The Language of the King James Bible
Subject:
A symposium to mark the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible.
Professor Tim Connell introduces the symposium, offering an overview of historical attempts to translate the Bible and outlining the impact of the publication of the King James version.
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Introduction by Professor Tim Connell
Welcome to the Gresham Symposium on the King James Bible, which is the modern name for the Authorized Version of the Bible, commissioned by King James I and published in 1611.
There has been a quite remarkable response this year to the four hundredth anniversary of its publication. Apart from any theological points, a lot of emphasis has been placed on its work not only as a piece of literature (a key topic for us today) but also because of its impact on the English language. David Crystal has identified no fewer than 257 phrases that have passed into common use, ranging from Let there be Light through to Faith, Hope and Charity, and encompassing such everyday terms as “by the skin of one’s teeth”, “fly in the ointment” and “no peace for the wicked”, let alone “be afraid, be horribly afraid” – which most people attribute to St Arnold Schwarzenegger.[i]
The whole process of the translation of the Bible into English takes place over a long period of time, and much of the King James Bible, it must be said, has its roots in the work of John Wyclif and William Tyndale, not to mention Miles Coverdale. The Great Bible, the Bishops’ Bible and the Geneva Bible with its controversial notes in the margin were all forerunners, but it was the King James which finally won the day as the definitive translation in English, as well it might, given the detailed work of the companies set up in Oxford, Cambridge and Westminster. These companies comprised the most eminent men in the land, who were not only fluent in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, but who could also polish off lesser known (but no less critical) languages such as Syriac, Arabic and Aramaic.[ii]
The need to get back to the original texts and review their meaning developed with the growth of Ancient Greek, a key feature of the Renaissance. John Colet, dean of St Paul’s and an eminent scholar, put himself at some personal risk for not only translating the New Testament from the Greek, but also for reading his translations out loud to crowds of thousands (literally) at St Paul’s Cross, and no less a person than Erasmus of Rotterdam (a great friend of Colet’s and of Sir Thomas More) also produced his own version.
The wider understanding of Hebrew as well as Greek led to the realisation that the Vulgate edition in Latin contained misprints as well as misreadings, and the invention of printing led to greater literacy, a greater availability of reading material, and hence a demand not only for religious tracts, but also the Bible in the vernacular. Let’s look at a couple of texts to demonstrate this point:
In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum. Hoc erat in principio apud Deum. Omnia per ipsum facta sunt: et sine ipso factum est nihil, quod factum est. In ipso vita erat, et vita erat lux hominum: et lux in tenebris lucet, et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt.
And the second:
1 Ecce Ursus scalis occipite gradus pulsante post descendens.
2 Est quod sciat unus et solus modus gradibus descendendi, nonnunquam
autem sentit, etiam alterum modum exstare, dummodo pulsationibus desinere
et de eo modo meditare posit.
3 Deinde censet alios modos non esse.
4 En, nunc ipse in imo est, vobis ostentari paratus. Nomen audiens primum, sicut
vos dicturi estis, etiam ego dixi
The first text, you will have realised, is the Gospel according to St John chapter 1, and the congregation usually stands when it is read in Church. The other text is more commonly read lying down, though it is a sacred text too in its own way, and all of you will know it off by heart. It is, of course, the opening chapter of Winnie the Pooh in Latin – and classic bedtime reading! I think the case for translating the Bible into English is proven.
However, this was far from the case in the 16th Century. Translating the Bible into English, it has to be said, was a highly controversial matter. Wyclif’s bones were even dug up and burnt forty years after his death, and even William Tyndale was burnt at the stake only a few years before Henry VIII’s Great Bible was placed in every English parish church. However, the difficulty of having the Bible only in Latin was first noted by none other than Alfred the Great, who noted the number of priests in his kingdom who did not actually know Latin. His response was to set up translation as a subject at Winchester, a fact we should note especially as today (26th September) is the European Day of Languages.[iii]
It has to be said that the King James Bible when it appeared in 1611 was far from perfect. Demand was so strong that printers worked in teams to produce folios that were then bound together, sometimes even in the wrong order. There were also some notorious misprints, of which the most celebrated appears in the Wicked Bible, where the word “not” is omitted from the Seventh Commandment, thereby making adultery compulsory.[iv] The other error which cheers up members of the Stationers’ Company (who were heavily involved in the original production) comes in Psalm 119, which reads “Printers have persecuted me without a cause”, which should of course read “princes”.[v]
The other problem lies with the use of language which, however sacred, is also archaic. The King James Bible had the ring of earlier times to it quite deliberately, as about 80% of it is drawn from Tyndale’s efforts of eighty years before, which in turn draws on a surprising amount of Wyclif, so the problem is likely to be even more acute four hundred years later. I well recall my daughter coming back proudly from Sunday School at the age of 7, and telling me that she had learnt the Lord’s Prayer. There was a pause, and she asked, “Daddy, you know ‘Give us this day our daily bread?’ Yes... “Well, is this why we call God Jehovis?” Worse (or quite possibly better) came from her little friend who solemnly assured me that she knew God’s first name. I thought I had better ask, and she said, “It’s Harold”. Harold? Indeed – it is in the Lord’s Prayer too: “Our Father which art in Heaven, Harold be thy Name...” As someone more versed in theology than me once said, “Out of the mouths of babes and infants....” [vi]
It does however indicate a practical difficulty, and this is a topic that we will be able to discuss today. Even if the tone and style of the King James version were slightly archaic,[vii] the translators say in the preface, “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”, which in turn echoes Tyndale’s point about the boy who drives the plough.[viii]
It is perhaps for this reason that the companies of translators who met at Stationers’ Hall in 1611 to finalise their work read it out loud to each other. Certainly there are verses which are pure iambic pentameters, and there is a legend that Shakespeare himself translated Psalm 46, but the text has a resonance which gives it power to this day in everywhere from school assembly to the local parish church. I was put in mind of this a few years ago, when I was due to go into hospital for a small operation. The text in church that Sunday was John 5:8, Take up Thy Bed and Walk,[ix] which I took to be a good omen. However, in the New Revised Standard Version of 1989 we are given Pick up your Stretcher and Go Off Home. Now, if anyone were to say to me, “Take up thy bed and walk”, believe me I would. But if anyone were to say Pick up your Stretcher and Go Off Home, I would probably reply, “Oh, OK then, if you say so.” It just does not have the same impact, does it? There are so many phrases that people know almost instinctively, and people are very slow to accept change, as with the modern Anglican rendition of the Lord’s Prayer or the controversy arising from the new translation of the Roman Missal, which have both left a lot of people feeling uncomfortable in the pews.[x]
We should also perhaps take note of other sources of religious inspiration, which in turn draw on the King James text, and which all form part of a single spectrum: Pilgrim’s Progress, and Hymns Ancient and Modern.
