"England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare, but the Bible made England."
The year 2011 marked the 400th anniversary of the publication of
the King James translation of the Bible, one of the landmark events in the
history of Christianity -- in the history of the faith in England, in Europe,
and ultimately on a global scale. To commemorate the event, Baylor University
recently played host to a remarkable international conference on "The King
James Bible and the World it Made, 1611-2011." The need for such a
celebration seemed obvious enough, given the translation's vast importance in
shaping Anglo-American culture and literature, language and politics; but it
was of course the book's central religious element that made it such a natural
fit for Baylor. It is scarcely too much to say that the King James Bible
represents a critical foundation of Protestant Christianity in the
English-speaking world, and the book's influence ranges deep into other
traditions. How could we let such an epochal moment pass without proper notice?
In 1611, the new British state
headed by King James I issued its translation of the complete Bible,
"newly translated out of the original tongues, and with the former
translations diligently compared and revised. By His Majesty's special command.
Appointed to be read in churches." The book gave English-speaking
Christians a common standard through which they could express their faith.
Soon, the spread of printing technology meant that this translation above all
became the definitive Bible that believers kept in their houses, and before too
long, carried in their pockets. Although originally intended for Anglicans, the
new translation soon spread its influence across the spectrum of emerging
denominations and sects, as it gave voice to Presbyterians and
Congregationalists, Quakers and Baptists. After all, King James's reign
coincided with an astonishingly spiritual ferment, as Protestants debated furiously
their relationship with the state and whether it was even possible for faithful
Christians to accept the decisions of secular power. The year 1609, for
instance, marked the beginning of the Baptist churches in the English-speaking
world.
"England has two books, the
Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare, but the Bible made
England."
- Victor Hugo
And of course, there was a vast
global dimension. When we recall how English colonies were beginning to spread
around the world in 1611 -- how a settlement was already developing tentatively
in Virginia (from 1607), with Massachusetts only a few years away -- we realize
how wonderfully the translators timed their work, how providentially. Over the
coming centuries, the Christianity of the British Isles would become a driving
force in Christian expansion worldwide -- in North America, in Africa, in the
Caribbean, in South Asia -- and wherever those believers went, they brought
with them the structures and cadences of the King James Bible. Whenever and wherever
English-speaking Christians debated their faith, when they debated the nuances
of words and phrases, the words over which they battled were those of a common
Bible translation, the one that appeared in 1611.
The King James Bible formed the
emerging Protestant Christianity of the Anglo-American world, and that claim is
stunning in its own right. But the text had an impact even beyond that, shaping
the whole culture of the English-speaking world. As even its bitterest
detractors concede, the 1611 Bible is a literary masterpiece of the first
order, a triumph of both prose and verse. If the year 1611 coincided with the
beginnings of the British Empire, it also marked the high point of the English
Renaissance. The new Bible translation appeared within a couple of years of the
first performance of some of the greatest plays in English -- William
Shakespeare's "The Tempest" and "The Winter's Tale," John
Webster's "The White Devil" and "The Duchess of Malfi," Ben
Jonson's "The Alchemist" -- and at the time of John Donne's poetry,
and the philosophy and science of Sir Francis Bacon. (Even this list does not
begin to mention the contemporary achievements in music, architecture and the
visual arts.)
The Bible translators were working
in an era of staggering literary accomplishment, but moreover at a time when
writers felt no inhibitions about restructuring the language and its literary
forms, or of coining hundreds of new words as it fitted their moods and met
their purposes. Nor did they have the slightest hesitation about borrowing
freely from foreign cultures, or about drawing from the humble plebeian forms
they saw all around them; all was grist. In the hands of these linguistic
entrepreneurs, the English language was passing through an intoxicating period
of transformation and re-creation.
What a moment in history! Rudyard
Kipling celebrated the making of England in a once-famous poem, which appeared
in the tercentennial year of the King James Version, in 1911: "England's
on the anvil! Heavy are the blows! (But the work will be a marvel when it's
done.) ... England's being hammered, hammered, hammered into shape!"
To adapt his words slightly, around
1611 the English language likewise was being hammered into shape, and the Bible
translators were both the beneficiaries of this process and its craftsmen. The
King James Bible survives as a definitive monument of the process of invention
-- and the work was, indeed, a marvel when it was done. This was the work that
would soon find itself on the shelves of millions of ordinary, faithful
believers, and even for those who could not read, these were the words they
would hear in the church and marketplace. French writer Victor Hugo thought
that "England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare,
but the Bible made England."
The new Bible indeed shaped the
emerging English language, and spread those patterns of speech, thought and
meter throughout the world. And the fact that this Bible, of course, proclaimed
the core Judeo-Christian message and worldview meant that those were the
irreducible, foundational ideas of the English-speaking world. Noting the power
that speech and language possess in shaping thought and behavior, linguistic
scholars declare not that we speak language, but rather that "language
speaks us." After the King James Bible, English speakers had no option but
to declare that Scripture speaks us. The quirks of the King James translators
became a basic part of our everyday speech and thought.
Most observers would say that this
heritage has been vastly beneficial in linking religious truth so closely with
linguistic majesty, aesthetic splendor and verbal precision. Among other
things, the King James Bible established a universally familiar pattern of what
"religious speech" should sound like in English. The model would be
followed by virtually every alternative gospel and new prophetic revelation
over the centuries to come, although the results would often represent a
pastiche. Of course, it is implied, God must be speaking in this bold new text:
Does He not sound like He did in 1611?
