dâArthur
EVEN MORE THAN the works of William Shakespeare, the translators of the Old and New testaments into English during the Reformation and pre-Reformation years left behind an extraordinary wealth of quotations, and a legacy of language which we all share in. Because of that, it is hard to imagine English without the great translation of the Bible ordered by the new king, James I, newly arrived from Scotland after the death of Elizabeth I.
The problem was that nobody could agree on a proper translation of the Bible in English. There were the translations of John Wycliffe and his friends, banned back in 1409. There was William Tyndaleâs version which formed the basis of Henry VIIIâs Great Bible, and the so-called Bishopâs Bible designed to bring it all up to date â but it was vast and very expensive to get a copy. There was the Geneva Bible, translated by Protestants in exile during the reign of Queen Mary â known to history as Bloody Mary â which included a series of notes and comments which some people found offensive.
The problem for James and his churchman friends was that the people who had taken the trouble to translate the Bible into English had tended to be Protestants. And the translations showed a certain bias â the word âcongregationsâ rather than âchurchâ and other things that stuck in the Anglican gullet. What was needed was a translation that assumed the existence of bishops and ordained clergy.
Hence the conference at Hampton Court in 1604 which kick-started the project. James had been mulling over the idea of a new translation of the Bible since 1601 when it was put forward as an idea by the Church of Scotland general assembly in Fife. Three years later, the translators were appointed, unpaid, to six translating committees in Oxford, Cambridge and Westminster to get the job done. In practice, the sheer beauty of Tyndaleâs version echoes still through the words of the new committee, with its starkness and simplicity.
Not everyone liked it. During the English Civil War a generation later, the Puritans had their own version of the Geneva Bible produced, and there were some important scholars who had been left out. Nobody would work with the greatest expert on Hebrew of the day, Hugh Broughton, so he didnât like it. In fact, he said that âhe would rather be torn in pieces by wild horses than that this abominable translation should ever be foisted upon the English peopleâ.
But foisted it was, and all over the English-speaking world. The misprints and omissions of the early years â especially the notorious Wicked Bible of 1631 which left the word ânotâ out of the adultery injunction in the Ten Commandments â were all put right in one definitive printed version in 1769.
Few people choose the King James version for everyday use these days. But for sheer poetry, you canât beat it.
In the beginning God created the Heauen, and the Earth. And the earth was without forme, and voyd, and darkenesse was vpon the face of the deepe: and the Spirit of God mooued vpon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God diuided the light from the darkenesse. And God called the light, Day, and the darknesse he called Night: and the euening and the morning were the first day.
The beginning of Genesis Chapter 1, from the 1611 version
ONE OF THE most English of all the English eccentricities is the pursuit of bizarre archaeological theories and, the more they irritate mainstream historians, the better people seem to respond. Whole cults have grown up around the real identity of William Shakespeare, the fate of the princes in the Tower, the original rituals carried out at Stonehenge and much else besides. And who is to say they are wrong?
And so it was that businessman Alfred Watkins, an amateur archaeologist, was travelling in Hereford with his
EVEN MORE THAN the works of William Shakespeare, the translators of the Old and New testaments into English during the Reformation and pre-Reformation years left behind an extraordinary wealth of quotations, and a legacy of language which we all share in. Because of that, it is hard to imagine English without the great translation of the Bible ordered by the new king, James I, newly arrived from Scotland after the death of Elizabeth I.
The problem was that nobody could agree on a proper translation of the Bible in English. There were the translations of John Wycliffe and his friends, banned back in 1409. There was William Tyndaleâs version which formed the basis of Henry VIIIâs Great Bible, and the so-called Bishopâs Bible designed to bring it all up to date â but it was vast and very expensive to get a copy. There was the Geneva Bible, translated by Protestants in exile during the reign of Queen Mary â known to history as Bloody Mary â which included a series of notes and comments which some people found offensive.
The problem for James and his churchman friends was that the people who had taken the trouble to translate the Bible into English had tended to be Protestants. And the translations showed a certain bias â the word âcongregationsâ rather than âchurchâ and other things that stuck in the Anglican gullet. What was needed was a translation that assumed the existence of bishops and ordained clergy.
Hence the conference at Hampton Court in 1604 which kick-started the project. James had been mulling over the idea of a new translation of the Bible since 1601 when it was put forward as an idea by the Church of Scotland general assembly in Fife. Three years later, the translators were appointed, unpaid, to six translating committees in Oxford, Cambridge and Westminster to get the job done. In practice, the sheer beauty of Tyndaleâs version echoes still through the words of the new committee, with its starkness and simplicity.
Not everyone liked it. During the English Civil War a generation later, the Puritans had their own version of the Geneva Bible produced, and there were some important scholars who had been left out. Nobody would work with the greatest expert on Hebrew of the day, Hugh Broughton, so he didnât like it. In fact, he said that âhe would rather be torn in pieces by wild horses than that this abominable translation should ever be foisted upon the English peopleâ.
But foisted it was, and all over the English-speaking world. The misprints and omissions of the early years â especially the notorious Wicked Bible of 1631 which left the word ânotâ out of the adultery injunction in the Ten Commandments â were all put right in one definitive printed version in 1769.
Few people choose the King James version for everyday use these days. But for sheer poetry, you canât beat it.
In the beginning God created the Heauen, and the Earth. And the earth was without forme, and voyd, and darkenesse was vpon the face of the deepe: and the Spirit of God mooued vpon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God diuided the light from the darkenesse. And God called the light, Day, and the darknesse he called Night: and the euening and the morning were the first day.
The beginning of Genesis Chapter 1, from the 1611 version
ONE OF THE most English of all the English eccentricities is the pursuit of bizarre archaeological theories and, the more they irritate mainstream historians, the better people seem to respond. Whole cults have grown up around the real identity of William Shakespeare, the fate of the princes in the Tower, the original rituals carried out at Stonehenge and much else besides. And who is to say they are wrong?
And so it was that businessman Alfred Watkins, an amateur archaeologist, was travelling in Hereford with his
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