Translators to the Reader_12

For is the kingdom of God become words or syllables? why should we be in bondage to them if we may be free, use one precisely when we may use another no less fit, as commodiously?

End. Finis. El fin. The final 1000 words or so of this rather magnificent preface to the original KJV in 1611. The actual author of this preface is Miles Smith, Bishop of Gloucester, a key member of the KJV translation team, known for his mastery of biblical languages, described as a “severe Calvinist,” and known, in his day, for his high profile walking out on a sermon on one occasion because he considered it boring – and retiring to the pub. Give us more “severe Calvinists” like Miles Smith!

Adam Nicolson in God’s Secretaries makes this comment on this preface I have been laboring through (for me a labor of love – I look forward to humbly making his acquaintance in what will surely be the grandest library of all in the new heavens and the new earth):

Miles Smith – and it is his greatest monument – then wrote the long and beautiful Preface to the translation. It is rarely printed with the Bible nowadays…Smith’s words exude all that is best about Jacobean England, the hopes for this translation and the beliefs in the power and value of the work which was now so nearly complete…It is a defense of what they have done against the cavils of the Roman Catholics, and a paean to James as its progenitur. It insists on the virtues and necessity of translation, and snips a the Catholics for their love of obscurity and darkness. It celebrates the virtues of accuracy, but scoffs, happily enough, at the over-scrupulosity of the Puritans who insist on the same word being translated in the same way every time. It’s atmosphere is generous and majestic and never more sweepingly vigorous – the influence of the pulpit is everywhere here – when describing the part that scripture might play in a man’s life…Was anything ever written about a sacred text that was so fresh, so full of a delight in what these words might bring you? For all the lugubrious seriousness and monomaniac anger and violence that can hang around seventeenth-century religion, Bishop Smith, here writing at the very end of the long translation process in which he had been engaged throughout, remains buoyant with enthusiasm and with a quality that can only be called grace.

And so, the final segment of the Preface:

Reasons Inducing Us Not To Stand Curiously upon an Identity of Phrasing

Another thing we think good to admonish thee of (gentle Reader) that we have not tied ourselves to an uniformity of phrasing, or to an identity of words, as some peradventure would wish that we had done, because they observe, that some learned men somewhere, have been as exact as they could that way. Truly, that we might not vary from the sense of that which we had translated before, if the word signified the same thing in both places (for there be some words that be not of the same sense everywhere) we were especially careful, and made a conscience, according to our duty. But, that we should express the same notion in the same particular word; as for example, if we translate the Hebrew or Greek word once by Purpose, never to call it Intent; if one where Journeying, never Traveling; if one where Think, never Suppose; if one where Pain, never Ache; if one where Joy, never Gladness, etc. Thus to mince the matter, we thought to savour more of curiosity than wisdom, and that rather it would breed scorn in the Atheist, than bring profit to the godly Reader. For is the kingdom of God become words or syllables? why should we be in bondage to them if we may be free, use one precisely when we may use another no less fit, as commodiously? A godly Father in the Primitive time showed himself greatly moved, that one of newfangledness called krabbaton though the difference be little or none; and another reporteth that he was much abused for turning Cucurbita (to which reading the people had been used) into Hedera. Now if this happen in better times, and upon so small occasions, we might justly fear hard censure, if generally we should make verbal and unnecessary changings. We might also be charged (by scoffers) with some unequal dealing towards a great number of good English words. For as it is written of a certain great Philosopher, that he should say, that those logs were happy that were made images to be worshipped; for their fellows, as good as they, lay for blocks behind the fire: so if we should say, as it were, unto certain words, Stand up higher, have a place in the Bible always, and to others of like quality, Get ye hence, be banished forever, we might be taxed peradventure with S. James his words, namely, To be partial in ourselves and judges of evil thoughts. Add hereunto, that niceness in words was always counted the next step to trifling, and so was to be curious about names too: also that we cannot follow a better pattern for elocution than God himself; therefore he using divers words, in his holy writ, and indifferently for one thing in nature: we, if we will not be superstitious, may use the same liberty in our English versions out of Hebrew and Greek, for that copy or store that he hath given us. Lastly, we have on the one side avoided the scrupulosity of the Puritans, who leave the old Ecclesiastical words, and betake them to other, as when they put Washing for Baptism, and Congregation instead of Church: as also on the other side we have shunned the obscurity of the Papists, in their Azimes, Tunike, Rational, Holocausts, Praepuce, Pasche, and a number of such like, whereof their late Translation is full, and that of purpose to darken the sense, that since they must needs translate the Bible, yet by the language thereof, it may be kept from being understood. But we desire that the Scripture may speak like itself, as in the language of Canaan, that it may be understood even of the very vulgar.

Many other things we might give thee warning of (gentle Reader) if we had not exceeded the measure of a Preface already. It remaineth, that we commend thee to God, and to the Spirit of his grace, which is able to build further than we can ask or think. He removeth the scales from our eyes, the veil from our hearts, opening our wits that we may understand his word, enlarging our hearts, yea correcting our affections, that we may love it above gold and silver, yea that we may love it to the end. Ye are brought unto fountains of living water which ye digged not; do not cast earth into them with the Philistines, neither prefer broken pits before them with the wicked Jews. [Gen 26:15. Jer 2:13.] Others have laboured, and you may enter into their labours; O receive not so great things in vain, O despise not so great salvation! Be not like swine to tread under foot so precious things, neither yet like dogs to tear and abuse holy things. Say not to our Saviour with the Gergesites, Depart out of our coasts [Matt 8:34]; neither yet with Esau sell your birthright for a mess of pottage [Heb 12:16]. If light be come into the world, love not darkness more than light; if food, if clothing be offered, go not naked, starve not yourselves. Remember the advice of Nazianzene, It is a grievous thing (or dangerous) to neglect a great fair, and to seek to make markets afterwards: also the encouragement of S. Chrysostom, It is altogether impossible, that he that is sober (and watchful) should at any time be neglected: Lastly, the admonition and menacing of S. Augustine, They that despise God's will inviting them, shall feel God's will taking vengeance of them. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; [Heb 10:31] but a blessed thing it is, and will bring us to everlasting blessedness in the end, when God speaketh unto us, to hearken; when he setteth his word before us, to read it; when he stretcheth out his hand and calleth, to answer, Here am I, here we are to do thy will, O God. The Lord work a care and conscience in us to know him and serve him, that we may be acknowledged of him at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with the holy Ghost, be all praise and thanksgiving.

Amen.