Were Francis and Clare Lovers?

This will be the first of three posts on this topic.

Sts. Francis and Clare became an unusual couple, once Clare came to join the brothers at Portiuncula. The sources all indicate that the two of them had a natural affection for one another. However, it is important to remember (after all of the Hollywoodizing of this tale) that they were not married, and were not a "couple" in any real sense, even though their love for each other was felt palpably by those around them.
G. K. Chesterton calls theirs a “pure and spiritual romance,” an apt description, although they spent very little time together. Clare was an important confidant to Francis, and a link between his childhood (their families seem to have known each other), with all of its extravagant worldliness, and the mature, life-changing decisions that began to mark his early twenties. Their affection for and trust of each other fueled the early Franciscan movement and gave birth to a joy, beauty, and spirit that had long been absent from faith.
However, it has always seemed to make for a better story to have Francis and Clare in love with each other. In fact, some of the early sources give hints that support such a view. Thomas of Celano, the first biographer of each of them, called theirs a “divine attraction”—these two saints wanting to be together. And when Thomas describes Clare’s childhood reputation as a spiritual giant, he also implies that Francis was intent on meeting her. Thomas compares Clare’s holiness to plunder, and Francis to a conquering knight. He writes that Francis “was dedicated to snatching his plunder away from the world.”

Slowing down to read

Bible reading used to be a regular part of our lives, both private and public, and not simply because we all used to go to church more regularly. In a recent phone survey of 13,000 adults, 93 percent of Americans said that they have a Bible at home. In colonial America, this percentage would have been about 99 percent. A Bible was very often the only book to be found in a home, and it was in every home. Also in that recent phone survey, 75 percent of those with a Bible responded that they’ve read at least one passage from it in the last year. In another survey, conducted by Gallup, the number of those who said that they read their Bible “occasionally” was 59 percent, and this compared to 73 percent in the 1980s.
One obstacle to reading and hearing the Bible today is, as it is for poetry, the slowness that it requires. Our time and attention is splintered in ways that Benjamin Franklin never could have imagined possible. As a result, few of us practice the discipline of reading slowly, and the KJV demands the slowest, most careful reading of any translation. Along with classic poetry and certain types of music, appreciating the language of the Bible has almost become a lost art. I wish that Christian parents would still teach their children how to read, and how to read in a way that savors and contemplates the language.

Harold Bloom's new book on the KJB

Very late in the game in this 400th anniversary year, Yale literary critic and professor, Harold Bloom, offers his new book, The Shadow of a Great Rock: A Literary Appreciation of the King James Bible. Frankly, I am enjoying it more than I thought I would.

Bloom is inimitable, charming (sometimes too charming), insightful, and often provocative. All of this makes for entertaining reading and frequent surprises. Here are a few things that I learned and/or enjoyed from the book's Introduction:

"Cormac McCarthy's one great novel, Blood Meridian, may be a last stand of the KJB's literary influence."

[The central conceit of Bloom's Introduction is to compare the KJB with the works of Shakespeare as the two greatest achievements of English writing/literature. Given that, he writes:]

"Shakespeare's vocabulary remains extraordinary in the history of imaginative literature: more than twenty-one thousand words, eighteen hundred of which he coined.... The KJB keeps to eight thousand, a figure that surprises me because I would have guessed many more."

[It takes a literary critic to pick this up:]

"The translators of the English Bible, from Tyndale to Andrewes, were not dramatists, though Tyndale came closest. They do not voice their characters: Jacob and David do not sound different to us. That is a loss from the Hebrew."

Repeating others' mistakes

Sometimes the KJB translators simply repeated the mistakes of previous translators. This happened in a few cases in their renderings of New Testament verses, as the translation team seems to have relied too heavily upon Beza's 1598 Greek New Testament.

There are mistakes in Beza, and they appear again in the KJB. Some of these mistakes do not appear in Erasmus, Wycliffe, Tyndale, and others, but then they pop up in the KJB. This is unfortunate.

