result should go to each of the other companies, coming back with their
suggestions to the original workers to be recast by them. The whole was
then to be reviewed by a smaller committee of scholars to give it
uniformity and to see it through the press. The records are not extant
that tell whether this was done in full detail, though we may presume that
each section of the Scripture had the benefit of the scholarship of the
entire company.
We know a good deal of the method of their work. We shall understand it
better by recalling what material they had at hand. They were enabled to
use the result of all the work that had been done before them. They were
instructed to follow the Bishops' Bible wherever they could do so fairly;
but they were given power to use the versions already named from Wiclif
down, as well as those fragmentary versions which were numerous, and of
which no mention has been made. They ransacked all English forms for
felicitous words and happy phrases. It is one of the interesting incidents
that this same Hugh Broughton, who was left off the committee and took it
so hard, yet without his will contributed some important matter to the
translation, because he had on his own authority made translations of
certain parts of the Scripture. Several of our capital phrases in the King
James version are from him. There was no effort to break out new paths.
Preference was always given to a familiar phrase rather than to a new one,
unless accuracy required it. First, then, they had the benefit of all the
work that had been done before in the same line, and gladly used it.
In addition, they had all other versions made in the tongues of the time.
Chiefly there was Luther's German Bible, already become for the German
tongue what their version was destined to be for the English tongue. There
were parts of the Bible available in Spanish, French, and Dutch. They were
kept at hand constantly for any light they might cast on difficult
passages.
For the Old Testament there were very few Hebrew texts. There had been
little critical work yet done on them, and for the most part there were
only different editions running back over the centuries. We have little
more than that now, and there is almost no new material on the Old
Testament since the days of the King James translators. There was, of
course, the Septuagint, the Greek translation from the Hebrew made before
Christ, with the guidance it could give in doubtful places on the probable
original. And finally there was the Vulgate, made into Latin out of the
Greek and Hebrew. This was all the Old Testament material they had, or
that any one could have in view of the antiquated original sources.
The New Testament material was more abundant, though not nearly so
abundant as to-day. There were few manuscripts of the early days to which
they could refer; but there were the two great critical versions of the
New Testament in Greek, that by Erasmus and the Complutensian, which had
made use of the best manuscripts known. Then, finally again, there was the
Vulgate.
We must stop a moment to see what was the value of the Vulgate in this
work. It is impossible to reckon the number of the early New Testament
manuscripts that have been lost. In the earlier day the Scriptures were
transmitted from church to church, and from age to age, by manuscripts.
Many of them were made as direct copies of other manuscripts; but many
were made by scribes to whom the manuscripts were read as they wrote, so
that there are many, though ordinarily comparatively slight, variations
among the manuscripts which we now know. More manuscripts are coming to
light constantly, manuscripts once well known and then lost. Many of them,
perhaps many earlier than we now have, must have been familiar to Jerome
four hundred years after Christ. When, therefore, there is a plain
difference between the Vulgate and our early Greek manuscripts, the
Vulgate may be wrong because it is only a translation; but it may be right
because it is a translation of earlier manuscripts than some of ours. It
is steadily losing its value at that point, for Greek manuscripts are all
the time coming to light which run farther back. But we must not minimize
the value of the Vulgate for our King James translation.
With all this material the scholars of the early seventeenth century set
to work. Each man in the group made the translation that seemed best to
him, and together they analyzed the results and finally agreed on the
best. They hunted the other versions to see if it had been better done
elsewhere. The shade of Tindale was over it all. The Genevan version was
most influential. The Douai had its share, and the Bishops' was the
general standard, altered only when accuracy required it. On all hard
passages they called to their aid the appropriate departments of both
universities. All scholars everywhere were asked to send in any
contributions, to correct or criticize as they would. Public announcement
of the work was made, and all possible help was besought and gladly
accepted.
Very faithfully these greatest scholars of their time wrought. No one
worked for money, and no one worked for pay, but each for the joy of the
working. Three years they spent on the original work, three years on
careful revision and on the marginal references by which Scripture was
made to throw light on Scripture. Then in six months a committee reviewed
it all, put it through the press, and at last, in 1611, with the imprint
of Robert Barker, Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty, the King
James version appeared. The name Authorized Version is not a happy one,
for so far as the records go it was never authorized either by the King or
the bishop; and, even if it were, the authority does not extend beyond the
English Church, which is a very small fraction of those who use it. On the
title-page of the original version, as on so many since, is the familiar
line, "Appointed to be Read in Churches," but who made the appointment
history does not say.
