of the KJV while ers. I myself find this archaism to be an obstacle being a genuinely modern version. “There is no even though I am a teacher of English Renais- doubt that the King James Bible is a model English sance literature. During this anniversary year I text,” writes McGrath, but all translations “even- have been using the KJV for my devotional read- tually require revision, not necessarily because ing. For the most part it has been exhilarating and they are defective, but because the language … uplifting, a welcome change of pace. itself changes over time.”27 To remain overly tied But there are also times when I find the devo- to the KJV, according to McGrath, is to “betray the tional effect undermined by the difficulty of the intentions and goals of those who conceived and language and grammar. “By thee have I been translated it—namely, to translate the Bible into holden up from the womb: thou art he that took living English.”28 me out of my mother’s bowels” (Ps 71:6). “The On the logic of this, McGrath offers his opinion works of his hands are verity and judgment” (Ps that “the true heirs of the King James translators 111:7). “What ailed thee, O sea, that that thou fled- are those who continue their task today.”29 For me, dest? thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back?” (Ps this is preeminently true of the New King James 114:5). “How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord Version and the English Standard Version. Anyone of hosts” (Psalm 84:1). “Through desire a man, who uses either of these translations can be said to having separated himself, seeketh and intermed- appropriate the excellence of the KJV. dleth with all wisdom” (Prov 18:1). “for wherein The KJV rendition of Psalm 21:3 is, “For thou thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; preventest him with the blessings of goodness: for thou that judgest doest the same things” (Rom thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head.” In 2:1). It is not an impossible task to understand the English Standard Version it reads, “You meet such verses, but the archaism is an unnecessary him with rich blessings; you set a crown of fine barrier. Better options exist, and this leads to my gold upon his head.” The archaisms have been concluding observation. removed, but the beauty of language and fluency I grew up in a world in which the KJV was the of cadence remain. Again, Psalm 24:1 in the KJV only version that people used. I used the KJV reads, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness through my college years, but not beyond that. thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” Nonetheless, even though I have not used the Here is the same verse in the English Standard KJV as my primary Bible for nearly half a century, Version: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness I have never ceased to appropriate the greatness of thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.” the KJV. How can that be? Only one word has been changed. We can read In addition to the KJV itself, there is some- a Bible that is up-to-date in scholarship and lan- thing called the King James tradition or lineage. guage without selling the birthright of excellence In fact, the KJV itself was the product of such a represented by the KJV.

14 Conclusion Ninth, although the loss of the KJV as the com- I have slanted my remarks in this article around mon English Bible in the middle of the twentieth the principle of debunking fallacies that circulate century has been a tragedy in our culture and in in regard to the KJV. I will end by stating in posi- the church, individuals, families, churches, and tive form the ideas that I have phrased in negative schools can still make the Bible central within form as I have challenged misconceptions about their own spheres. Tenth, although the archaic the KJV. First, although Shakespeare did not help quality of the KJV makes it a problematical Bible translate the KJV, the writings of Shakespeare and for primary use today, it is nonetheless possible to the King James Bible share the distinction of being choose a modern translation that retains the quali- the high point of English language excellence and ties that made the King James Bible the greatest a standard of what constitutes good English. Sec- English Bible ever. ond, although King James disliked the Puritans, God overruled the designs of an impious king Endnotes and caused it to happen that the most influential 1Gordon Campbell, Bible: The Story of the King James book in the history of the English-speaking world Version 1611-2011 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, is a book that embodies the very principles of the 2010), 2. evangelical faith. Third, the KJV was the climax 2For a fully-documented overview on the subject of of a whole century of English Bible translation in Shakespeare and the Bible, see Leland Ryken, “Shake- which successive individuals and committees built speare and the Bible,” in Word and Rite: The Bible and upon the triumphs of the past. Ceremony in Selected Shakespearean Works, (ed. Bea- Fourth, the KJV was not authorized by the trice Batson; Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge king with his royal pomp, nor Anglican clerics Scholars Press, 2010), 1-21. For a preliminary foray in their vestments, but by ordinary people who into the Christian allegiance of Shakespeare’s plays, knew a good thing when they read and heard it. see the same author’s article “Shakespeare as a Chris- Fifth, building on the experience of a whole cen- tian Writer,” [cited 16 January 2012]. Online: http:// tury of English Bible translation, the King James www.reformation21.org/articles/shakespeare-as-a- translators saw the possibility of producing an christian-writer.php. over-the-top, best-of-the-best translation that 3John Velz, “Shakespeare and the Geneva Bible: The within fifty years of its publication became what Circumstances,” in Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson: the English-speaking world would mean when it New Directions in Biography (ed. Takashi Kozuka and spoke of “the Bible.” Sixth, the King James trans- J. R. Mulryne; Burlington: Ashgate, 2006), 115-16. lators possessed what one scholar calls “a sure 4Alec Gilmore, A Dictionary of the English Bible and its instinct for betterment”30 as they introduced only Origins (Sheffield: Academic, 2000), 26. minor changes and refinements into the baseline 5James Baikie, The English Bible and Its Story (Philadel- that Tyndale and five other English translations phia: Lippincott, 1959), 258. bequeathed to them. Seventh, the style of the 6Benson Bobrick, Wide as the Waters: The Story of the KJV is matchless, a blend of the simple and the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired (New York: majestic—often parodied, sometimes imitated, Penguin, 2001), 218. but never duplicated. 7Craig H. Lampe, “English Bible History,” [cited 12 Eighth, the KJV remains a pervasive presence January 2012]. Online: http://greatsite.com/time- in our own culture and in the Christian world, liv- line-english-bible-history/. David Daniell claims ing on not only in the cultural forms from the past that when the King James preface states the transla- but also in modern translations that perpetuate its tors’s aim to make a good [translation] better, they translation philosophy and stylistic preferences. “were referring to the Geneva Bible,” and in fact in