Fortunately, none of them ever rise to the level of creating doctrinal uncertainties, or altering key verses; and, in fact, this is probably why these translation mistakes have rarely caused people to switch away from reading the KJB.

Here is a representative example:

Revelation 16:5 reads, "And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus."

The phrase translated here, "shalt be," should actually be "holy one." A pretty big difference, yes! That is because it is not a typo, but simply a repeated mistake from Beza.

A couple other KJB translation mistakes

The translators of the King James Bible had it right about ninety-five percent of the time. However, admittedly, there are moments in the KJB when it is clear that they were sometimes working from manuscripts that are not as complete as we now possess.

We see this in their use of the noun, "buckler," which occurs eleven times in the Old Testament, never in the New, and is a mistranslation from the Hebrew. The KJB has it meaning “shield” when it should probably have been “spear,” as in 1 Chronicles 12:8.

To take another example, Numbers 23:22 in the KJB has the author of the Torah comparing God’s strength to that of a unicorn: “God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.” Well, unicorns never existed, right? It should have been something more akin to "wild ox."

The Johannine Comma

Thus far I haven't spent much time talking about mistakes in the translation of the King James Bible. I have spent most of the space in this blog, and in the book that inspired it, talking instead about the beautiful aspects of the KJB.

But let's mention one important snafu, however.

It is called by biblical scholars, the Johannine Comma. It refers to the mistranslation of the verse, 1 John 5:7. The KJB reads:

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the holy Ghost: and these three are one.

This translation arose because the translators were using a manuscript for 1 John that was unreliable. The mistake first appeared in English in 1522, nearly a century before the KJB, and was perpetuated without much comment into the nineteenth century. Interestingly, Erasmus fixed the mistake in his own translations of the New Testament into Greek and a revised Latin -- but then there was an outcry that he was compromising the doctrine of the Trinity.

YouTube Bible

I love the YouTube Bible project of The King James Bible Trust in the UK. Check it out.

Mostly ordinary folk read one chapter from the King James Bible, to camera. There is something inspiring about their passion, interest, and participation.

Immerse Thyself

The reach of the KJV has been far and wide—farther and wider than any book in history—but understanding the KJV comes only from reading it, hearing it, and absorbing it. My book, Verily Verily, isn’t an academic exercise, and neither is this blog. My goal is to spark in you an interest in picking up the KING JAMES BIBLE again. Spend time with it.

I recently reread the entire 1611 KJV myself. I selected an edition that is without sectarian trappings of any kind—no footnotes, commentaries, or devotional comments. I ignored my grandfather’s old Scofield Reference copy on the shelf, and my Thompson Chain Reference from high school youth group. Instead, I picked an edition that was recently published by a university press, aimed at the textbook market. The Old Testament accounts for 1,039 pages. The Apocrypha (Grandpa would not have approved—but it was included in the first KJV), 246, and the New Testament, 317. That’s 1,602 pages all together; so I knew that if I read ten pages a day, I’d finish in six months.

It was a journey I’ll never forget. You should try the same, in this 400th anniversary year. Don’t just take my word for it; and don’t just read this blog; read the KJV itself.

The King James Bible is for Catholics Too

Indeed! According to this new review...

Quiverfull comes from the KJB

The controversial movement known as Quiverfull takes its inspiration from a somewhat obscure verse from Psalms in the King James Bible.

Quiver is a noun meaning a sheath for arrows. It is a metaphor used in Psalm 127 for children.

The Quiverfull Movement teaches that Christians should eschew all birth control, having as many kids as God wishes them to have by normal, active sexual activity and procreation. Their inspiration for this are the verses: “As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.” (Psalm 127:4–5)

Selah!

This fascinating verb occurs a whopping seventy-one times in the Psalms and three in Habakkuk, and yet, no one can agree on what it means.

It seems that it’s the translation of two Hebrew words and that it’s intended primarily as a musical direction, like a pause in the music of singing a psalm. In other words, “Selah” tells us to think before we move on, as in “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.” (Psalm 46:7)

Or perhaps, Selah!