The version did not at once supersede the Genevan and the Bishops'; but it
was so incomparably better than either that gradually they disappeared,
and by sheer excellence it took the field, and it holds the field to-day
in spite of the numerous supposedly improved versions that have appeared
under private auspices. It holds the field, also, in spite of the
excellent revised version of 1881 made by authority, and the more
excellent version issued in 1901 by the American Revision Committee,
to-day undoubtedly the best version in existence, considered simply as a
reproduction of the sense of the original. And for reasons that may later
appear, the King James version bids fair to hold the field for many years
to come.
When we turn from the history of its making to the work itself, there is
much to say. We may well narrow our thought for the remainder of the study
to its traits as a _version_ of the Bible.
I. Name this first, that it is an honest version. That is, it has no
argumentative purpose. It is not, as the scholars say, apologetic. It is
simply an out-and-out version of the Scripture, as honestly as they could
reproduce it. There were Puritans on the committee; there were extreme
High Churchmen; there were men of all grades between. But there is nowhere
any evidence that any one was set on making the Bible prove his point.
There were strong anti-papal believers among them; but they made free use
of the Douai version, and, of course, of the Vulgate. They knew the
feeling that Hugh Broughton had toward them; but they made generous use of
all that was good in his work. They were working under a royal warrant,
and their dedication to King James, with its absurd and fulsome flattery,
shows what they were capable of when they thought of the King. But there
is no twist of a text to make it serve the purposes of royalty. They might
be servile when they thought of King James; but there was not a touch of
servility in them when they thought of the Scripture itself. They were
under instruction not to abandon the use of ecclesiastical terms. For
instance, they were not to put "congregation" in place of "church," as
some Puritans wanted to do. Some thought that was meant to insure a High
Church version; but the translators did not understand it so for a moment.
They understood it only to safeguard them against making a partisan
version on either side, and to help them to make a version which the
people could read understandingly at once. It was not to be a Puritan Book
nor a High Church Book. It was to be an honest version of the Bible, no
matter whose side it sustained.
Now, if any one thinks that is easy, or only a matter of course, he
plainly shows that he has never been a theologian or a scholar in a
contested field. Ask any lawyer whether it is easy to handle his
authorities with entire impartiality, whether it is a matter of course
that he will let them say just what they meant to say when his case is
involved. Of course, he will seek to do it as an honest lawyer, but
equally, of course, he will have to keep close watch on himself or he will
fail in doing it. Ask any historian whether it is easy to handle the
original documents in a field in which he has firm and announced
opinions, and to let those documents speak exactly what they mean to say,
whether they support him or not. The greater historians will always do it,
but they will sometimes do it with a bit of a wrench.
Even a scholar is human, and these men sitting in their six companies
would all have to meet this Book afterward, would have their opinions
tried by it. There must have been times when some of them would be
inclined to salt the mine a little, to see that it would yield what they
would want it to yield later. So far as these men were able to do it, they
made it say in English just what it said in Hebrew and Greek. They showed
no inclination to use it as a weapon in their personal warfare.
One line of that honest effort is worth observing more closely. When
points were open to fair discussion, and scholarship had not settled them,
they were careful not to let their version take sides when it could be
avoided. On some mooted words they did not try translation, but
transliteration instead. That is, they brought the Greek or Hebrew word
over into English, letter by letter. Suppose scholars differed as to the
exact meaning in English of a word in the Greek. Some said it has this
meaning, and some that it has that. Now, if the version committed itself
to one of those meanings, it became an argument at once against the other
and helped to settle a question on which scholarship was not yet agreed.
They could avoid making a partisan Book by the simple device of bringing
the word which was disputed over into the new translation. That left the
discussion just where it was before, but it saved the work from being
partisan. The method of transliteration did not always work to advantage,
as we shall see, but it was intended throughout to save the Book from
taking sides on any question where honest men might differ as to the
meaning of words.
They did that with all proper names, and that was notable in the Old
Testament, because most Old Testament proper names can be translated. They
all mean something in themselves. Adam is the Hebrew word for man; Abraham
means Father of a Great Multitude; David is the Hebrew word for Beloved;
Malachi means My Messenger. Yet as proper names they do not mean any of
those things. It is impossible to translate a proper name into another
tongue without absurdity. It must be transliterated. Yet there is constant
fascination for translators in the work of translating these proper names,
trying to make them seem more vivid. It is quite likely, though it is
disputed, that proper names do all go back to simple meanings. But by the
time they become proper names they no longer have those meanings. The only
proper treatment of them is by transliteration.