15 the rest of the preface entitled “The Translators to Beginning, 262. the Reader” Miles Smith “quoted Scripture almost 25Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Litera- always from” the Geneva Bible. David Daniell, The ture (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovish, 1982), Bible in English: Its History and Influence (New Haven: 211. Yale University Press, 2003), 294. 26George A. Lindbeck, “The Church’s Mission to a 8Alister McGrath, In the Beginning: The Story of the Postmodern Culture,” in Postmodern Theology: Chris- King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Lan- tian Faith in a Pluralist World (ed. Frederic B. Burn- guage, and a Culture (New York: Anchor, 2001), 284. ham; New York: Harper and Row, 1989), 38-42. 9The [Westminster] Confession of Faith and Catechisms 27Alister McGrath, In the Beginning, 308-09. (Willow Grove, PA: The Orthodox Presbyterian 28Ibid., 309. Church, 2005), x. 29Ibid., 310. 10John Livingston Lowes, “The Noblest Monument 30Charles C. Butterworth, The Literary Lineage of the of English Prose,” in Essays in Appreciation (Boston: King James Bible, 1340-1611 (Philadelphia: Univer- Houghton Mifflin, 1936), 22-23. sity of Pennsylvania Press, 1941), 242. 11Bobrick, Wide as the Waters, 258. 12Craig R. Thompson, The Bible in English, 1525-1611 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1958), 27. 13Samuel McComb, The Making of the English Bible (New York: Moffat, Yard, 1909), 94, 97. 14Eugene H. Peterson, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading (Grand Rapids: Eerd- mans, 2006), 162. 15McGrath, In the Beginning, 176-78. 16Geddes MacGregor, The Bible in the Making (Philadel- phia: Lippincott, 1959), 181. 17Adam Nicolson, BBC interview on December 24, 2003 [cited 12 January 2012]. Online: http://www. pbs.org/ newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec03/ nicolson_12-24.html. 18McGrath, In the Beginning, 778. 19My information about numbers of editions in this paragraph come from MacGregor, The Bible in the Making, 284. 20All quotations in this paragraph are from Peterson, Eat This Book, 162. 21William Tyndale, “Preface to 1526 New Testament,” as quoted in David Daniell, William Tyndale: A Biog- raphy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 145-46. 22David Daniell, William Tyndale: A Biography (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 330. 23Nicolson, God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible (New York: Harper Collins, 2003), 223. 24Bobrick, Wide as the Waters, 254; McGrath, In the

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