Unstop your ears

The word unstopped (preposition) occurs only once in the King James Bible. I like how this word is used to mean more than “opened”; it means no longer closed: “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped” (Isaiah 35:5).

Let your yea be yea

Among my favorite King James Bible words is:

yea (adverb or noun), which means "yes," like a yes vote.

As Jesus said about the importance of clarity in life: “But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil” (Matthew 5:37)

The KJV at 400

Check out my cover story in the newest issue of the Christian Century.

Why God Is Still My Shepherd

The language of the KING JAMES BIBLE – so often described as “difficult” or “outdated” – once helped its readers to imagine and understand what we imagine and understand less of today. I’m talking about things like the soul, the afterlife, sin, spirits, and holiness. And it helped to frame ordinary ways that people once envisioned God: in the clouds, in a military victory, in the sunrise, as a baby lying in a cow’s feeding trough, or as a shepherd who cares for his sheep. These are lasting metaphors that often still make sense to me.

Many translators today insist that the old images and metaphors in the KJB should be discarded, or else, how are we to really understand what the text is trying to say? For example, translation theory today suggests that for a word such as the one for “shepherd,” ro’eh, as it is transliterated in Hebrew, we find an English equivalent that makes more sense in our culture and experience. If you have lived your life in the West and Global North, when was the last time that you actually saw a shepherd? Do you know what shepherds really do? Probably not. That’s the point, as one translator (Joel M. Hoffman, in his recent book, And God Said) suggests:

Our first warning sign that something has gone wrong in the translation is that a common, familiar word like ro’eh has been translated as a rare, unfamiliar one. While “ro’eh” was common in Hebrew, “shepherd” is uncommon in English. We know that this is always a mistake.

Really? I cannot understand something profound about God in Psalm 23 through the image of a shepherd? This particular translator—one of today’s best from Hebrew to English—goes on to suggest that English words such as Marine, fireman, lawyer, cowboy, lumberjack, and farmer would all be better than sticking with shepherd. The reasoning is that a shepherd is a protector or some sort of strong man, so I’m supposed to relate better to a cowboy or a lumberjack than a shepherd. Does that also mean that the baby Jesus should have been born in a portable crib instead of a manger? Let it never be so!

On the contrary, I believe that the very strangeness, slight foreignness, of the KJB—much more pronounced today than it was in the seventeenth century—is precisely what sometimes makes reading the Bible meaningful, beautiful, and memorable.

Creating a Mood

Modern translation theory does not allow for creating a mood. The translator is simply supposed to communicate in language most relevant to the new audience. Well, that is not all that the translators of the King James Bible, did, 400 years ago. They sought to also create a mood.

Other famous translations have done the same.

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton did so when he translated The Arabian Nights from Arabic into English in 1885. Rabindranath Tagore did, thirty years later, when he set out to translate his own work from its original Bengali into English. Tagore’s Gitanjali, which brought him a Nobel Prize in 1913, at times reads as if phrases were lifted directly from the KJV. “Here is thy footstool,” one verse begins. Another begins, “If thou speakest not …” and “Thou hast made me endless,” begins another. Neither Burton nor Tagore worked for what we might call a “modern” or “contemporary” idiom; instead, they deliberately retained what was older, and therefore alluring, about the original. Both of these became quick bestsellers in their first English translations precisely because they used language that was more, not less, florid and fantastic. They created a mood. Our newer translations today certainly communicate the text more clearly, but they don’t evoke as much of what it might feel like today to overhear Moses, David, Mary, Jesus, or Paul, speaking in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Koine Greek.

Another aspect of this mood in the KJV goes beyond idiom and language and enters into the arena of setting and scene. This is why great writers like Toni Morrison have fondly remembered the KJV being read in their family homes—precisely because the language, mood, and scenery were distinct from the world outside.

If you prefer to imagine Jesus talking with a crowd outside one of today’s shopping malls or with use of PowerPoint in a lecture hall, then the most contemporary English translations are your thing. But if you want to experience more of what it might have been like to be standing by the Sea of Galilee or in the Temple in Jerusalem, I believe that the older the English the better.