The King James translators follow that same practice of transliteration
rather than translation with another word which is full of controversial
possibility. I mean the word "baptism." There was dispute then as now
about the method of that ordinance in early Christian history. There were
many who held that the classical meaning which involved immersion had been
taken over bodily into the Christian faith, and that all baptism was by
immersion. There were others who held that while that might be the
classical meaning of the word, yet in early Christian custom baptism was
not by immersion, but might be by sprinkling or pouring, and who insisted
that no pressure on the mode was wise or necessary. That dispute continues
to this day. Early versions of the Bible already figured in the
discussion, and for a while there was question whether this King James
version should take sides in that controversy, about which men equally
loyal to truth and early Christian history could honestly differ. The
translators avoided taking sides by bringing the Greek word which was
under discussion over into English, letter by letter. Our word "baptism"
is not an English word nor a Saxon word; it is a purely Greek word. The
controversy has been brought over into the English language; but the King
James version avoided becoming a controversial book. A number of years ago
the convictions of some were so strong that another version of the Bible
was made, in which the word baptism was carefully replaced by what was
believed to be the English translation, "immersion," but the version never
had wide influence.
In this connection it is well to notice the effort of the King James
translators at a fair statement of the divine name. It will be remembered
that it appears in the Old Testament ordinarily as "LORD," printed in
small capitals. A very interesting bit of verbal history lies back of that
word. The word which represents the divine name in Hebrew consists of four
consonants, J or Y, H, V, and H. There are no vowels; indeed, there were
no vowels in the early Hebrew at all. Those that we now have were added
not far from the time of Christ. No one knows the original pronunciation
of that sacred name consisting of four letters. At a very early day it had
become too sacred to pronounce, so that when men came to it in reading or
in speech, they simply used another word which is, translated into
English, Lord, a word of high dignity. When the time came that vowels were
to be added to the consonants, the vowels of this other word Lord were
placed under the consonants of the sacred name, so that in the word
Jehovah, where the J H V H occur, there are the consonants of one word
whose vowels are unknown and the vowels of another word whose consonants
are not used.
Illustrate it by imagining that in American literature the name Lincoln
gathered to itself such sacredness that it was never pronounced and only
its consonants were ever printed. Suppose that whenever readers came to it
they simply said Washington, thinking Lincoln all the while. Then think of
the displacement of the vowels of Lincoln by the vowels of Washington. You
have a word that looks like Lancilon or Lanicoln; but a reader would never
pronounce so strange a word. He would always say Washington, yet he would
always think the other meaning. And while he would retain the meaning in
some degree, he would soon forget the original word, retaining only his
awe of it. Which is just what happened with the divine name. The Hebrews
knew it was not Lord, yet they always said Lord when they came to the
four letters that stood for the sacred word. The word Jehovah, made up of
the consonants of an unknown word and the vowels of a familiar word, is in
itself meaningless. Scholarship is not yet sure what was the original
meaning of the sacred name with its four consonants.
These translators had to face that problem. It was a peculiar problem at
that time. How should they put into English the august name of God when
they did not know what the true vowels were? There was dispute among
scholars. They did not take sides as our later American Revision has done,
some of us think quite unwisely. They chose to retain the Hebrew usage,
and print the divine name in unmistakable type so that its personal
meaning could not be mistaken.
On the other hand, disputes since their day have shown how they translated
when transliteration would have been wiser. Illustrate with one instance.
There is a Hebrew word, Sheol, with a Greek word, Hades, which corresponds
to it. Usage had adopted the Anglo-Saxon word Hell as the equivalent of
both of these words, so they translated Sheol and Hades with the English
word Hell. The only question that had been raised was by that Hugh
Broughton of whom we were speaking a moment ago, and it had not seemed a
serious one. Certainly the three terms have much in common, and there are
places where both the original words seemed to be virtually equivalent to
the Anglo-Saxon Hell, but they are not the same. The Revised Version of
our own time returned to the original, and instead of translating those
words whose meaning can be debated, it transliterated them and brought the
Hebrew word Sheol and the Greek word Hades over into English. That, of
course, gave a chance for paragraphers to say that the Revised Version had
read Hell out of the Scriptures. All that happened was that cognizance was
taken of a dispute which would have guided the King James translators if
it had existed in their time, and we should not have become familiar with
the Anglo-Saxon word Hell as the translation of those disputed Hebrew and
Greek words.
