Producing the King James Bible
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The translators had a plan of organization and a carefully crafted set of guidelines, as did their predecessors who worked on the Bishops’ Bible. We know this remarkable group produced a monumental work which would influence not only the future of English Bible translations, but also English literature in all its forms. One wonders, though, if this team realized, as they labored, what a treasure they were producing?
The Translators Go to Work
The vast majority of the translators worked long and hard at their assigned tasks. One example is John Bois, born in Suffolk in 1560, and a Cambridge graduate. It was said that he could read the Hebrew Bible at age six and write the Hebrew alphabet with elegance. He was industrious. As a Cambridge undergraduate, he studied from 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. He turned from a medical career to pursue the humanities and was assigned, as a Fellow of St. John’s College, to the Sixth Company, dealing with the Apocrypha. Bois worked all week at St. John’s, returning to his parish on Saturday to prepare for Sunday’s sermon. Some university men, his biographer infers, did not take kindly to the appointment of a country preacher to this august group. Dr. Bois was also chosen to be among the select group of company representatives who did the final work on the translation and prepared it for press.
Several of the translators worked far into the night every day of the week, sometimes risking their health. John Reynolds, who first inspired the project and eventually died working on the translation, met regularly on his deathbed with his colleagues to compare notes.
Finding the financial resources for all this intellectual manpower was another matter. As the enthusiastic patron of the project, James could have been expected to foot the bills from the royal purse. Fifty or so key intellectuals, academic and ecclesiastical leaders, would devote years of full-time labor to this project. Under better circumstances, stipends would have been provided for them by the king, but after about a year on the throne, James, ever the spendthrift, had exhausted the royal accounts. Ultimately, James never spent a single farthing on his pet project. True to form, he persuaded Bancroft that although he delighted in the translation more than in the recent peace with Spain, and that he personally would gladly have borne the expense, some of his lords did not find this convenient and advised against financing the project.
To make ends meet, the translators were forced to improvise. Bancroft was delegated to do the best he could for them. When the companies met in common session at the universities and Westminster, they received their food and lodging from the host institution, so that much was covered. Bancroft then searched for available ecclesiastical appointments that carried an income while allowing the incumbent free time for translation work.
He persuaded some translators to continue with promises of future appointments or promotions. Bancroft himself was made Archbishop of Canterbury. Lancelot Andrewes became Bishop of Chicester in 1605, Bishop of Ely in 1609, and in 1619 Bishop of Winchester, then the most ancient and richest see in England. Andrewes obtained a justly deserved reputation for hospitality. “My Lord of Winchester,” it was said, “keeps Christmas all year round.”
Most translators, though, simply took time from their regular appointments. Consequently, many dioceses, parishes, and universities ended up subsidizing the translation. Some of the translators suffered financial loss working on the project.
Some financial support came from private business. At the end of the project, twelve key translators representing the 6 companies gathered in London to labor for 9 months on the final revisions. During this period, they each received 3 shillings a week from the Company of Stationers, the printers’ guild. This cash may have come from Robert Barker, who would print this Bible. He later claimed that he paid £2,500—a staggering sum—toward the revision.
Bois was the only one known to take notes at this final revision meeting. They explain in detail how the translators proceeded in their work. These notes were lost from 1688 until 1964, when Professor Ward Allen traced down a handwritten copy among the papers of William Fulham, a seventeenth century antiquarian and collector, whose papers were in the Corpus Christi College Library at Oxford University.
Preparing the Text
The review process so dear to King James proved a blessing. Each talented translator had a chance to put his comments into the mix. When they met for their review sessions, the translators would keep resource and reference works in front of them. One of their number would read the draft text. Others would argue their points, cite their references, put in their judgments. They took their work very seriously. In modern terms, we might say they had a good system of quality control. The king’s personal interest in this project may have motivated them to do their very finest work.
Perhaps the greatest improvement in accuracy came in the Old Testament, because the translators had the advantage of the great strides taken in understanding Hebrew and similar ancient languages since the Geneva version. They also used the following new critical texts well: the Latin Old Testament of Arias Montanus (based on the Hebrew) and the Latin Bible of Junius and Tremellius (from the Hebrew in the Old Testament and the Greek and Syriac for the Apocrypha) published in 1579, Tremellius’ Latin version of the Syriac New Testament, as well as the earlier works by Munster, Pagninus, and Beza. Although the translators applied state-of-the-art scholarship to their task, the most advanced scholars of their day still did not fully understand Hebrew tenses and many Hebrew idioms.