King James only Folks

Every translation since the KJV has attempted, in one way or another, to speak to modern readers. To some Christians, this smacks of giving in. My grandfathers would have pealed an amen! to the idea of standing fast on the KJV, but the average Christian today has little reason to consider the small differences between English Bible versions worth fighting for or sufficient to dictate doctrine.

In truth, not even the KJV translators themselves believed that the KJV was the single worthy translation of the Word of God. That's one of the misnomers of the KJV-only crowd. Nowhere do the translators claim that. Many of today’s most prominent evangelicals—men whom you might think would be traditionalist enough to advocate KJV-only, don’t. Important evangelicals of the recent past as diverse as Billy Graham, James Dobson, and Carl F. H. Henry haven’t taught that the KJV is the only true translation for at least a few decades.

In the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s first decade at Liberty University, other translations were endorsed. Even C. I. Scofield, a champion of the KJV (and my grandfathers’ preferred interpreter of the Scriptures), wrote in one of his thousands of footnotes to his once-popular Scofield Reference Bible:

"The writers of Scripture invariably affirm, where the subject is mentioned by them at all, that the words of their writings are divinely taught. This, of necessity, refers to the original documents, not to translations and versions; but the labours of competent scholars have brought our English versions to a degree of perfection so remarkable that we may confidently rest upon them as authoritative."

The Vulgate's creator was not a nice guy

In 404 CE, St. Jerome (translator of the Latin Vulgate—which was the only Bible of Western Christendom for almost a millennium) wrote a letter to a presbyter named Riparius, regarding the preaching of a certain clergyman:

Now that I have received a letter from you, if I do not answer it I shall be guilty of pride, and if I do I shall be guilty of rashness. For the matters concerning which you ask my opinion are such that they cannot either be spoken of or listened to without profanity.… You tell me that Vigilantius (whose very name Wakeful is a contradiction: he ought rather to be described as Sleepy) has again opened his fetid lips and is pouring forth a torrent of filthy venom … I am surprised that the reverend bishop in whose diocese he is said to be a presbyter acquiesces in this his mad preaching, and that he does not rather with apostolic rod, nay with a rod of iron, shatter this useless vessel and deliver him for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved.… The wretch’s tongue should be cut out, or he should be put under treatment for insanity. As he does not know how to speak, he should learn to be silent.

This was clearly not the sweetest of men. He must have translated the Sermon on the Mount a lot quicker than he did other portions of scripture…

Luca Brasi, Woody Allen, and the KJB

In terms of subject matter, from Mel Brooks to Monty Python to Harold Ramis, many a Hollywood film director has looked to the Bible and found some really good material. And for one raised on the KJV, I can’t help but hear its cadence in the occasional movie line, as in The Godfather when Sal Tessio says that “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes,” meaning, he’s dead. Doesn’t that sound a whole lot like the Old Testament: “And Jehoahaz slept with his fathers; and they buried him in Samaria…” (2 Kings 13:9)?

Or this one:

Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry.
Proverbs 6:30

which reminds me of the scene in Woody Allen’s Radio Days where a husband tries to convince his wife that it’s okay for the maid to steal from them because, if she didn’t, “Who would she steal from, if not us?”

Bilingual English -- Everyday and Bible

The English that we speak at work or the dinner table is often the same English we speak at church. It wasn’t always so. The KJV offers a language that is slightly outside of everyday experience, which expands our capacity to contemplate, see, and know God. Before the modern era, when translations became more abundant, Christian English-speakers were basically bilingual—everyday English and KJV English existed side-by-side.

What I am proposing is a rediscovery and reinvigoration of this sort of English bilingualism. Reading a Bible that’s a little bit difficult, and unusual, is good for you.

See you Sunday at St. Bart's NYC

If you happen to be in NYC this Sunday, May 15, come to the Rector's Forum at St. Bart's Church at 10 am. We will be talking about the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible.