We need not seek more instances. These are enough to illustrate the saying
that here is an honest version, the fruit of the best scholarship of the
times, without prejudice.
II. A second trait of the work as a version is its remarkable accuracy. It
is surprising that with all the new light coming from early documents,
with all the new discoveries that have been made, the latest revision
needed to make so few changes, and those for the most part minor ones.
There are, to be sure, some important changes, as we shall see later; the
wonder is that there are not many more. The King James version had, to be
sure, the benefit of all the earlier controversy. The whole ground had
been really fought over in the centuries before, and most of the questions
had been discussed. They frankly made use of all the earlier controversy.
They say in their preface: "Truly, good Christian reader, we never thought
from the beginning that we should need to make a new translation, nor yet
to make a bad one a good one, but to make a good one better. That hath
been our endeavor, that our work." Also, they had the advantage of
deliberation. This was the first version that had been made which had such
sanction that they could take their time, and in which they had no reason
to fear that the results would endanger them. They say in their preface
that they had not run over their work with that "posting haste" that had
marked the Septuagint, if the saying was true that they did it all in
seventy-two days; nor were they "barred and hindered from going over it
again," as Jerome himself said he had been, since as soon as he wrote any
part "it was snatched away from him and published"; nor were they
"working in a new field," as Origen was when he wrote his first
commentary on the Bible. Both these things--their taking advantage of
earlier controversies which had cleared many differences, and their
deliberation--were supplemented by a third which gave great accuracy to
the version. That was their adoption of the principle of all early
translators, perhaps worded best by Purvey, who completed the Wiclif
version: "The best translation is to translate after the sentence, and not
only after the words, so that the sentence be as open in English as in
Latin." That makes for accuracy. It is quite impossible to put any
language over, word for word, into another without great inaccuracy. But
when the translators sought to take the sentence of the Hebrew or the
Greek and put it into an exactly equivalent English sentence, they had
larger play for their language and they had a fairer field for accuracy.
These were the three great facts which made the remarkable accuracy
possible, and it may be interesting to note three corresponding results
which show the effort they made to be absolutely accurate and fair in
their translation.
The first of those results is visible in the italicized words which they
used. In the King James version words in italics are a frank
acknowledgment that the Greek or the Hebrew cannot be put into English
literally. These are English words which are put in because it seems
impossible to express the meaning originally intended without certain
additions which the reader must take into account in his understanding of
the version. We need not think far to see how necessary that was. The
arrangement of words in Greek, for example, is different from that in
English. The Greek of the first verse of the Gospel of John reads that
"God was the Word," but the English makes its sentences in a reversed
form, and it really means, "the Word was God." So the Greek uses particles
where the English does not. Often it would say "the God" where we would
say simply "God." Those particles are ordinarily wisely omitted. So the
Greek does not use verbs at some points where it is quite essential that
the English shall use them. But it is only fair that in reading a version
of the Scripture we should know what words have been put in by translators
in their effort to make the version clear to us; and the italicized words
of the King James version are a frank effort to be accurate and yet fair.
The second result which shows their effort at accuracy is in the marginal
readings. Most of these are optional readings, and are preceded by the
word "or," which indicates that one may read what is in the text, or
substitute for it what is in the margin with equal fairness to the
original. But sometimes, instead of that familiar "or," occur letters
which indicate that the Hebrew or the Greek literally means something else
than what is given in the English text, and what it literally means is
given in the margin. The translators thereby say to the reader that if he
can take that literal meaning and put it into the text so that it is
intelligible to him, here is his chance. As for them, they think that the
whole context or meaning of the sentence rather involves the use of the
phrase which they put into the text. But the marginal references are of
great interest to most of us as showing how these men were frank to say
that there were some things they could not settle. They were rather blamed
for it, chiefly by those who had committed themselves to the Douai
version, which has no marginal readings, on the ground that the
translation ought to be as authoritative as the original. The King James
translators repudiate that theory and frankly say that the reason they put
these words in the margin was because they were not sure what was the best
reading. In the margin of the epistle to the Romans there are eighty-four
such marginal readings, and the proportion will hold throughout most of
the version. They were only trying to be accurate and to give every one a
chance to make up his own mind where there was fair reason to question
their results.