The translators also consulted earlier English versions of the Old Testament. The prophetical books show many changes due to the influence of the Geneva Bible. They made fewer changes from the normative Bishops’ Bible text when working on the historical and poetical books, but these tend to be independent (based on their own judgment), especially in the Apocrypha. In addition, they referred to several recent translations into various European languages.
In hindsight, we can say that for the Greek of the New Testament they were less fortunate. The major manuscript discoveries in this field were not made until the nineteenth century. Instead, they worked with the best critical editions of the text available at their time. They used Tremellius’ Latin version based on the Greek, along with Greek texts prepared by Estienne (also called Stephanus) and Beza. The changes they made in the New Testament translation of the Bishops’ Bible were influenced mostly by the Geneva and Rheims Testaments: the Geneva New Testament for interpretation and the Rheims Testament for vocabulary, which used more Latinisms than earlier versions.
The English of the KJV pulses with the rhythm and vigor of Tyndale and Coverdale from nearly a century before. Professor Laura H. Wild describes the King James text this way:
A few of Wyclif’s phrases are here [in the KJV], but Tyndale is largely responsible for the Bishops’ Bible which was used as its foundation. [Through the Great Bible] Coverdale put his delicate touch on [the KJV, and] the sturdy tone of the Geneva Text and the sonorous Latinisms of the Rhemish New Testament modified certain sentences. But Tyndale was the genius who penetrated to the very heart of the Scripture, finding priceless treasures, then sent it on its way in English waters like a ship laden with life-giving fruits.
Publication
Finally the book was ready. Since the project began in early 1604, about 3 years went into preparatory work, 2 years and 9 months into actual translating, and another 9 months preparing the final manuscript for the press. Thomas Bilson and Miles Smith put the finishing touches on the version. It came out in 1611, from the presses of Robert Barker, the King’s printer. The title reads:
The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New: Newly Translated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Translations diligently compared and reuised, by his Majesties speciall Commandement. Appointed to be read in Churches.
The first edition was a large folio (see note, “Sizes of Books,” Chapter 4). Each page displayed a double-column type block of fifty-nine lines per column measuring 9 by 14 1/2 inches, printed in fine Gothic black letter. Chapter headings, marginal notes, and other material not in the original text were printed in roman letters. In those times, binding was often done to the customer’s order, so the overall size of the page depended on how much the binder trimmed off. Existing copies with wide enough margins for book collectors to identify them as “fine and large” have pages of 10 ½ by 16 ½ inches.
The Bible contained fifteen hundred pages, measuring 3 inches thick without binding. The engraved title page depicted Moses on the left and Aaron on the right, with the Evangelists in the 4 corners. Also worked into the design were the sacred name of God written in Hebrew, a dove symbolizing the Holy Spirit, and a pelican, a symbol for Christ’s suffering and the Eucharist.
The New Testament had a separate title page, featuring the traditional emblems of the twelve tribes of Israel down the left side and the symbolic emblems of the Twelve Apostles down the right side. There were in addition the traditional emblems of the 4 Evangelists: Matthew (an angel) and Mark (a lion) on the top of the page, with Luke (an ox) and John (an eagle) along the bottom.
Some eighteen pages of additional matter were added in the front of the book. This material included a dedication to King James: “To the most high and mighty Prince James, by the grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c.,” designed to flatter a vain monarch. Next came the lengthy and excellent essay cited earlier, “The Translators to the Reader,” probably from the pen of Miles Smith. It is regrettably left out of many modern printings, but it contains the complete rationale for the translation and a great deal of useful information on how the translators handled their task.
The rest of the introductory items were devotional or study aids: a calendar-almanac listing holy days and morning and evening Scripture readings, a condensed almanac for thirty nine years, a table “to find Easter for ever,” several lists of Scripture readings, and a chart of the books of the Bible, including the Apocrypha, with the number of chapters in each.
Within the text, each chapter began with a summary heading and each column carried a running headnote. There were seventeen thousand cross references and marginal notes, which dealt solely with linguistic and textual matters such as alternative renderings or variant readings from other manuscript sources. The interpretative and doctrinal notes of earlier versions were carefully avoided.
The translators chose to use the chapter divisions of Stephen Langton from the thirteenth century and the verse divisions developed by Robert Estienne in 1551, which were used in the Geneva Bible. And, like the Geneva Bible, each verse was printed as a separate unit. In time, the wide use of the King James Bible using this format would give more currency to the temptation to deal with the Bible verse-by-verse, without reference to the larger context. This style of setting verses opened a page to the eye by offering more white space (an important consideration with a heavy, blackletter text) and making the text easier to read.