The Vinegar Bible and The Printer's Bible

Innocent mistakes are common in books of all kinds, but today’s Bible publishers employ so many proofreaders as to make mistakes almost entirely impossible. It wasn’t always so.

The so-called “Vinegar Bible” is one of the more unfortunate early editions of the KJV, in that it was a gorgeous production, one of the most beautiful of its time. Approximately five inches thick, this Bible was 19.5˝ tall by 12.75˝ wide, printed at Oxford University by John Baskett in 1717. But it was full of small typos, none of which were severe enough to condemn the printers, but sufficient to show their carelessness. In the headline above Luke chapter 20, rather than “The Parable of the Vineyard,” it reads, “The Parable of the Vinegar.”

Sometimes these typos were inserted deliberately, as is likely the case in what’s called “The Printer’s Bible,” an edition of the KJV that appeared around 1700. Psalm 119:161 read: “Printers have persecuted me without cause” rather than “Princes have persecuted me without cause.” The theory goes that a typesetter, at the last moment, changed the word as a passive/aggressive recourse against the greedy printers/publishers who had taken advantage of him.

Similar theories have been floated for an edition published in 1716 in which John 8:11 reads, “Go and sin on more” rather than “Go and sin no more.” Could this have been an instance of a playful copyist having some fun?

The Adulterous Bible of 1631

The earliest printings of the KJB were often sprinkled with what I would call unintended humor. Most famous, perhaps, is the so-called “Adulterous Bible” of 1631, also known as “The Wicked Bible,” for its printer, Robert Barker, mistakenly omitted an important negative from Exodus 20:14. As a result, the seventh commandment read, “Thou shalt commit adultery.” Oops. If you find one of these Bibles in your attic today, hold onto it, because it’s really valuable. Your ancestors must have been members of the printer’s family. Only eleven copies of this edition of the KJBe are known to exist today, as the English government immediately recalled and destroyed the rest. Robert Barker died in debtor’s prison.

Unusual adverbs in the KJB

thence (adv.)—from that place or time

whensoever or whence (adv.)—similar to thence, meaning “from what place,” but always as part of a question, as when the rabbis in the synagogue said of Jesus, “Whence hath this man this wisdom?” (Matthew 13:54)

More Sensuousness -- "He stinketh"

Some of the humor in the KJV comes from what I’d call its earthiness—what Ann Wroe (see my post from two days ago) calls its sensuousness. Sometimes those divines and Puritans knew how to paint a picture just right. They sometimes told it straight and bluntly about matters that we have sanitized today.

I’m thinking of the occasion in John’s gospel when Jesus raises his friend Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus has been lying dead in the tomb—“a cave, and a stone lay upon it”—for four days by the time Jesus arrives. That’s a long time … so long that the guys on CSI would don serious masks before sneaking a peek.

But Jesus says to the people gathered nearby, “Take ye away the stone.”

Martha, the sister of Lazarus, steps forward and offers a mild protest. Imagine what she must have been thinking. Without missing a beat, Martha interjects: “Lord, by this time he stinketh” (John 11:39).

Stinketh indeed! We have no trouble imagining the truth her words represented. The only other time the word “stinketh” occurs in the KJV comes in Isaiah 50:2 and it refers to fish. Lots of today’s translations are more sanitized and, as a result, are less interesting. The NIV accounts for a “bad odor” around Lazarus’s tomb, which is pretty good, but the NRSV only has Martha offering that “there is a stench.” Much of the frankness and earthiness are missing.

Ann Wroe on the sensuousness of the KJB

This is extracted from her excellent essay in Intelligent Life magazine:

"In the King James, people are aggressively physical. They shoot out their lips, stretch forth their necks and wink with their eyes; they open their mouths wide and say 'Aha, aha,' wagging their heads, in ways that would get them arrested in Wal-Mart. They do not simply refuse to listen, but pull away their shoulders and stop their ears; they do not merely trip, but dash their feet against stones. Sex is peremptory: men 'know' women, lie with them, 'go in unto' them, as brisk as the women are available. 'Begat' is perhaps the word the King James is best known for, list after list of begetting. The curt efficiency of the word (did no one suggest 'fathered'?) makes the erotic languor of the Song of Solomon, with its lilies and heaps of wheat, shine out like a jewel."

