A precious possession
In a bedroom dressing table drawer there is a very large, very heavy book. It was given to a very beautiful bride by the mistress of the house in which the bride was a member of staff. The book isn’t old, though is now old enough to be classed as an antique. The book isn’t valuable in the sense of pounds and pence. But it is precious for three reasons.
- · first is that the centre pages contain a record of the bride’s marriage to a wonderful man and of the events in the lives of now four generations of the family: marriages, births and deaths.
- · The second reason is that since the book was first published in 1611 the book has had the greatest influence on the shaping of the English language.
- · And, the third reason, and the most important, is that the book is The King James Bible, known as the Authorised Version.
Worthy of celebrating
And, in 2011 we celebrate the publication of the Authorised Version. But why was there this King James Bible, Authorised Version, new translation 400 years ago? There were two reasons, and let’s be honest about the reasons:
- · First, the Protestant church had what became called the Geneva Bible. But as you will see later, King James VI of Scotland & I of England was unhappy with the Geneva Bible and wanted a new translation. Furthermore, the suggestion can be made that it was to support his political agenda.
- · Second, the Roman Catholics were working on an English translation. This became known as the Douai-Rheims Bible. And Protestants couldn’t have those Roman Catholics getting in first!
Once started had to be finished
There are those who believe that the Authorised Version was the first translation of the Bible into English. That is not so. William Tyndale almost 100 years earlier had attempted to publish his New Testament in English. He was prevented from so doing. The Church was having nothing to do with it. However, in 1526 Tyndale did manage to bring out the first complete edition of the New Testament. To do so he had to go to Germany and have it printed there. His translation had to be smuggled into England. Four years later he published the first five books of the Old Testament and the following year a translation of Jonah. The Church was violently against what was happening. And, in fact, by politically trickery Tyndale was arrested and executed in 1536 by him being tied to a stake, garrotted and his body burned. But what he and others had started could not be stopped. It is suggested that an impetus for continuing was the realisation that the educated recognised that priests who were reading texts in Latin got the Latin pronunciation wrong; and, also got the ‘translation’ into English and interpretation wrong. Something needed to be done.
Unrestricted access
A big step forward in allowing lay people to read the Bible for themselves, something Martin Luther had been arguing for back in the 1520s, came in 1560. In that year what became known as the Geneva Bible was published. (There were other translations,
too.) As far as this story is concerned the Geneva Bible entered England first and, of significance to James VI of Scotland and I of England and the Authorised Version, then into Scotland.
Get your version in first
Anticipating what was happening in the Protestant church the Roman Catholic Church reacted. A group of Roman Catholic scholars based in Douai and Rheims published a new English translation of the New Testament. A translation of the Old Testament was also promised. Together they would form a complete English Bible translated from a Roman Catholic perspective. It is certain you haven’t missed the point of this observation: the undertaking was a response to what was regarded as the blatant dishonesty of Protestant translators. (It is a fact that you can take any ‘original’ text word or phrase and, depending on your point of view or belief, that word and phrase can be made to fit your point of view, or what you believe, or the argument you want to use to persuade others you are ‘right’. The ‘blatant dishonesty’ sentence above can be seen in this light from a Roman Catholic and Protestant standpoint.) King James realised that the Douai-Rheims Bible threatened the Church unity amongst Anglicans and Puritans for which he was striving. (But there is a Scottish dimension to which we shall return in a moment.) James, therefore, directed that work should begin on a new translation of the Bible.
My divine right
The Scottish dimension mentioned earlier was on one hand James’ belief in the “divine right of kings” and on the other the Scottish Protestant churches looking to God’s Word on this subject. Why was that important to the Scots? James took a dislike to the Geneva Bible which, interestingly had marginal notes to verses and passages. They were there to explain ‘difficult passages’ of scripture. Many, and too many marginal notes for James’ liking, offered political comments on the biblical text. James held that kings had been ordained by God. Radical Protestants, and there were none more radical than Scottish Calvinist Presbyterians, argued there was no higher authority than God. Therefore, everything was subject to God and, most certainly, an earthly king! Though James managed to have the English translators translate passages to support his beliefs, he was going to have a greater struggle persuading the Scots to follow suit. They liked the Geneva Bible which put kings in their place in the order of things as lower than God and not divine as James saw himself! And, without condemning James outright, you can read the Bible to support the ‘divine right of kings’ argument! This raises the big problem over any translation and that includes the Geneva, the Authorised and the Douai-Rheims! (And, be certain of this, it is true with every translation down to today!)
What does that word/phrase mean?
The translators for the King James Bible, and for that matter the Roman Catholic Douai-Rheims version, had the same struggles as did earlier or any translators. How can what is written in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German even … be expressed in another language, in this case English. Further, how confident can you be in your translation if the original source is either, now missing and you are using somebody else’s translation or, has bits missing because the original is damaged or in shreds? A bigger problem still, perhaps, taking Hebrew as an example, Hebrew has no vowels! So, how do you translate the word translated into English as the three letters ‘l k s’. Is that ‘leaks’ (or even ‘leeks’!), or is it ‘likes’ or, perhaps, ‘looks’?
(Have a go yourself. Choose a word. Take out the vowels. Now how many words can you make using the consonants and by adding the vowels a, e, i, o or u?)
Which vowel(s) filled the consonants’ gap(s) depended on what is being ‘talked’ about, the context. But at a distance of time from the original you cannot be certain, can you? It can be appreciated that the word we read today may have been originally Aramaic translated into Hebrew, then Greek, followed by Latin and so on. (Take the word ‘love’. We know that the Greek’s had several words with different shades of meaning for ‘love’ which have been translated in English as the one word, ‘love’.) And, even if the translators got the word or phrase correct they sometimes changed the strict translation to a word or phrase which would be more familiar to the reader of the day.
Not worth the having?
Does all which has gone before mean we should cast aside the King James Bible as suspect? After all, amongst other issues, wasn’t it written to bolster King James’ political position? Then there is the fact that the text is translated from original text sources open to misinterpretation like, the missing vowels? And, what about those word shifts from one language into another and an unfamiliar word to a more familiar one? Then there is that urgency to get it out to beat the Roman Catholics and their translation to be a counterblast to accusations of Protestant blatant dishonesty. (Prickly Protestants could say the same in reverse of Douai-Rheims translation!) Does it all mean that we simply have in the King James Bible a book which is a joy to read and nothing more because of uncertainties over the translation? That would be cruel.
But as relevant as ever
The Authorised Version is a beautiful book. The English is magnificent. And it is a text to be read in public; the sentences have been constructed for that purpose. The translators were divines and scholars. They were inspired. It was right for the time and has been truly a foundation for Christian belief, work and witness ever since. But again let’s be honest about the text. Scholarship over the years, new discoveries, better understanding of ancient languages and the like would not produce an Authorised Version today as that of 400 years ago. Modern scholarship does not refute God’s Word but gives us greater understanding. We should rejoice and be glad of the Authorised Version and celebrate its 400th anniversary with a song of joy in our hearts. The message it contains is as relevant today as ever it was – even to an interpretation as to what is meant by ‘the divine right of kings’! The Authorised Version is the greatest text ever produced! [1]
[1] Let’s not forget that we have a Lancashire connection with King James VI & I. On his journey from Scotland to London he stopped off at Houghton Towers, near Preston. There he was served a loin of beef and was so impressed with it that he knighted the joint to give us a sirloin!