John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress was published in 1678. It was translated into 200 languages and has never been out of print. It has added phrases to the language such as the The Slough of Despond and The Celestial City, and reinforced well-known biblical quotations such as the Valley of the Shadow of Death, let alone that bit about hobgoblins and foul fiends in verse 4.[xi]
The impact of favourite hymns drawn from the King James text, should not be under-estimated as a way of keeping particular lines in the popular mind, and this has perhaps reinforced their role in the wider language. Psalm 23 and “The Lord’s My Shepherd” are prime examples. Of the books in the Bible, John wins by a short head over Luke, having given us such favourites as “O Come All Ye Faithful”, “Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer”, “The King Of Love My Shepherd Is” and “Rock Of Ages”.[xii]
Hymn singing, of course, was much more part of everyday life even a few years ago, and the constant repetition of verses to memorable tunes will undoubtedly have stayed in people’s minds, even if popular hymns such as “Love Divine All Loves Excelling” is not easy reading for the very young. I often wonder how many of the memorable words and phrases identified by David Crystal have in fact crystallised in the popular language via well-known hymns.
Today we have a panel of experts to look at the language of the Authorized Version, the King James Bible. We will be looking at it from a number of angles, culminating in a debate at the end of the afternoon, as to whether the KJB is great literature or a divine source.
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[i] See Appendix 1 of Begat (OUP 2010).
[ii] See Gordon Campbell (2010) Bible: the story of the King James Version, 2010, Appendix 1 page 276.
[iii] Melvyn Bragg (2003) The Adventure of English Sceptre p29.
[iv] The printer, Robert Barker, was actually Master of the Stationers’ Company. He spent two years in the Tower of London, not as a punishment so much as to keep him safe from his wife.
[v] For a full list of misprints see Bible Errata in Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_errata#King_James
[vi]Psalm 8 verse 2. Actually the KJV has “babes and sucklings”. “Suffer little children” (which also springs to mind) occurs twice, in Matthew 19:14 and Luke 18:16.
[vii] Bragg 2003 page 134.
[viii] This refers to the level of illiteracy in England at the time, which in the view of Thomas More and others made an English version of the Bible unnecessary.
[ix] When Christ visits the pool of Bethesda and cures the man who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
[x] See http://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogsub.php?id=176&ti=17for some forthright views from rank and file Catholics.
[xi] Bunyan himself, of course, wrote “He who would valiant be” as a hymn, even though it first appeared as a poem in Pilgrim’s Progress, with the opening line of “He who would true valour see”, quoted by Mr Valiant-for-Truth to Mr Greatheart. He re-wrote it as the hymn we know as “He who would valiant be”, but this was revised for the English Hymnal in 1906 by the Rev. Dr Percy Dearmer, with help from Ralph Vaughan Williams, who composed the tune. He it was who switched the first line back to He who would true valour see, and cut out the hobgoblins and foul fiends who appear memorably in the fourth verse of the original.
[xii] See the useful scriptural index of the Catholic Celebration Hymnal for Everyone, McCrimmon 1994, pages 329 – 338.
Revd Colin Sedgwick urges a critical reconsideration of the place of the King James Bible within modern Christianity. Is its stylistic or literary merit upheld at the cost of accessibility or intelligibility? What are the alternatives?
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DUMBING DOWN OR SHARPENING UP? –
THE CHURCH’S ABANDONMENT OF THE KING JAMES VERSION
Revd Colin Sedgwick
Prof Gordon Campbell of Leicester Univ has written an excellent book to chime in with the 400th Anniversary of the KJV. It is called simply “Bible: the story of the King James Version”, but it takes us up to our own time, and introduces us to the many modern translations. I recommend it, and am happy to acknowledge my debt to it in preparing for this afternoon.
However, as Prof Campbell comes to the climax of his book he demonstrates, I believe, that even hard-headed and learned scholars can become just a little dewy-eyed and sentimental. Here are his closing words: “...the KJV is the fountain head of Bible translations into English, and, although the finest modern translations are models of good scholarly practice, they are admired rather than loved. It is the KJV that has been loved by generations of those who have listened to it or read it to themselves or to others; other translations may engage the mind, but the KJV is the Bible of the heart.”
I humbly beg to differ. Having moved in Christian circles for most of my life, I can only say that this would apply to only a tiny minority of people. In the church of which I am minister I know of only one person who routinely reads the KJV, and I don’t think even she would describe it as “the Bible of the heart”.
May I be a little personal for a few minutes? – I do, after all, as a local minister, come at this subject from a personal rather than a scholarly perspective. When I was a rather spotty 15-year old I made a decision – the biggest decision I have ever made – which changed the whole course of my life. I decided to become a Christian. I don’t come from a Christian background. My father liked to call himself an agnostic, and my mother, while she would have been deeply shocked at any suggestion that she wasn’t a Christian, was not a church-attender and had a faith which was largely nominal. My older brother and I were packed off to Sunday School on a Sunday afternoon, and I don’t think I am doing my parents too great an injustice when I say that a large part of the motive was to ensure a couple of hours of peace and quiet. But they got more than they bargained for! Both my brother and I became Christians – my brother today is an Anglican and I, fifty years on, a Baptist minister.
