In January, 1604, at the Hampton Court Conference – a meeting of leading Anglican churchmen along with leaders of the Puritan movement convened by the newly crowned King James I of England – it was proposed that there be a new translation made of the Bible:
“Newly Tranſlated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Tranſlations diligently compared and reuiſed, by his Maiesties speciall Comandement. Appointed to be read in Churches.”
It was a translation that in the Old Testament utilized the current Masoretic Hebrew textual tradition along with the Greek of the Septuagint, the Latin of the Vulgate, and the English of earlier translations such as the Bishop’s Bible, and in the New Testament utilized the Greek text of Erasmus’ Textus Receptus (which accounts for approximately 80% of the text) and once again the Latin of the Vulgate (if I recall correctly, nearly the entire book of Revelation in the KJV was translated not from the Greek, but from the Latin Vulgate). Initially, 54 Anglican scholars were chosen for the work but ultimately the number was whittled down to 47 men working in six committees (five of them assigned different portions of the Bible, a sixth was assigned the Apocrypha – yes, the Apocrypha was included in the KJV at that point, even as it had been in the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament used in the time of Christ; in 1644 Parliament forbade reading the Apocrypha in church, and in 1666 the first editions of the King James Version were printed without it).
These 47 scholars labored from 1604 to 1611. When their finished work was printed by the king’s printer, Robert Barker, it faced a long road to acceptance. One only has to imagine what the reaction would be in this country in this century if the present administration (or any administration) proposed a “new translation to be read in the churches.” Oh my. I’m just imagining the piles of burning Bibles – and the fevered ascriptions of “Antichrist!” It wasn’t until 1633 that the King James Version made its entry into Scottish churches. Even slower was acceptance by scholars – such as Hugh Broughton, by some accounts (and surely by his own) the most highly regarded English Hebraist of the time (but who had been excluded from the panel of translators because of his, shall we say, uncongenial manner). In 1611 he issued a total condemnation of the new version, criticising especially the translators' rejection of word-for-word equivalence and stated that "he would rather be torn in pieces by wild horses than that this abominable translation should ever be foisted upon the English people.” You’d think he was talking about the Message.
Some scholars began to acquiesce to the King James Version – at least for the vulgar, unlearned commoners. Men of letters were expected, naturally, to continue reading and studying the Bible in Latin.
But eventually, the King James Version won out over the earlier efforts at English translation (The Geneva Bible, the Bishop’s Bible, et al.) – largely because printers stopped printing them. Over the course of the 18th Century, the King James Version supplanted the Latin Vulgate as the standard version of scripture for the English speaking world, and in fact came to be regarded by some as an inspired text in itself – so much so that any challenge to its readings or its textual base came to be regarded as an assault on Holy Scripture itself.
And so the wheel had come full circle.
But whether you love the King James Version or have left it behind long ago (or, as is surely the case for many in our present culture, whether you’ve never even heard of it), this version of the Bible has had a profound influence on our literary and popular culture. It’s 400th birthday is worth noticing by thoughtful followers of Christ as well as thoughtful students of history. For those of you who would dare to follow with me, I would like to mark and celebrate this historical landmark by running here the comments left to us by these 47 scholars in their preface, The Translators to the Reader. You won’t find this in most modern editions of the King James Version, but you will in reproductions of the original 1611 edition. It’s an awesome message – one that speaks volumes quite eloquently to our own continuing (if somewhat lessened) squabbles over the prospect of modern translations. But it’s also 11,403 words long. So I propose to run it in about 10 segments, with some occasional comments and footnotes.
I invite you to read with me, to take in a piece of history, to savor some of our religious heritage as an English speaking people. Read what these scholars of old had to say. And then, why don’t you pick up a copy of the King James Bible and give it a read this year.
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