Just how fundamental a part of our
language the Bible's words have become is hard to exaggerate. In a recent piece
in the British newspaper The Independent, journalist Boyd Tonkin illustrates
the point:
"In a secular age where
ignorance of religion goes from strength to strength (Psalms 84:7) among lovers
of filthy lucre (1 Timothy 3:8) who only want to eat, drink and be merry (Luke
12:19), we know for a certainty (Joshua 23:13) that these resonant words endure
as a fly in the ointment (Ecclesiastes 10:1) and a thorn in the flesh
(2 Corinthians 12:7) of the powers that be (Romans 13:1). They can still set the teeth on edge (Jeremiah 31:29) of those who try to worship God and Mammon (Matthew 6:24). But does this ancient book, proof that there is no new thing under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9), now cast its pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6), and act as a voice crying in the wilderness (Luke 3:4) -- a drop in a bucket (Isaiah 40:15) of unbelief, no longer a sign of the times (Matthew 16:3) but a verbal stumbling-block (Leviticus 19:14)?"
Yet while Christianity might be on
the defensive in some parts of the world, it is clearly thriving and expanding
elsewhere. Indeed, we live at an astonishing time in the expansion of
Christianity beyond its historic heartlands, as the church grows with
astonishing rapidity in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Even thinkers not sympathetic to the
Bible's message still praise its language. Famous skeptic H. L. Mencken found
in the King James "a mine of lordly and incomparable poetry, at once the
most stirring and the most touching ever heard of." Another remarkable
testimonial to the influence of the KJV comes from New Atheist thinker Richard
Dawkins, who normally has nothing good to say about any aspect of religion. On
the King James, however, he becomes lyrical, so much so that he prays,
apologetically, "Forgive me, spirit of science!" But as he asks, how
on earth can anyone who cares about language be so ignorant and insensitive as
not to appreciate the magnificent tones of the KJV? He continues, again freely
quoting King James-isms, "If my words fall on stony ground -- if you pass
me by as a voice crying in the wilderness -- be sure your sin will find you
out. Between us there is a great gulf fixed and you are a thorn in my flesh. We
have come to the parting of the ways. I fear it is a sign of the times."
And those are the words of a declared mortal enemy of the Bible!
No serious study of literature in
English can neglect the impact of the 1611 Bible, and that is equally true for
any century from the 17th through the 20th. All the great canonical authors are
immersed in that Bible, even (or especially) those who reject its fundamental
religious message. To put it ironically, the Bible they reject is the 1611
version, which created the literary air we breathe. The King James language
informs and inspires American literature, from Herman Melville and Nathaniel
Hawthorne through Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. It has its special power
in African American tradition, from Frederick Douglass through Alice Walker.
Scientists too, as well as literary
giants, found their awestruck vision of the universe in this Bible. When Samuel
Morse sent his first revolutionary telegraph message in 1844, it quoted the
Book of Numbers in -- what else? -- King James English: "What hath God
wrought!" Historians sometimes use that phrase to encapsulate the ecstatic
spirit of joy in discovery that characterized 19th-century America, but the innovation
was rooted in that ancient English-speaking past.
Politically, too, the language of
the 1611 Bible is inextricably bound up with the evolving discourse in freedom,
in Britain and its Commonwealth, but above all in the American colonies and the
later United States. John Winthrop famously envisaged a "city upon a
hill." As the Liberty Bell proclaims -- quoting the King James translation
of Leviticus -- "Proclaim freedom throughout the land!" And the
prophetic visions of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and other radical
reformers were, almost infallibly, framed in the language of King James. The
dreams they had owed their shape to the visionary translators of 1611. If,
generally, Scripture speaks us, then specifically, the King James Bible spoke
America.
Given the central role of the 1611
translation, its quadricentennial naturally demands celebration, with an added
sense of rededication. But beyond commemoration, the anniversary also calls for
a rethinking of the text and its importance in the 21st century, and these
themes have stimulated much recent writing and research. For example, the
original King James Bible owed its success to the development of new media
forms that massively democratized access to knowledge in the form of cheap
printing. That era began the great era of printed text, an epoch that may be
drawing to its end in our day. We must think just how the Bible adapts to new
forms of media technology.
In wider terms, we look at the
Christian world which relies on the Bible, whether the King James or some later
version. For centuries, the King James stood at the heart of Christian culture
in the Anglosphere, the English-speaking world. But what is the role of
Christian culture in much of that world today, in the face of widespread
secularization? Countries like Great Britain and Australia are today among the
most secular on the planet. We must ask what relevance that history has in
these post-Christian cultures: At what point does the Bible cease to be the
anchor of a Christian culture?
Yet while Christianity might be on
the defensive in some parts of the world, it is clearly thriving and expanding
elsewhere. Indeed, we live at an astonishing time in the expansion of
Christianity beyond its historic heartlands, as the church grows with
astonishing rapidity in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Many of these,
particularly in Africa, have tremendous devotion to the King James tradition,
in a world in which English is becoming a lingua franca. As scholars, we must
explore how the experiences of these newer churches compare with the historical
record of the English-speaking world. What can we in the global North learn
from them -- or they from us?
Four hundred years after the King
James Bible, it would be tempting to consign its story to the past, to see it
as fading into antiquity. Yet the more we consider the King James phenomenon,
the truer we may find the words of William Faulkner: "The past is never
dead. It's not even past." If we do not understand where our Christian
tradition comes from, we cannot begin to understand our future
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