I shouldn’t really impugn my parents’ motives, for, to be honest, I can’t claim that my own were entirely unmixed. The local church to which we were sent had a good number of young people, including, of course, some extremely nice girls. We used to sing a hymn in those days, “Oh Jesus, I have promised to serve thee to the end...” It contained the line “My hope to follow duly is in thy strength alone.”Now it just so happened that one of the nicest girls was called Julie, so I leave you to imagine the furtive smiles exchanged between us adolescent boys as we piously sang “My hope to follow Julie...”
Well, I didn’t ever in fact follow Julie. But there were plenty of others who might be described, in terms of present-day university entrance procedures, as “insurance”. And I remember the first present I ever received from a girl-friend. What was it? A Beatles record. No. A tie? No. A book? No. It was a Bible. And what version? Well, there was only one version: The King James Version – or, as it used to be called in those days, the Authorised Version. (Nobody ever thought to explain to us that the person doing the “authorising” was not in fact God but King James 1 – I suspect that there are many people still around today labouring under the same misapprehension.)
I remember, as a new-born Christian, devouring this Bible hungrily – underlining verses, writing notes in the margin, soaking it up. Yes, there were rumours that there were other Bibles around. I remember the names of Moffat, Knox, Weymouth being mentioned, but the AV was indisputably the real Bible. We heard too of an Anglican active at that time in putting Paul’s letters and the gospels into modern English. His name was JB Phillips. But, we were warned, his versions were not really translations; they were paraphrases, and that was something very different.
Three years later I made another life-changing decision. My main subject at school was English, and it was assumed that if I went to university that was what I would read. But I had already decided that I wanted to be a preacher – and if you were going to be a preacher, well, it had to be theology, didn’t it? And so I arrived at university, a very lamb among wolves, with O-level Latin, a mere smidgeon of Greek, hastily imparted to me in a matter of weeks by the Latin teacher, and just about nothing of ancient history or the classics. It was quite frightening, but all I could do was take a deep breath and plunge headlong in. It reminds me now of a comment made by my wife when she was expecting our first child: she described pregnancy as like a parachute jump – once you’ve started, there’s no going back. And getting involved in scholarship, even at that very elementary level, is somewhat similar. Once you have started grappling with the biblical languages and questions of authorship, dating, interpretation, etc etc you can never regain your previous innocence – you might just as well try to put the toothpaste back in the tube or to unscramble eggs. It cannot be done.
I speedily learned that questions about English translations were pretty much irrelevant now, as I sweated at my little desk over my basic introduction to NT Greek. I remember receiving what was intended as a word of encouragement from one of the most frighteningly learned and erudite people I have ever met, Dr Austin Farrer: “Do remember, Mr Sedgwick, that languages are not learned with the mind; they are absorbed through the pores...” I know what he meant, but I’m not sure it was quite as simple as that. Perhaps my pores just weren’t quite porous enough.
Fast-forward five more years, and I am ordained as a Baptist minister and come to my first church. Another big decision – to persuade the church it was time to buy pew-Bibles. Relying on people to bring their own, a once-common practice, was unrealistic, and the sight of people sitting with glazed eyes while a perhaps quite difficult passage from Paul was read, was intolerable. It was quite literally a waste of time. But if we did buy Bibles, what version should they be? I plumped for the Revised Standard Version. There was, of course, resistance to abandoning the KJV. “I think we should stick with the original”, I was told by a stalwart of the church, a fine Christian man – who had obviously never learned that that not only was the KJV not “the original”, but that it was not even the first English translation; many had gone before. (Indeed, the KJV translators were very clear that they were not seeking to produce a new translation but simply a revision. We aim, they said, “not to make a new translation but to make a good one better”.)
Well, I prevailed in persuading the church thus, and, shocking though this may seem, I have virtually never opened a KJV since. Indeed, even the RSV didn’t last that long, for, updated though it no doubt was, the big step had not been taken of replacing the thees and thous with you. (Archaisms such as these, incidentally, were archaic even to the translators of the KJV.) The New International Version came along and became, I believe, one of the most popular versions, especially in the largely evangelical circles in which I moved and still move.
And so to the question in the title of this lecture: Was this act of abandoning the KJV irresponsible? Were we guilty of betraying our heritage? Was it a case of dumbing down? Or were we in fact showing good sense in sharpening up our act? When I use the word “we” I do of course include the church at large, of all the various denominations. I think at this point I can do no better than read a column I contributed to the Times in February this year... [“Gloriously unusable”]
I mention there that there are two main things that have to be borne in mind when it comes to translations: accuracy and intelligibility.
As regards accuracy, the KJV (so they tell me: I am no authority) stands up well. But scholarship moves on very fast, and inevitably renders some translations obsolete, or at least open to new possibilities. Let me suggest just one example. An interesting change that has occurred in many modern translations is in the Lord’s Prayer with the words “lead us not into temptation”. Even a person with scant understanding of scholarly matters might find that a little perplexing if it were not so familiar: would a good God, a God who is “our Father”, ever lead us into temptation? Like leading an alcoholic intro a pub. Why would he do such a thing? What many people cannot be expected to understand – how should they? they haven’t had the advantage of studying this at any kind of serious level - is that the Greek word used here, peirasmos, is infuriatingly ambiguous. It may mean temptation in the moral sense – enticement to do evil – or it may mean “testing” in a neutral sense. True, we cannot say that the KJV translators were actually inaccurate here – their translation is technically possible. But further scholarly consideration of that ambiguity seems to have tipped the scales the other way: “Do not bring us to the time of trial” (NRSV); “Do not bring us to hard testing” (LB); “Do not bring us to the test” (NEB); “Don’t bring us to the great Trial” (Tom Wright). In this respect the KJV would appear to have yielded the field to the modern translations.
The problem with any translation is that it becomes “frozen”. Like the telephone directory, the moment it is published it is out of date somewhere. And this is why, even though the recent avalanche of Bible translations may be rather bewildering – Scouse Bibles, Cockney Bibles, Youth Bibles, Women’s Bibles, Men’s Bibles, you name it, it will be there somewhere – they are nonetheless to be welcomed. So much for the question of accuracy.
