As the English language has developed
from a fledgling mixture of German dialects into a language of its own, capable
of representing a nation and entering into the intellectual discourse of the
global community, it has encountered many challenges and changes. Given the
challenges that have stood up against it, it is surprising to say the least
that English has become one of the worlds present foremost languages, if not the foremost language, of our day. It
cannot be said however, that there is anything superior or inherent in the
structure of English itself that has made it this way (Svartvik 9). Rather,
English in its historical forms encountered through history and providence
sundry political and social achievements that progressively changed its
structure, standing, and influence. The story of English is the story of
political and social catalysts enveloped by a string of perfectly timed
cultural achievements. Alister McGrath says that, “The two greatest influences
on the shaping of the English language are the works of William Shakespeare and
the English translation of the Bible that appeared in 1611” (1). The goal of
this essay will be to echo and prove the claim that of the great products, the
1611 King James Bible and its publication were unequivocally pivotal to the
structure and political success of modern English. Without its production, I
can easily say with McGrath that, “the English speaking world would have been
immeasurably impoverished” (2). Not this only, but due to the great political
effect of its production, the very language itself could have easily been quite
different.
In
order to evaluate these claims and appreciate the story, it is important to
examine the political and national standing of the British Isles in the 16
th
century. Until the end of the Hundred Years War, French had been the prevalent
language among the elite due to the Norman invasion and conquest in 1066. While
commoners and plowmen spoke the Old English of their German ancestors, those in
power spoke French, and business
was conducted in the same. The English language of the people was considered
vulgar and incapable of signifying the particular essences necessary for
beautiful and effective communication (McGrath 27). As the French language took
a more firm political hold and English passed into its Middle stage due to the
massive influence of its new French speaking kings, it was still not a
contender for a position of importance amid the influence of other more firmly
rooted languages. The populace spoke Middle English, the state spoke French, and
the church and schools spoke Latin; there was little cultural or political unity,
and it is easy to feel the separation within the Isles.
The advent of the Hundred Years
war changed the face of England like never before. England and France went to
war in 1337, and continued warring until 1453, and while the long sequence of
wars and power struggles came to an end with French Victory, King Henry V of
England had succeeded in pushing the French out of England and well into their own
country where English armies were eventually defeated after the succession of
Henry VI. This war was crucial to the development of the English language,
because it made the French the political and social enemies of the English, and
caused the nation to reject the French language and rally around its own native
tongue. Svartvik and Leech say
that, “by the fifteenth century, [French] was no longer current as a spoken
language in England, and anyone who needed to speak French had to learn it as a
foreign language” (37). Furthermore, these events were absolutely necessary for
the production of an authorized English Bible because it made English important
to those in power.
In the midst of this mounting
political pressure to unify England, there was also a growing social pressure
for a legal English Bible due to theological progression brought about by the
Protestant Reformation, its predecessors, and the vernacular Bibles produced by
John Wycliffe, Martin Luther and William Tyndale. One of the principle tenants
of the Reformation was the doctrine of Sola
Scriptura. Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries states that, “Sola
Scriptura speaks to the Scripture's role as the sole infallible rule of faith
for the church” (White). Another important doctrine of the Reformation is what
is called, ‘the priesthood of all believers’. Initially set out in Martin
Luther’s 1520 To the Christian Nobility
of the German Nation, the doctrine taught that all baptized believers were
ministers and priests of God, and so there were not two categories of
Christians, called “spiritual” and “temporal,” but one body of believers who
had Christ at their head. Luther said, “For baptism, the gospel, and faith only
make Christians priests. The Pope’s anointing, the tonsure, ordaining and consecrating,
may make hypocrites and noodles, but can never make a man a Christian or
Spiritual. For by baptism, we are all consecrated priests” (Geltzer 119). A
logical deduction from this teaching is that all believers have the right and mandate
to interpret Scripture for themselves, and are not in need of the Roman
priesthood, who held the place of an intermediary between God and the layman. Heinrich
Geltzer says that, “with this idea, the emancipation of the coming times was
pronounced; the torch was lighted which was to guide a new period, and which,
in its turn, has preserved the blessed right to freedom of conscious” (119). So,
progressive disenchantment with the church and its liturgy, due largely to the
effect of the Reformation, and a growing nationalism caused English-speaking
people to yearn for a Bible they could read for themselves. It had been at
various times, illegal to own or possess an English translation. Primarily, the
Catholic Church feared the theological corruption that might occur if untrained
laypeople were allowed to interpret the Scriptures themselves, and in attempts
to cling to their power, fought ardently against vernacular Bibles. Also,
English was not seen as capable of, “expressing the deep nuanced truths of the
Bible,” (McGrath 33) or, expressing and carrying the divine nature of the words
of God. However, the advances in and attention to English due to its new
political centrality and the works of influential writers like Geoffrey
Chaucer, were steadily changing this latter perception.
When James VI of Scotland
ascended to the English throne as James I, after the death of Elizabeth I, a
new and precarious time was beginning to dawn for religion and English in
England. While James was in some ways sympathetic toward Protestantism, he was
also conservative in his views regarding the government of the church and the
rise of Puritanism. McGrath notes that, “he much preferred the Anglican system…
seeing the episcopacy as a safeguard to the monarchy” (140). This conservatism
and relative ambiguity mixed with the tumultuous political state of England and
Scotland at the time makes the analysis of King James quite sticky. James
greatly disliked the Geneva Bible, which was very popular among Protestants during
the reign of Elizabeth I as well as Puritans and Presbyterians in Scotland, primarily
because it contained annotations that were particularly Calvinistic in character
and taught that a king should be disobeyed if his command was in conflict with
the words of God, a fact that James, “cordially detested” (McGrath 141). The
decision to make a new translation came after a proposal was made by a Puritan
named John Reynolds. James saw and seized on an opportunity to quell religious
controversy in England. McGrath says that, “Here was a major concession he
could make without causing any pressing difficulties to anyone” (161). James
declared at the conference that heard Reynolds proposal that he had yet to see
“a Bible well translated into English” (McGrath 162). It was in fact this new
translation that would not only be considered good, even if slightly archaic,
English, but would be instrumental in shaping the future of English and English
speaking people.