The translators bowed to tradition when they chose blackletter type for their first folio edition rather than the more readable roman type introduced in the Geneva Bible. However, the subsequent editions, in the smaller quarto and octavo sizes designed for home and personal reading, adopted roman type. In these editions words which were necessary for the English sense but not in the original language were printed in italics.
The translators adopted this arrangement in an attempt to be frank and honest about their translation, since previous versions had been heavily criticized by those who claimed certain words or phrases weren’t in the original languages. Hebrew, for instance, doesn’t use a separate verb “to be,” which is essential in English. Thus, Psalm 23.1a reads, “The LORD is my shepherd.” Some modern readers mistakenly think these italicized words and phrases indicate stress or emphasis. This is not the case. Today most people recognize that any translation from one language to another must add some words in order to make sense in the new language. Consequently, few modern translations use this mechanism.
The translators also adopted LORD (in large and small capital letters) to represent the specific name of YHWH.
Off the Press
The first press run was twenty thousand copies, a large quantity for that time. Two separate presses were used, each to produce identical copies. But the printing technology of the time could not produce “identical” editions, since the type used on each press was set separately. Thus, copies from press number one were printed from different type than those from press number two. This led to discrepancies between the volumes printed on the separate presses. Many of these differences are minute, but they appear on almost every page of the separate press runs.
The biggest blunder occurred at Ruth 3.15. Bibles printed on one press read, “he measured six measures of barley, and laid it on her: and he [Boaz] went into the city.” Those printed on the other press read, “and she [Ruth] went into the city.” Thus the two initial issues are known as the “He Bible” and the “She Bible.” This is a case of alternative readings creeping in. Both pronouns are possible, but the translators intended “she.” Later printings drew on either the He or She Bible and perpetuated the differences for a long time. (Modern translations are about equally divided in their choice of “he” or “she.”)
A misprint, never corrected, has caused bewilderment to many Bible readers. At Matthew 23.24, it reads, “straining at a gnat.” How does one strain at a gnat? It should have read “straining out a gnat.”
Into the Churches
The title page of the King James Bible read, “Appointed to be read in Churches,” and the version has come to be called, especially in Great Britain, the Authorized Version (A.V). In truth, it was never officially authorized by governmental action, nor was its use in the churches required by law. The term Authorized Version is a false claim, especially since both the Great and Bishops’ Bibles were authorized in the stricter sense of being required. This was more an “endorsed” version. It soon made its way into churches because printings of the Bishops’ Bible had ceased after 1602. But in their sermons and writings, many of the KJV translators continued to use the Geneva or Bishops’ versions.
Not every scholar greeted the new translation with enthusiasm. Some denounced it for relying too much on the Greek Septuagint rather than on the Hebrew. Others accused the translators of blasphemy and called them “damnable corruptors” of God’s Word. Puritans especially doubted the integrity of a translation involving so many “high church” people.
Hugh Broughton, the great biblical scholar who was not invited to participate in the translation because of his eccentricity and bad temper, published his vitriolic criticism of the final work. Broughton railed at the timidity of the translators which caused them to place better renderings in the margin rather than in the text. He counted the number of “idle words” and declared that the translators would have to answer for their sloth on the Day of Judgment. Broughton even went so far as to predict that Richard Bancroft, the organizer of the translation and Archbishop of Canterbury, would find his ultimate eternal abode in hell.
The public clung to their love for the Geneva Bible and it took more than a generation for the KJV to replace it in popular affection. Puritans especially loved the Geneva version and when the Pilgrims came to the New World in 1620, it was the Geneva version they chose to bring with them.
A casual look at the publication histories of these two translations reveals the time it took for the historic KJV Bible to gain broad acceptance. Between 1611 and 1614, 6 editions of the Geneva Bible appeared, compared with at least seventeen for the KJV. By 1644, the trend favoring the KJV became clear. At that date, some fifteen Geneva editions had come off the press, in contrast to a remarkable one hundred eighty two editions of the KJV.
The quarto and octavo editions of the King James Version appeared in 1612, beautiful books that resembled the best Geneva editions. A separate tiny duodecimo edition of the New Testament was printed in 1611, and an octavo version in 1612. As the new Bible caught on, editions multiplied, and so did the variants from the original editions. As early as 1613 one edition already showed more than three hundred variants from the original two issues.