It is, of course, in the area of intelligibility that real problems arise. Language changes to such a degree that even words in use thirty years ago are now out of date and unintelligible. I read recently of a revision of a major dictionary that has decided to jettison certain words – “charabanc” springs to mind – because they fallen out of use. Sad? Yes, indeed, but necessary; you can’t have a working dictionary that expands ad infinitum. Ask anyone over forty what a mouse is, and they will probably have no hesitation in describing a small four-footed rodent. But ask a child under fifteen and you are likely to receive a very different answer: the gadget I use to work my computer. At what point does that latter meaning become the primary meaning of the word?
Even as a very young Christian I remember being puzzled by simple ambiguities in the KJV text. “Drink ye all of it,” says Jesus to his disciples at the last supper. And I used to wonder what might happen to me if I left some? “All of you, drink this” clears it up nicely. Paul tells the Christians of Rome that he has long wanted to visit them, but “was let hitherto”. He was “let”? Well, what was the problem then? Let him get on with it. But the Greek word koluo means precisely the opposite of what we now mean by let (setting apart the legal phrase “without let or hindrance”): it means “prevented”.
These are no doubt trivial examples. But they illustrate the great difficulty involved in seeking to enable the ordinary “man or woman in the pew” to understand the Bible. Good modern translations are vital. Indeed, the fact that some years ago a New King James Version (NKJV) appeared on the market (though I personally have never met anyone who uses it) seems a tacit acceptance that the original KJV is no longer what is needed.
But of course the literary defenders of the KJV (I’m not speaking now of the extreme evangelical and fundamentalist wings, especially prominent in America) rest their case not so much on matters of accuracy or even intelligibility, but on the undoubted beauty of much of its language. It is the stylistic factor that predominates. Much is made, and quite rightly, of the many memorable phrases the KJV has bequeathed to the English we still use, often without realising it, today.
But even here we need to be careful. In many such instances, as the KJV translators were perfectly happy to recognise, the credit is barely due to them. They knew very well that they were climbing on the shoulders of some true giants.
Take, for example, the famous words of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane: “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak”. Wonderful KJV! But now go back nearly a hundred years, to the translation of William Tyndale. How does he render this verse? “Watch and pray, that ye fall not into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”. A difference of just two words. Or what about the words of old Simeon as he cradles the infant Jesus in his arms? KJV has: “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word”. And what does Tyndale give us? “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy promise”. A difference – and surely not a very significant one - of just one word.
Any suggestion that the KJV was ushering into our language all these wonderfully memorable phrases is simply mistaken. Prof Campbell offers the startling observation: “... it has been estimated that 83% of the KJV published in 1611 derives from Tyndale, either directly or indirectly through other Bibles”. That statistic is worth serious contemplation. I’m afraid I haven’t read Prof David Crystal’s book “Begat”, but I believe that this too redresses the balance somewhat in this area.
To say all this is not, of course, in any way to discredit the KJV or its translators. Most certainly not. It is simply to point out that the KJV has been the recipient of much adulation (adulation which, I repeat yet again, it never wanted or asked for) to which it really has no right – that the regular statements we hear about the profound influence of the KJV upon our language are seriously overblown. Suppose King James had in fact never encouraged this version to be produced? Would all these memorable phrases have faded into obscurity? It seems highly unlikely.
I speak, of course, as a practising Christian (horrible phrase, but you know what I mean). And so I find welcome support in those among the Christian intelligentsia who have seen fit to comment on this misguided emphasis on the Bible as literary treasure as opposed to sacred text. Some have found it intensely irritating. Listen to CS Lewis, that crusty old iconoclast, on the matter of the KJV’s “rhythms” and “cadences”: “I am not at all sure that resemblance in rhythm, unless supported by some other resemblance, is usually recognisable. If I say [typical Lewis, this!] ‘At the regatta Madge avoided the river and the crowd’ would this, without warning, remind you of ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth’?” (Lewis, of course, has contrived a sentence exactly equivalent to Genesis 1:1 in both word-number and syllables per word.)
In other words, the rhythm is inherent in the meaning of the words: the fact that exactly the same rhythm applies to something majestic, as in Genesis 1, and to something merely commonplace, as in Lewis’ illustration, is purely coincidental. Lewis, in fact, energetically opposes any notion of “The Bible designed to be read as literature”: it is, he says, “not merely a sacred book but a book so remorselessly and continuously sacred that it does not invite, it excludes or repels, the merely aesthetic approach. You can read it as literature only by a tour de force. You are cutting the wood against the grain, using the tool for a purpose it was not intended to serve.” Putting it very simply, Lewis says, “I cannot help suspecting... that those who read the Bible as literature do not read the Bible at all”.
Richard Dawkins, the Prince of Wales and the late Michael Foot are names that come to mind, in spite, in two cases, of their atheism or agnosticism, as lamenting the demise of the KJV, or at least being keen on its preservation. Well, rather that the Bible be read “as literature” than not read at all – who knows when someone might be converted! But, if Lewis is right, they are missing the very point of reading it in the first place – rather like people who go to watch a thriller and come away only able to enthuse about the camera work and the scenery.
TS Eliot is equally scathing: “Those who talk about the Bible as a ‘monument of English prose’ are merely admiring it as a monument over the grave of Christianity... The Bible has a literary influence upon English literature not because it has been considered as literature, but because it has been considered as the report of the Word of God”.
My wife and I, if we are looking for a day out, sometimes visit one of those “living” or “working” museums. It’s a nice experience: you can wander around a re-created village and watch, say, a blacksmith at his forge, a woman with a long dress and pinafore baking at a primitive oven, a farmer feeding his pigs. If you feel like an ice cream you can stop a boy on an ancient bike, dressed in knickerbockers and corduroy cap, who will offer you the contents of a big square box on his handle bars. Yes, they’re good places, these living museums. But would you want to live permanently in one? No running water...? no electricity...? The problem with those who value the Bible largely for its literary value is that their model of the church is all wrong: they may not realise it, but in effect they see it as living museum rather than as living community: nice for a visit, nice to sentimentalise over, but of no great practical value.