For the complete piece, click here.

Philip Hensher in The Spectator

I have a good friend in London who saves his copies of The Spectator and mails them to me in the States. So every six weeks or so I receive a bundle of recent issues. I especially love their book review section. One of the best around.

Well, as is sometimes the case, the book reviewer is more interesting than the book being reviewed. That is so with Philip Hensher in his review from April 9, 2011 of The Book of Books: The Radical Impact of the King James Bible, 1611-2011. Check it out, here; the whole review is now online.

I especially appreciated these three bits:

1) "Sometimes [the KJV is] frankly a bit vulgar, with a sort of anti-talent for metaphor, as in the Song of Solomon: ‘Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing.’"

2) "The dialogue can be sharp and snappy — ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’"

3) "Or the very opposite, as in Satan’s camp response when God asks him, in Job, what he’s been up to: ‘Going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it’ (my absolute favourite line in the entire Bible)."

PBS' Religion and Ethics Newsweekly

This weekend's show leads off with a feature on the 400th anniversary of the great Bible, plus lots of interview with yours truly. What more could one want?! Seriously, here it is. I hope you like it.

English royalty love their KJV

English monarchs still hold their greatest textual achievement in high esteem, as they should. As Gordon Campbell points out in Bible: The Story of the King James Version 1611-2011 (Oxford University Press, hardcover, $24.95), England’s current monarch, Elizabeth II, sent a King James Bible to every child born in the realm in 1953, the year of her coronation. More recently, in this anniversary year, Prince Charles II has captured England’s attention around the KJV in this anniversary year as the patron of the King James Bible Trust (kingjamesbibletrust.org), a series of exhibits, celebrations, educational events, and lectures throughout the UK.

Verily, Verily to be featured on PBS' Religion and Ethics Newsweekly

A week from today, on Good Friday, the story about Verily, Verily and the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible will go live on the PBS website. Check it out here on Friday, April 22. It then airs throughout the U.S. on PBS affiliates over Easter weekend. The good folks from Religion and Ethics Newsweekly interviewed me at Park Street Church in Boston last week.

Everyone but Catholics

Everyone is getting into the act in 2011—talking about the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. There are conferences, television programs, websites, blogs, videos, and traveling exhibits. Most notable of the latter are the rare biblical treasures and artifacts of the privately-owned Green Collection, named for the Oklahoma City family behind it, traveling the U.S. throughout 2011. On March 31 at The Embassy of the Holy See in Washington, D.C. the exhibit went on display. Sitting beside fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, rare Roman papyrus, priceless medieval editions of the Vulgate, and a first edition of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, were a variety of the first printings of the 1611 KJV. The program notes read: “The King James Bible is more often seen merely as a Protestant enterprise while, in fact, it represented the earliest attempt in English to provide what we may call today ‘an interfaith’ Bible translation that borrowed from the best that previous translations had to offer.” An odd claim.

Catholics had nothing to do with the translation and producing of the KJV. Still, it was the most ecumenical option of its day in England. James I called for the new Bible at the Hampton Court Conference in January 1604, seeing the work as a means of bringing Puritans and Anglicans together. There was no attempt to include Catholics, however. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation were at their highest point, the Catholics had their own translation in Rheims beginning in 1582, and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 effectively convinced all that reconciliation was impossible.

The flow of ancient, startling words

The KJV translators weren’t always interested in creating smooth, easy phrasings. Not like today’s Bible translations. Sometimes they opted for older forms of speech, “classic” sounding words, and cadence, rather than what was smooth. I like that. The result is memorable language. I cannot imagine memorizing Psalm 23, for instance, in any other translation.
The same sort of strategy works in other aspects of life. For instance, have you ever noticed that some of the most memorable radio voices aren’t smooth? A couple of the most frequent on National Public Radio even have lisps and distinct regional accents. Others have quirky cadences and pronunciations—so that I know who is talking the moment that I hear their voice come over the airwaves. They are like celery to my ears! I seem to hear what they are saying better than what the smoother and easily digestible voices of other radio personalities are saying.

