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1 the King James Bible and Biblical Scholarship

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1 the King James Bible and Biblical Scholarship The King James Bible and Biblical Scholarship (The Ethel Wood Lecture, 2011) L. W. Hurtado (University of Edinburgh) The web-site describing the Ethel Wood Lectures tells us that Mrs. Wood’s bequest to the University of London (1970) was “to provide for an annual lecture on the English Bible.” In looking over the list of lectures given since then, it appears that this has been interpreted with impressive flexibility. My own invitation to deliver the lecture for 2011, however, came with a specific request that I link it in some way to the 400 th anniversary of the publication of the “King James Version” of the Bible, AKA the “Authorised Version” (hereafter KJV). But because the limits of my own scholarly competence do not include the 16th and 17 th centuries, I cannot consider offering any fresh contribution on the circumstances or production of the KJV, nor on its literary qualities and influence.1 So I have chosen to consider the KJV in relationship to my own field of biblical scholarship, and under three main headings: (1) the KJV as a product of the biblical scholarship of its day, (2) the contribution of the KJV to the further development of biblical scholarship in the period after its publication, and (3) the effects of biblical scholarship upon our estimation of the KJV today. I The KJV is largely thought of today either simply as the sacred text above all (indeed, in some ultra-conservative circles of readers, as the very inspired Word of God and of miraculous quality), or as one of the greatest (if not the single greatest) and most influential literary productions in the English language. A large number of other English translations of the Bible are available now, of course, many of them having appeared in the last century or so; but the KJV remains impressively popular among those who read the Bible as scripture, and also, notably, those who treat it simply as historic English literature. 2 As David Daniell observed in his massive study, The Bible in English, “On a historical scale, the sheer longevity of this version is a phenomenon, without parallel.” 3 Surely, a major reason for the success of the KJV lay in the scholarly abilities of those assigned with the task of preparing it. There were certainly also political and commercial motives and moves involved as well in its early success, and the KJV received “a barrage of criticism” from clergy and scholars in the first 150 years or so 1 Cf., e.g., the 1950 Ethel M. Wood Lecture by C. S. Lewis, The Literary Impact of the Authorised Version (London: Athlone Press, 1950). It is difficult, however, to find much in Lewis’ obviously learned and wide-ranging discussion that corresponds directly to the lecture’s title! Some years ago I was involved in a somewhat wider project as Associate Editor: David L. Jeffrey (Gen. Ed.), A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992). 2 T. H. Darlow and H. F. Moule, rev. A. S. Herbert, Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions of the English Bible 1525-1961 (London: British & Foreign Bible Society, 1968); William J. Chamberlin, Catalogue of English Bible Translations: A Classified Bibliography of Versions and Editions including books, Parts, and Old and New Testament Apocrypha and Apocryphal Books (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991). David Daniell, The Bible in English: Its History and Influence (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2003), 134, refers to “about nine hundred fresh translations” of the whole Bible or New Testament made since 1526 (i.e., since Tyndale’s New Testament). 3 Daniell, 427. I am particularly dependent on Daniell’s work (esp. 427-60) in discussing the background and setting for the production of the KJV. 1 after its appearance. 4 But, undeniably, the KJV was the product of biblical scholars and scholarship of its time. Of the forty-seven known members of the six translation- companies (two each in Oxford, Cambridge and Westminster), most were fellows of Oxford or Cambridge colleges, including the Regius Professors of Hebrew and Greek in both universities. 5 Moreover, some of these figures are particularly impressive, perhaps none more so than Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626, Fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge), reputed to have been competent in fifteen languages, whose many published sermons and devotional pieces exhibit his intelligence and stylistic abilities. 6 Among those appointed to produce the KJV, competence was needed in Greek for the NT, although the available editions were all based on late manuscripts (a matter to which I return later in this lecture). For the Old Testament, the Hebrew Massoretic Text had to be consulted, for the Apocrypha the Greek Septuagint, except for 2 Esdras, for which the Latin served.7 Wisely, however, those commissioned for the work included men with expertise in the various ancient languages and also with a keen sense of how the English language could be used effectively to combine simplicity and elegance with accuracy in translation. 