Does this mean there is no place for the KJV? No: but, from the point of view of the believing Christian, that place must be seen for what it is: the realm of the scholar, the aesthete, the museum curator. The KJV is a wonderful book, but it is not a working book. And the church, if it is anything at all, is a working body, people coming together out of a shared faith in the events to which the Bible, and the Bible alone, bears testimony.
Of course, someone may very well say, “Well, it’s now forty or more years since this wholesale act of abandonment took place. But look what’s happened since! Can you honestly claim that it has achieved anything worthwhile? Don’t we keep hearing statistics that show that the church is shrinking fast? Shouldn’t all this modernisation have led by now to a resurgence of interest in the church and in Christian things?”
A fair point. One, indeed, which deserves another lecture to itself. All I would say at this point is that the numerical decline in the church is attributable to a whole range of factors - the increasing secularisation of our society - the worship of the great god materialism - being very much to the fore. And while it would of course be impossible to prove this, there is no doubt in my mind that things would be very much worse if the church had clung stubbornly to the KJV. I might just add also that if we look around for churches which are bucking this modern trend of decline they are very likely (I don’t say absolutely necessarily) to be the churches that have whole-heartedly embraced the modern idiom, not only in the Bibles they use but also in their music, their dress codes and all sorts of other things. (If I may digress for a moment, I cannot resist commenting that dismissive remarks about “happy-clappy” churches are often grossly unfair. I do not think of myself as a “charismatic”, certainly not a happy-clappy, but I can only respect the fact that many of these churches are the ones making meaningful contact with the drug addicts and gang-members. Often it is these church members who are out in the town centres in the early hours of a Saturday morning as “street pastors”, picking drunken youngsters out of the gutters, giving flip-flops to girls who can no longer stand on their spindly heels, and offering soup to drink and perhaps a shoulder to cry on. It isn’t all froth and bubble...) End of digression.
So... was the church’s abandonment of the KJV an act of dumbing down, or an exercise in sharpening up? Everything hinges on whether you view the Bible as literary artefact or as inspired scripture. You won’t be in any doubt as to my view of the matter. Looking back now, there seems to have been an absolute inevitability about the process – the wonder really is that the church stayed with the KJV so long. I yield to no-one (as they say) in my admiration for the KJV and those who produced it. Thank God for it, and for them. But let’s not fool ourselves that it remains a practical working Bible today.
Professor David Ford presents his research into the hermeneutics of Bible translation.
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26th September 2011
Ancient and Modern: Ongoing Translation of the Bible
David F. Ford
Regius Professor of Divinity and Director, Cambridge Inter-faith Programme, University of Cambridge
When King Henry VIII founded my chair of Divinity in 1540 he also founded two others: the Regius Professorships of Hebrew and Greek. His vision of the Church required scholarship in the Biblical languages and sound translation into English, and, when the teams for the King James Bible were selected, the Cambridge University Regius Professors of Hebrew and Greek at the time were given leading roles. But I want now to approach our topic of ongoing translation of the Bible from the standpoint of mine, the third Regius chair, that of Divinity or theology. I see theology as needing to take account of what the scholars of Hebrew and Greek tell us, but also being concerned with how to cope today with the superabundant meaning of the Bible. A key element in this is appreciating what is involved in translation and allowing that grappling with the language of the Bible to contribute to the generating of contemporary understanding, imagination and action.
A great deal is at stake in this. The Bible is a good example of the old maxim, ‘the corruption of the best is the worst’. It has been, and still is, subject to terrible abuses, distortions, misrepresentations, prejudices, manipulations, deconstructions, ideological appropriations, and so on. In the avoidance or correction of these corruptions a wise approach to translation is only one element, though it is vital. In the very short time available now I will approach it from two angles: first, I will draw on my experience as a working Christian theologian who has done a good deal of interpretation of the Bible in many contexts – in academic works, in the Church and in inter-faith engagements; second, I will look at the big picture of the ongoing translation of the Bible today and in particular comment on two transformative developments during the past fifty years. And there will be a final theological thought about all this.
2 Corinthians, LXX and ‘libertie in differences of readings’
Let us plunge into a specific text, Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. I once spent five years working with a then colleague in the University of Birmingham, Frances Young, on a book called Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians.[1] We wanted partly to try to unite modern biblical scholarly methods with recent work on hermeneutics (the art and theory of interpretation) – a blunt way of describing the difference between these is that scholarship does an archaeology of the text, investigating its meaning and context back there then when it was written, while hermeneutics is interested more in its ongoing meaning in different contexts down the centuries, and especially today. But we also wanted to do contemporary theology – to ask, for example, in dialogue with this letter, about what authority is now or who God is for us – hence the ‘truth’ in our title. They were five fascinating years, at the end of which we felt we had barely scratched the surface of this short, extraordinarily dense text. But one of the things that stood out was the rightness of our decision to make our own translation of the letter. It was precisely as we wrestled with Paul’s sometimes very difficult Greek that we were led to face not only the scholarly and hermeneutical questions but also the big theological questions.