This
new work of the King, while put together by a massive team of translators
consulting closely with copies of the Greek and Hebrew texts, in an attempt for
a very direct translation, was not a freestanding entity, rather it stood, as
John Salisbury said, ‘like dwarves on the shoulders of Giants.’ McGrath notes
that “The ‘Englishing’ of the Bible was thus understood to be a corporate
effort, in which the achievements of earlier generations could be valued and
used by their successors” (177). Earlier English translations had a great role
in the form of the Authorized Version, and it is through the widespread use of
the King James translation, that special idioms from the earlier works came
flavor the English Language. Of the translations that were consulted and used,
William Tyndale’s translation, being the earliest and affecting all others thus
far, had greatest influence on the translation committee. Gordon Campbell notes
that, “William Tyndale is rightly known as ‘the father of the English Bible’” (Campbell
10). For this reason, many of the phrases we associate with the King James
Bible were originally translations of Tyndale’s.
As the preface to the King James notes, the goal of the committee was not to
make a bad translation a good one, but to make from many good translations, a
principal good one. As Miles Smith indicates in his contestation with the
Catholic belief that the Latin Vulgate was, “the bedrock of western Christian
life” (McGrath 191), it is immensely spiritually and theologically important
that the English, like the Latin speaking Romans before them, should have the
words of God in their own language. While certainly true in this writer’s
opinion, the presence of an authorized Bible was also immensely important for
the establishment of the English language politically.
This Bible would work to unify and
distinguish the English language as viable and lasting. It meant that
English-speaking people were, and the language itself was, worthy of possessing
the words of God.
The
1611 translation has had a great and lasting influence on English. It is this
Bible and its English that has been carried by Christians not only inside
England, but outside it and into the world. It was aboard ships coming to
America, and has historically been a part of English language instruction. Its
influence has gone far and wide, and has been influential in shaping the
political and linguistic influence of English on the world. One of the ways in
which The King James Bible shaped the English of its time, was that the
translators avoided what McGrath says seemed to them, “a wooden and dogmatic
approach to translation, which dictated that precisely the same words should
regularly be used to translate Greek or Hebrew words. The preface [to the
translation] sets out clearly the view that the translators saw themselves as
free to use a variety of English words.” (McGrath 194) This enhanced the beauty
and variety of the text, highlighting the ability of English to accommodate a
range of expression. Miles Smith says in the preface, “For is the kingdom of
God to 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?” (McGrath 194). Aside from making the text eloquent, it helped to
fix, that is secure, the standard orthography of the day, an orthography that
has influenced and is in many ways, similar to the orthographical standards of
our modern English. It is not that the King James Bible instituted those
standards, but it was a primary and invaluable facilitator to their prominence
in modern English. It should be noted that, the KJB achieved literary
excellence, by trying to avoid it. McGrath says, “There is no evidence that the
translators of the King James Bible had any great interest in matters of
literature or linguistic development” (254). Rather, “their concern was
primarily to provide an accurate translation of the Bible” (McGrath 254). In
this endeavor, they seem to have achieved eloquence, “by accident, rather than
design” (McGrath 254).
Many
“accidents,” or unintended effects seem to litter the history of the King James
Bible, much like many of the other perfectly timed and unforeseeable things that
have occurred in the history of the English language. Certainly, the King James
Bible has been one of the great path-shaping forces of English, and has
furthermore had a lasting effect on the world of languages that English
interacts with. In an article by BBC News, Stephen Tomkins says, “No other
book, or indeed any piece of culture, seems to have influenced the English
language as much as the King James Bible. Its turns of phrase have permeated
the everyday language of English speakers, whether or not they've ever opened a
copy” (Tomkins). David Crystal counts two hundred and fifty-seven of those
phrases (260), a small handful of which are represented in the following: Turned
the world upside down (Acts 17:6), God forbid (Romans 3:4), The powers that be
(Romans 13:1), No peace for the wicked (Isaiah 57: 21), The blind leading the
blind (Matthew 15:13). Albert Cook stated that, “No other book has so
penetrated and permeated the hearts and speech of the English Race as has the
Bible. (McGrath 253) Whether or not one believes its contents, the story of
that Bible echoes Mr. Cook’s statement, and sets it apart as an unquestionably
important part of our history and future.
Campbell, Gordon. BIBLE,
the Story of the King James Version 1611-2011. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2010. Print
Crystal, David. Begat
: the King James Bible and the English Language. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2010. Print
Geltzer, Heinrich . The
life of Martin Luther, the German Reformer. London: Nathanial Cook, 1855.
Google. Web. April 16, 2012
Mcgrath, Alister. In
the Beginning. New York: Doubleday, 2001. Print
Svartvik, Jan, and Geoffrey Leech. English One Tongue, Many Voices. Houndmills, UK. Palgrave
Macmillian, 2006. Print
Tomkins, Stephen. “King James Bible: How it changed the
way we speak.” www.bbc.co.uk, 17 January,
2011. Web 16 April, 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12205084>
White, James. “T4G, Sole Authority, and Church Tradition.”
www.aomin.org, 12 April 2012. Web. 16
April, 2012. <http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=5055>