8 However, the KJV was not a de novo translation made simply from original- language texts, nor was it intended to be one. Instead, as stated in one of the fifteen Rules to be observed in the Translation of the Bible given to the members of the translation team, “The ordinary Bible read in the Church, commonly called the Bishops Bible , to be followed, and as little altered as the Truth of the original will permit.” Another of the rules, however, allowed “These translations to be used when they agree better with the Text [i.e., the respective original language text] than [does] the Bishops: Tindoll’s, Matthews, Coverdale’s, Whitchurch’s, Geneva. ”9 It was, in short, to be a learned and well-done revision of the Bishops’ Bible (1568), but a revision based particularly upon consultation of original-language texts (and also the Latin Vulgate) as well as other key predecessor English Bibles. 10 4 Daniell, The Bible in English, 429. For his discussion of those political and commercial factors, see pp. 451-60. 5 Ibid., 436. Daniell cites Richard Bancroft (Bishop of London) as referring to the royal approval of a list of fifty-four translators, but then notes that “the best accounts” list only forty-seven scholars. 6 T.S. Eliot praised Andrewes abilities in English style and theology in For Lancelot Andrewes: Essays on Style and Order (London: Faber & Gwyer, 1928). 7 Still the most important resource on the base-texts of the KJV is F. H. A. Scrivener, The Authorized Edition of the English Bible (1611), Its Subsequent Reprints and Modern Representatives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1884), esp. 40-60 and 243-63. 8 Daniell ( The Bible in English , 436-38) mentions some of the noteworthy members of the group, and also certain curious omissions of obviously competent scholars. For more extended discussion of the translation team, see Olga S.Opfell, The King James Bible Translators (Jefferson, NC/London: McFarland, 1982). 9 As given by Daniell, The Bible in English , 439, citing from A. W. Pollard (ed.), Records of the English Bible: The Documents Relating to the Translation and Publication of the Bible in English, 1525-1611 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1911), 53-55, added wording in square brackets mine for clarity. “Whitchurch’s” refers to the Protestant printer, Edward Whitchurch, who was involved in producing several English Bibles, including Matthew’s Bible and the Great Bible. See, F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.) The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Revised (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), s.v. 10 Daniell, The Bible in English, 440-42, in a section entitled “Revision, Not Fresh Translation,” posited that after the Hampton Court meeting where the idea of a new translation had been given royal approval, “the enterprise had changed, for reasons that are not known,” and instead those appointed were “to make a revision, but of the Bishops’ Bible,” which Daniell regarded as “regrettable, but 2 In light of this aim and the evident success of the KJV, we can view it as in its time the culmination and beneficiary of a series of prior English translations of the Bible that went back at least to Tyndale’s influential translation of the New Testament (1526). 11 Indeed, though the KJV was explicitly to be a revision of the Bishops’ Bible, it has been calculated that “over four-fifths of the New Testament” in the KJV is in fact “simply Tyndale’s work of eighty years before.” 12 The other important predecessor English translations include Miles Coverdale’s complete Bible (1535), which comprised the OT, NT and the Apocrypha, this work exercising influence thereafter in “Matthew’s” Bible (1537, which incorporated a substantial part of Coverdale’s Old Testament), the Great Bible (1539), the Geneva Bible (1560), and the Bishops’ Bible (1568). 13 Acknowledging that “the KJV has often been considered miraculous, being among other things the only time a work of genius has been produced by a committee,” Daniell insisted that it is important “to recognise the nature of its particular dependence upon its predecessors,” and he underscored “its heavy and often verbatim dependence on Tyndale.” 14 Nevertheless, the KJV was a product of fresh and serious scholarly effort. Clearly, along with taking account of the various prior translations (in various European languages), those assigned to the task also made it a key aim to represent accurately in English the Hebrew or Greek of the scriptural texts. The project team was referred to as a body of translators , and clearly saw themselves in this role. In this, the KJV reflects key principles of the Protestant setting in which it was produced: (1) the original language texts preferred as the basis of scriptural translation, and (2) the aim to provide the scriptures in an accessible vernacular form for laity as well as clergy.15 As is now a commonplace observation, the Protestant emphasis upon “original language” texts shows in turn the influence of the “new learning” of the Renaissance, with its emphasis on reading ancient authors in their own language, resulting in a renewed interest in Greek and also Hebrew.
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