Gordon Campbell, Bible. the Story of the King James Version –
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Book Reviews / CHRC () – Gordon Campbell, Bible. The Story of the King James Version –. Oxford University Press, Oxford , xiii + pp. ISBN . .. Whether viewed as English literature or sacred text, the King James Version of the Bible (KJV) is undoubtedly one of the most celebrated volumes of the English-speaking world. Marking its th anniversary, Gordon Campbell has produced an accessible textual biography of this remarkable work. Known in the United Kingdom as the “Authorized Version,” this Bible was by far not the first in English translation. Campbell, who is Professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of Leicester, informs us that parts of the New Testament were translated into Old English as early as the eighth century, and by the fourteenth century there were several translations in circulation, most of them associated with John Wycliff. In the early part of the sixteenth century, William Tyndale’s translation of the Bible gained popularity especially among Protestants. In subsequent decades, before the KJV would arrive on the scene, another half a dozen different Bibles were produced, each with their own distinct characteristics. By this time England was deeply troubled by religious division and urgently needed a foundational symbol around which it could unite. Elisabeth I had managed to obtain a respectable level of compromise between reform-minded Protestants and Anglo-Catholics, but tensions persisted. When James VI of Scotland ascended to the throne of England in as James I, he had barely taken on his new royal duties when he received a petition containing more that a , signatures, belonging to the Church’s Puritan wing, criticizing the continued existence of a number of Catholic vestiges. Interested in theological debate, James convened a conference, bringing together the various factions with the hope of addressing the various concerns. The conference accomplished little except for the suggestion that a new Bible be prepared to address the errors of previous translations. The king’s response to this was favourable. At the time each religious party had its chosen Scripture with the Puri- tan wing favouring the Geneva Bible and the Anglo-Catholics preferring the Bishops’ Bible. James was receptive to the idea of a new translation because he believed that it would encourage reconciliation between the opposing factions. He also anticipated that the new publication would be dedicated in his honour and thereby serve as an endorsement of his throne. The publication in did just that, and although the new Bible was not immediately acceptable to everyone, it was destined to become a new standard that would be used widely especially for public worship. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, DOI: 10.1163/18712428-09220046 Book Reviews / CHRC () – In the opening chapters of his work Campbell ably covers all of this in plentiful detail. He also brings to light much of the politics and intrigue that surrounded the publication of the KJV. Far from being an unbiased text, Campbell explains that the scholars, who were involved in the project for seven years, made innumerable semantic choices, reflecting particular biases. Evidently they favoured an episcopal rather than presbyterian model of church government, and thus used terms like “church” rather than “congregation,” and “bishop” rather than “elder” or “senior.” In the end, the publication of did not overcome the various divisions within the church. This was complicated by the fact that there was no master text from which subsequent editions could draw comparisons. And so, further correctionsandinsomecaseserrorsensued.RobertBarker’spublicationof , for instance, had the word “not” omitted from the seventh command- ment in the book of Exodus, thereby making adultery compulsory. John Bas- kett’s publication of and identified the parable of the vineyard in Luke as “the parable of the vinegar,” which led some observers to label Bas- kett’s work the “Vinegar Bible,” while others referred to it as a “Baskettful of errors.” Benjamin Blayney’s text of with its literally thousands of changes in punctuation, spelling, and wording went the furthest in stabilizing the text with the result being that today’s KJV comes much closer to the publica- tion than the text of . Campbell’s careful narrating of these developments highlights not only the many ways in which there was potential human error. It also illustrates the degree to which the English language has always been—not unlike the present—in a state of transition. Much of Campbell’s work relays the developments surrounding KJV in England, but about one third of the book gives attention to the story as it develops in the United States. Campbell defends this additional focus on America by noting that in no other country has the KJV had such a sustained and central presence in both private and public life. He proceeds to illustrate the extent to which the KJV played a pivotal role, for example, in the revival movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the evangelical and fundamentalist movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as religious and political movements in more recent times. He notes that the language of the KJV was effectively appropriated in Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech in , and that it continues to be the Bible of choice when presidents are inaugurated and when cities erect courthouse monuments that include a listing of the Ten Commandments. Readers might not expect to be fascinated by a textual biography, but Campbell surprises. He manages to create an intriguing narrative concerning.