Let us look at 2 Corinthians 8-9, which you have in a handout in Greek and in four translations, King James Version, New Revised Standard Version, Amplified Bible and the one by Frances Young and myself. I have printed in bold one recurrent word, charis, in the Greek, and its various translations into English. You can see that KJV uses three words: grace, gift and thanks. NRSV uses six: grace, privilege, generous undertaking, generous act, thanks and blessing. Amplified uses thirteen: grace, favour, spiritual blessing, beneficent and gracious contribution, gracious work, kindness, gracious generosity, undeserved favour, thanks, bountiful contribution, earthly blessing,mercy and gift. Frances and I use three: grace, thanks and gracious task. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. The problem is that Paul is talking about a collection of money being made for the church in Jerusalem but is describing it not only as charis but also by other terms that, like charis, are woven into his gospel and theology. He never actually uses the literal word for ‘collection’ (logeia) that he employs in 1 Corinthians (16:1, 2), but instead an array of theologically loaded words that yet can also refer to the literal collection – they are the words underlined in Greek and English.[2]
What is happening in these powerful chapters? Exploring how the divine economy of superabundance relates to human finances and generosity was one of the lift-off points for our discussions, both with each other and in the seminars that we led on 2 Corinthians, and it became a chapter on ‘The Economy of God’. The point for now is that Paul is taking core terms and ideas from his message of Jesus Christ and is simultaneously speaking of his fund-raising for the Jerusalem Church, so that thinking about the Gospel and thinking about money are inextricable. The language of the Gospel is stretched to embrace finances and the language of wealth and poverty is stretched to embrace the Gospel: ‘For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for you he became poor though he was rich, so that you might become rich through his poverty.’ (2 Cor. 8:9) The problem is this stretching of language is often the despair of translators. As we wrestled with our translation we found with relief the statement of the great Yale New Testament scholar Nils Dahl: ‘He expresses himself in a way that is impossible to translate’.[3] How appropriate is the culminating cry of the wonderful finale in Chapter 10: ‘charis be to God for his anekdiegeto gift’ – meaning unspeakable, or indescribable, or inexpressible gift.
All translation faces these sorts of difficulties, and is endlessly negotiating problematic compromises between being faithful and understandable, the literal and the paraphrase, prosaic accuracy and poetic beauty, leaving a metaphor stand or interpreting it for a different culture or period. Does ‘charis’ stay as ‘grace’ in most contexts, or do you translate ‘generous contribution’? A key recurrent issue is that of functional equivalence – what might get across a similar message with similar force in another culture? ‘Do not lead a bad person into temptation’ might be rendered in the South African Tsonga language as ‘Don’t throw a mouse into a granary of monkey nuts’. If ‘beating the breast’ expresses self-assurance and aggressiveness in Batswana, should you instead use the equivalent expression, ‘taking hold of the beard’?[4]
In Paul there is a further complication and enrichment: he is himself using a scripture that is in translation. The Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek in Alexandria by Jewish scholars a couple of hundred years before his time, and this translation, known as the Septuagint (LXX) was what he usually quoted. I remember an excited phone call from Frances Young the day she discovered that underlying a string of statements in 2 Cor. 4-5 were the Septuagint translations of Psalms 110-118, and that this greatly affected our understanding of what Paul meant.[5] Since that time I have become increasingly fascinated by the Septuagint and how differently I read the New Testament when I know better the translation of their Bible that most of its authors used. This most ancient of all translations of the Hebrew Bible is, like all translations, also an interpretation, and in my experience is always worth consulting alongside the Hebrew and English translations.
For example, I am working at present on a theological commentary on the Gospel of John and have been struck by how many allusions to the Septuagint I have discovered – my present focus being on the way the Greek of the books of Genesis and Isaiah permeates this Gospel. Another example is in the practice of Scriptural Reasoning, something I have been part of for the past fifteen years or so, in which Jews, Christians and Muslims study their scriptures together. The Septuagint, as a Jewish translation of the book that was the Bible of the Jewish authors of the New Testament, is an excellent intermediary between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, and again and again it illuminates both the Hebrew and the Greek New Testament.
One further thought relates to the King James Version. You will notice that in translating charis in 2 Cor. 8-9 Frances Young and I were far nearer to the KJV than to the NRSV. Some years after we published that book I was invited to be part of a team doing the opening and closing plenary sessions of the 1998 Lambeth Conference for the bishops of the Anglican Communion. The theme text of the conference was 2 Corinthians, and our group studied and discussed the letter intensively in preparation for the conference. One member suggested we use the KJV for this, and it proved to be extraordinarily fruitful: again and again it helped generate illuminating discussion and insight. That and other experiences with the KJV have convinced me that its combination of virtues (which need not be rehearsed here) make it irreplaceable as a text through which to think, imagine and discuss. I love my Precise Parallel New Testament that allows one to read seven translations alongside the Greek, and it is very often the KJV that is most generative.[6] This is a new role in the period after it has lost its virtual monopoly standing. That monopoly is obviously not going to be restored, but in this new, irreversibly pluralist setting of many translations it can more than hold its own. And in the superb Introduction to the 1611 edition addressed by the translators to the reader we read: ‘They that are wise, had rather have their judgements at libertie in differences of readings, then to be captivated to one, when it may be the other.’ This in the context refers to noting variant readings in the manuscripts underlying the translation, but it might also apply mutatis mutandis to the plurality of translations, interpretations and even theologies. I like the picture of being at liberty among many readings, with the task being to learn how, through considering and discussing them, to exercise wise and responsible discernment.
The Bible amidst 6600 languages in an electronic age
I now turn to the big picture of the Bible and its translations in the twenty-first century world.
In your handout you can see a statistical summary: 6600 languages among the world’s 6.9 billion people; 2500 languages have some part of the Bible in translation; there are 2000 more languages into which the Bible is now in the process of being translated; and there are 2252 languages spoken by 353 million people into which translation has not yet begun. And note the graph showing the change during the past 1900 years. This has not been a matter of steady expansion; rather, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there was a leap from 81 in 1800 to 2500 in 2011. A key factor in this was the development of Bible Societies. Note too the leap within the leap: translations more than doubled since 1950 after the United Bible Societies was formed.
There is a further major factor not included in the handout’s statistics and graph: a great many of the post-1950 translations have been done through collaborations between different churches. The Bible Societies have for most of their history been very Protestant organizations. The changed situation was brought home to me last April when I was in Rome giving a lecture and met for a morning with the head of the Italian Bible Society there, a Waldensian Protestant. The picture he gave was full of collaborations with Roman Catholic organizations, scholars and dioceses. And this is happening worldwide – I had not realized that one of the fastest growing practices among young Catholics in South America is the meditative reading of scripture together called lectio divina, or that the Bible Society resources this extensively.
Exploring and assessing this big picture could take many hours, but now I want to make two basic points.