Later Revisions
Many people assume that the beloved King James Bible has never undergone revision. This is not correct. Revisions to correct errors were made in 1629 and 1638, but each revision seemed only to add more misprints. Ironically, editions of the Geneva Bible show far fewer errors. It seems that for some reason the quality of work by English printers had begun to decline.
One printing in 1631 listed one of the Ten Commandments as “Thou shalt commit adultery.” The authorities fined the printers £300 for this slip, and labeled the edition the “Wicked Bible.” An edition of 1653 had at 1 Corinthians 6.9, “the unrighteous shall inherit the Kingdom of God,” earning it the label of the Unrighteous Bible.
Cotton Mather, the New England Puritan leader, complained in 1702 of “Scandalous Errors of the Press-work” through which the “Holy Bible itself…hath been affronted.” An elegant edition from Oxford in 1717 titled the twentieth chapter of Luke, “The Parable of the Vinegar” [Vineyard], and is known among collectors as the “Vinegar Bible.” This edition set a near record for misprints and errors.
Parliament passed a bill in 1653 to create a revision committee which finally was appointed in 1657. Unfortunately, nothing came of the project. It remained for the Universities to standardize the text. Both Oxford and Cambridge Universities, in a sense, “owned” the text because of their mutual involvement in its translation. At Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, Thomas Parris prepared a careful edition which regularized the spelling and punctuation, corrected errors, and emended the text to correct translation mistakes. This edition, of 1762, became known as the Cambridge Standard Edition. In 1769, Benjamin Blayney, Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, introduced another corrected edition which also modernized the spelling. This is known as the Oxford Standard Edition and it is essentially this text of the KJV with which we are now familiar.
Most emendations in the various revisions were designed to improve the text. For instance, where the original 1611 edition had “Thou art Christ,” at Matthew 16.16, the revised editions had “Thou art the Christ.” “He came and worshipped” in Mark 5.6 was changed to “he ran and worshipped.” Most of the changes were minor.
Modernized spelling strikes the reader as the most obvious change in the Oxford Standard Edition. Compare Psalm 23.1-6 in a current edition with that of the 1611 edition:
- The LORD is my shepheard, I shall not want.
- He maketh me to lie downe in greene pastures: he leadeth mee beside the still waters.
- He restoreth my soule: he leadeth me in the pathes of righteousness, for his names sake.
- Yea, though I walke through the valley of the shadowe of death, I will feare no euill: for thou art with me, thy rod and they staffe, they comfort me.
- Thou preparest a table before me, in the presence of mine enemies: thou annointest my head with oyle, my cuppe runneth ouer.
- Surely goodnes and mercie shall followe me all the daies of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for euer.
Literary Impact
The King James Bible was a translation designed to meet a compromise in the complex ecclesiastical politics of the day. Because it relied on the earlier Bishops’ Bible, the language was a trifle out-of-date even as the version went to press, in the same way as Wyclif’s translation sounded archaic from the start. Still, we cannot deny the quality of the result. One writer summed up the impact of the King James Bible on our language with these words:
Not even Shakespeare has more deeply affected English literature than has the King James Version. The extent of its influence, which is practically impossible to exaggerate, is well known. Like the man who, taken to see Hamlet, remarked later that it was a good play though with too many quotations in it, the most godless adult whose mother tongue is English cannot fail to find in the Bible much that is already exceedingly familiar. The King James Version, having been injected into the stream of the language, has invigorated and enriched all subsequent English prose. There is hardly a book today in decent English that echoes no cadence from it or reflects no phrase. Its effect on English literature was immediate as well as permanent: within a generation or so after its appearance it had shown that it could transform an itinerant tinker such as John Bunyan into an exemplar of English style. [Geddes MacGregor, The Bible in the Making, (Philadelphia: J.P. Lippincott Company, 1959), page 190.]
But the Bible is more than literature. It is God’s Word. Compared with the elegant classical Greek, the common idiomatic Greek used in the New Testament sounds rather crude. The stately English of the King James Version actually makes the New Testament sound better than it would in Greek. Ultimately, the value of a Bible translation depends upon the accuracy of translation of the best originals.
Tremendous advances in the field of biblical texts would soon cry for a revision of the King James. Lovely and revered as it may be, a 1611 translation simply cannot meet the standards of modern scholarship or reflect current usage in a language that is always changing and evolving. Breakthroughs in textual criticism and the revisions they produced shape the next part of our story of the English Bible.