Monday, April 11

Come join us Monday Noon-1:30 p.m. at Park Street Church in Boston to celebrate the birthday of the KJV. PBS' Religion & Ethics Newsweekly will be there!

History and Poetry Combined

"The King James Bible is a cornerstone of our culture and our language. Whatever our faith, whatever we believe, we have to recognise that the rhetorical power of this book, and in particular its power to fuse history with poetry, connects at the most fundamental level with our own history and poetry."
- Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate 1999-2009

Guardian newspaper list of KJV phrases

A great list of phrases from the KJV, here, and of all places--from the Guardian in the UK.

Jabal-e-Noor-ul-Quran Quetta

I know that some of you who have read my HuffPo piece in the last couple of days on "How to Properly Dispose of Unwanted Holy Books," are interested in more information about the group that overseas Qur'an burials in the Chiltan Hills of Pakistan.

This Muslim group is a registered charity with the Pakistani government called Jabal-e-Noor-ul-Quran Quetta. As of April 4, 2011 they had an active Facebook page and a registered website (www.jnqqta.org) that wasn’t working.

King James Bible documentary

The producers of this new documentary have sent me a copy. I have mixed reactions to KJB: The Book that Changed the World.

At the outset, some may find the lengthy ads for two videos of Christian apologetics disappointing. Also, the professorial experts who are interviewed throughout the video are of mixed quality. Third, it takes a full 35 minutes before King James I ascends the throne of England following Elizabeth I's death. That is more than one third of the total film! But if you desire a video biography of James I, including how his religious education may have influenced his desires to call for a new Bible, this is your video.

The Translators to the Reader

That's how the preface was titled in the original 1611 KJV. I love this part:

"The Scriptures we are commanded to search (John 5:39, Isa. 8:20). They are commended that searched and studied them (Acts 17:11 and 8:28-9). They are reproved that were unskilful in them, or slow to believe them (Matt. 22:29, Luke 24:25). They can make us wise unto salvation (2 Tim. 3:15). If we be ignorant, they will instruct us; if out of the way, they will bring us home; if out of order, they will reform us; if in heaviness, comfort us; if dull, quicken us; if cold, inflame us."

Fav words in the King James Bible

zeal (n.)—an earnest emotion that can be enlightened (2 Corinthians 7:11) but also misguided or arrogant, driving the will, as when Paul remembers his former life: “Concerning zeal, persecuting the church” (Philippians 3:6), or in Romans 10:2, “For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.”

First 57 pages

If you haven't already read Verily, Verily and would like a sneak peek, the publisher has generously placed the first 57 pages of the book in PDF form up on its website. You can see it here.

Excellent book

I am reading and reviewing The King James Bible: A Short History from Tyndale to Today, by David Norton (Cambridge University Press, just published in paperback March 2011) for a piece to come soon in the Christian Century. I highly recommend Norton's book. It covers much of the same material as my Verily, Verily, but adds to the historical story I tell with details on the reception of the KJV up through the eighteenth century, and textual variants that occurred throughout that century, as well.

William Tyndale and Cold War Bible Smugglers

Tyndale was by far the most important precursor to the King James Bible. In the 1520s he first began openly breaking English law by publishing his own translations of the Bible. I think the most apt comparison that illuminates what Tyndale was doing, then, were the Christians of the twentieth century who risked their lives smuggling Bibles into the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Like them, Tyndale saw his as a holy work, and civil disobedience that obeyed the law of God.
Tyndale often worked in the middle of the night, in vacated buildings, away from the watchful eye of the king’s men, ready to flee when the authorities got close. He was willing to die but, like the apostle Paul, wanted to keep living while there was work to be done. On one occasion, just a year before his first complete New Testament was published, Tyndale and a helper even escaped by night in a covered boat on the Rhine River.