(i) Catholics and the Bible
The first is the immense importance of the new way the Roman Catholic Church has related to the Bible since the middle of the twentieth century, and especially since the Second Vatican Council (1962 - 65 ). One of the main pronouncements of the Council was Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, a key document in the ressourcement (renewed engagement with sources) that was so important in twentieth-century Catholicism, profoundly affecting its liturgy, ecclesiology, religious orders, spirituality, theological and religious education, and much else.[7] In particular, Dei Verbum strongly affirmed the importance of the Bible together with tradition and Church teaching. It emphatically encouraged study of the Bible by laity, clergy and religious, scholars and theologians; it insisted on the vital importance of the Bible for preaching, catechetics and Christian instruction; it hoped for ‘a new surge of spiritual vitality from intensified veneration for God’s word…’, and it stressed the importance of good translations and of cooperating with other Christians in producing them.[8] Such cooperation accelerated in the years following, making a major contribution to the statistics just quoted. The post-Vatican II Catholic re-engagement with the scriptures has perhaps been the most important single event in the reception of the Bible in the past century, and its scope and quality have been greatly enhanced by new translations, mostly done in cooperation with other churches.
These went hand in hand with new Catholic liturgies. The change to Mass in the vernacular meant that people heard far more of the Bible in their own language, and new translations allowed scriptural references to speak more clearly; changes in the lectionary greatly increased exposure to the New Testament (from roughly a third of it to more that four-fifths in the course of a year) and to the Old Testament (an even greater proportional increase); and priests were expected to preach on the readings. Vernacular liturgies and accompanying lectionaries are an effective way of making sure not only that the Bible is translated but also that the translations are read and heard by ordinary people.
The most recent major official event in the new Catholic reception of the Bible has been the 2008 General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church.[9] Again, the importance of good translations made in collaboration with other Christians was strongly affirmed, as it was also in Pope Benedict XVI’s lengthy response to the Synod. This situation of the greatly enhanced role of the Bible among the world’s billion or so Roman Catholics would have been unimaginable in the first half of the twentieth century, and it deserves far greater recognition. If it is put together with that huge number of new translations, the widespread distribution of mass-produced Bibles among ordinary Christians of all churches (especially striking in the southern hemisphere, where most Christians now live), and the avid Bible-reading inspired by the twentieth century seeing the largest single religious movement in history, as probably over 300 million people have become Pentecostals or charismatics, the ongoing translation of the Bible can be recognized as a vital element in a long-term change in the religious ecology of our world. But at the same time it emphasizes what I said at the beginning of this lecture about the corruption of the best being the worst. In a world where there is much ignorant, dangerous and foolish use of the Bible it becomes all the more important to try, in every way possible, to seek and encourage ways of reading, understanding and applying the Bible that are intelligent, responsible and wise.
(ii) The Electronic Bible
The second point is about the electronic Bible.
New technologies obviously help in making the Bible available around the world in unprecedented ways – you can have the Bible on your computer, your kindle or i-pad, your smart phone, your i-pod, and so on. In these forms it is often more portable, shareable and searchable, and can be audible as well as readable. In addition, there can be massive additional resources for understanding the text available at the click of a mouse. Such technological developments are always two-edged, but I suspect that their positive intellectual, imaginative and spiritual potential in relation to the Bible has hardly begun to be conceived, let alone incorporated into the sorts of habitual practices of study, thought, meditation, prayer and practical application that enable scriptural traditions to flourish and renew themselves.
These new technologies also have a huge impact on the practice of translating the Bible. Almost all Bible translation projects use a comprehensive translation and editing suite called Paratext, which can work with any natural language. It monitors the translation as it is created, running consistency checks (e.g. - How has charis been translated elsewhere?), generating an interlinear translation for checking and review, and eventually exporting the text direct into the typesetting system.[10] A companion software platform called Concordance Builder helps produce a concordance from the translation, so that it comes with that invaluable tool for serious students of scripture.
Such platforms are part of what is sometimes now called ‘digital humanities’, one of the fastest growing areas of information technology in universities and related institutions. The more sophisticated the technology the more demanding are the tasks of devising and writing programmes and then using their immense capacity in scholarship. In my experience the thousands of operations that a package such as Bibleworks or Accordance enables are only employed by a tiny minority of users: to get the best out of them requires something like the application and practice needed to learn a new language.
I will give one example from my own current work with just one of the many innovative projects happening in this area. The Cambridge Inter-faith Programme, which I direct, has for some years been working with a Californian company called Meedan to make Nurani, an online platform suited to various types of inter-faith engagement served by high quality translation between Arabic and English. Besides being used to bring leaders and commentators into dialogue across this language barrier, most effort (now being funded by this country’s Research Councils in conjunction with the Coexist Foundation) is going into bringing the practice of Scriptural Reasoning online in Arabic and English. This requires, for example, software that not only helps in translating Arabic into English but which also recognizes when the Arabic is from the Qur’an or Hadith. In Scriptural Reasoning discussions, scriptures are often quoted or paraphrased, and in addition many other types of discourse may be used – history, philosophy, law, literary criticism, economics, and so on. The challenge of translating this sort of discussion in such a way that both Arabic and English speakers can grasp as much as possible of each other’s meaning and range of reference includes being able to translate scripture when it is interwoven with the other discourses. The final translation of such complex language has to be by a skilled interpreter, but with the digital assistance of a programme that can work in Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, English and other languages, and also allow for rapid critical response by others online in different countries.
For many of us involved in inter-faith encounter between Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Scriptural Reasoning has been a practice that has exemplified the best form of engagement – one that, through study and conversation around the three scriptures, allows participants to go deeper into the faiths of others, deeper into their own faith, and deeper into discerning what might serve the common good of our world. Each is able to stand within his or her own tradition and to face differences together as well as discover what is shared. And one thing that is evident in every one of these small group sessions gathered around the three texts is how utterly central translation is. What Frances Young and I discovered as we translated 2 Corinthians is repeated many times over in these Scriptural Reasoning groups, where often there are some members who know Hebrew, Greek and Arabic: wrestling with translation raises profound questions of meaning, truth and practice. And if these are at the same time being wrestled with by those of other faiths as well as your own and even by those who do not identify with any faith, the challenges of being at liberty among many readings can, at its best, lead to a shared wisdom-seeking through interpreting scriptures together. This has considerable potential for good in a world where there is much ignorant, foolish and dangerous interpretation of the scriptures of all traditions.
Conclusion: ‘… a whole paradise of trees of life …’
In conclusion, in this year celebrating the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, I want to quote one of my favourite parts of the Introduction to the first 1611 edition. It evokes the worlds of classical Greece and Rome that were so much part of the translators’ culture in the aftermath of the Renaissance; it shows their savouring of eloquence and richly imaginative language; it weaves a new tapestry out of scriptural words and imagery; and above all it is a tribute to the superabundance of the Bible, and to the inexhaustible riches of meaning, truth and practical wisdom that the authors had found through their long immersion in the labours of translation:
‘Men talke much of εἰρεσιώνη [eiresione][11], how many sweete and goodly things it had hanging on it; of the Philosphers stone, that it turneth copper into gold; of Cornu-copia, that it had all things necessary for foode in it; of Panaces the herbe, that it was good for all diseases; of Catholicon the drugge, that is in stead of all purges; of Vulcans armour, that is was an armour of proofe against all thrusts, and all blowes, &c. Well, that which they falsly or vainely attributed to these things for bodily good, wee may justly and with full measure ascribe unto the Scripture, for spirituall. It is not onely an armour, but also a whole armorie of weapons, both offensive, and defensive; whereby we may save our selves and put the enemie to flight. It is not an herbe, but a tree, or rather a whole paradise of trees of life, which bring foorth fruit every moneth, and the fruit thereof is for meate, and the leaves for medicine. It is not a pot of Manna, or a cruse of oyle, which were for memorie only, or for a meales meate or two, but as it were a showre of heavenly bread sufficient for a whole host, be it never so great; and as it were a whole cellar full of oyle vessels; whereby all our necessities may be provided for, and our debts discharged. In a word, it is a Panary of holesome foode, against fenowed traditions; a Physions-shop (Saint Basill calleth it) of preservatives against poisoned heresies; a Pandect of profitable lawes, against rebellious spirits; a treasurie of most costly jewels, against beggarly rudiments; Finally a fountaine of most pure water springing up unto everlasting life. And what marvaile? The originall thereof being from heaven, not from earth; the authour being God, not man; the enditer, the holy spirit, not the wit of the Apostles or Prophets; the Pen-men such as were sanctified from the wombe, and endewed with a principall portion of Gods spirit; the matter, veritie, pietie, puritie, uprightnesse; the forme, Gods word, Gods testimonie, Gods oracles, the word of trueth, the word of salvation, &c. the effects, light of understanding, stablenesse of persuasion, repentance from dead workes, newnesse of life, holinesse, peace, joy in the holy Ghost; lastly, the end and reward of the studie thereof, fellowship with the Saints, participation of the heavenly nature, fruition of an inheritance immortall, undefiled, and that never shall fade away: Happie is the man that delighteth in the Scripture, and thrise happie that meditateth in it day and night.’
I hope we too can in our own ways, and in some measure, share in their happiness!
©Professor David Ford, Gresham College 2011
[1]Frances M. Young and David F. Ford, Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians (SPCK, London, 1987; Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1988; reprinted by Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, 2008).
[2]They are: ‘koinōnia(partnership, sharing, fellowship, 8.4; 9.13; cf. Rom. 15.26), diakonia (ministration, service, relief work, 8.4; 9.12, 13; cf. 8.19,20 (the verb diakonein), and Rom 15.31), eulogia (open-handedness, blessing, liberality, willing gift, 9.5; cf. 9.6), leitourgia (service, voluntary public service, priestly religious service, 9. 12; cf. Rom. 15.27), haplotēs (single-minded commitment, simplicity, generosity, 8.2; 9.11, 13), hadrotēs(large sum of money, plentitude, liberal gift, 8.20), perisseuma (overflow, abundance, 8.14), endeixis tēs agapēs hymōn (proof of your love, demonstration of your love, 8.24), sporos (seed-corn, seed, resources, 9.10; cf. 9.6), and ta genēmata tēs dikaiosynēs hymōn (the off-shoots, harvest or yield of your righteousness, 9.10; cf. Hosea 10.12).’ Ibid., pp. 176-7.
[3]Quoted in ibid., p. 176.
[4]Jon Riding, ‘Bible translation in a changing world’, The Bible in Transmission, Bible Society (Summer/Autumn 2011) 11-13 (12).
[5]See Young and Ford, Meaning and Truth, op. cit., pp. 63ff.
[6]The Precise Parallel New Testament, ed. John R. Kohlenberger III (Oxford University Press, New York, 1995).
[7]The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter Abbott SJ (Geoffrey Chapman, London, 1967) pp. 111-28.
[8]Ibid., p. 128.
[9]There has been a series of official documents, notably On the Historical Truth of the Gospels(1964), The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (1993) and The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible (2001) and ‘Let Us Approach the Table of the Word of God’, the concluding message of the 2008 General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church (http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/synod/documents/rc_synod_doc_20080511_instrlabor-xii-assembly_en.html).
[10]Riding, ‘Bible translation’, op. cit., 13.
[11]From Greek mythology – See Plutarch’s Lives, The translation called Dryden’s,vol. 1, ed. A.H. Clough (Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1859) p. 20: ‘Hence, also they carry in procession an olive branch bound about with wool … which they call Eiresione, crowned with all sorts of fruits, to signify that scarcity and barrenness was ceased…’
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Regius Professor of Divinity and founding Director of Inter-Faith Programme at the University of Cambridge.
He is a Fellow of Selwyn College Cambridge.
Revd Colin Sedgwick, Lindsay Park Baptist Church, Kenton, North-West London
An honorary life fellow of Gresham College, Professor Tim Connell was Director of Language Studies at City University London and became an emeritus professor in 2009. He is a...
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