Psalm 23 according to John Wycliffe

The Lord gouerneth me, and no thing schal faile to me; in the place of pasture there he hath set me. He nurschide me on the watir of refreischyng; he conuertide my soule. He ledde me forth on the pathis of righfulnesse; for his name. For whi thoug Y schal go in the myddis of schadewe of deeth; Y schal not drede yuels, for thou art with me. Thi gerde and thi staf; tho han coumfortid me. Thou hast maad redi a boord in my sigt; agens hem that troblen me. Thou hast maad fat myn heed with oyle; and my cuppe, fillinge greetli, is ful cleer. And thi merci schal sue me; in alle the daies of my lijf. And that Y dwelle in the hows of the Lord; in to the lengthe of daies.

(According to the Wycliffite version made by Nicholas de Hereford about A.D. 1381, and revised by John Purvey about A.D. 1388)

Favorite words in the King James Bible

thee (pron.)—singular accusative of thou. We often confuse thee, thou, thy, and thine with formal forms of address—but they were not. Throughout the KJV these are simply the singular forms of the 2nd person pronoun. Memorably, Jesus says to the devil in Luke 4:8, “Get thee behind me, Satan”!

Favorite words in the King James Bible

unstopped (prep.)—occurs only once, I like how this word is used to mean more than “opened”; it means no longer closed: “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped” (Isaiah 35:5)

Was Shakespeare involved in the KJV?

There are some theories about the Bard sitting on the Psalms translation committee. Don’t believe it. There are hundreds of allusions to Scripture in Shakespeare; he lived in the golden age of English discovery of the Bible; but he knew other translations.
For example, in his historical play, Henry VI, Shakespeare has King Henry VI of England say:

God shall be my hope, My stay, my guide, and lantern to my feet.

Psalm 119:105 reads this way in the KJV: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” Shakespeare wrote Henry VI in the early 1590s, nearly twenty years before the KJV was first published, and probably about seventeen years before the Psalms committee turned in their work. The truth is that Shakespeare was inspired by the Geneva Bible translation:

Thy worde is a lanterne unto my feete, and a light unto my path.

1 Samuel 3:9-11 in the original 1611 KJV

Therefore Eli said vnto Samuel, Go, lie downe, & it shal be, if he call thee, that thou shalt say, Speake Lord, for thy seruant heareth. So Samuel went, and lay downe in his place.

And the Lord came, and stood and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speake, for thy seruant heareth.

And the Lord sayd to Samuel, Behold, I will doe a thing in Israel, at which, both the eares of euery one that heareth it, shall tingle.

-1 Samuel 3:9-11, in the original 1611 King James Bible

What should you do with old Bibles?

What to do with old Bibles? If you can’t give them away, repurpose them, you are supposed to bury them.
In fact, each of the three monotheistic faiths practice some form of this. There are a series of underground tunnels in the Chiltan Hills near Quetta, Pakistan, where nearly 100,000 discarded and partial Qur’ans are carefully packed in bags, buried (which they actually call “storing” in a hopeful sort of way), and then watched over by devout Muslims who feel called to the sacred task. The first of these many tunnels was dug in 1992 and measures 130 feet in length, and is about seven feet in circumference.
On a much less impressive scale, someday someone will buy my old house, dig up the rear part of the garden (look to the area closest to the shed, near the remnants of last year’s tomato plants), and likely scratch their heads at what they find about twenty-two inches down.

King James Bible verb forms -- are not that difficult

The verb forms of the KJV – which are often the first thing that makes us feel distant from this beautiful translation – are actually quite easy to grasp. They follow a simple, consistent pattern.
• The –st endings are only used for the 2nd person singular (“thou”) for most verbs. For instance, “Thou lovest righteousness” (Psalm 45:7).
• The –th endings are only used for the 3rd person singular (“he,” “she,” or “it”). For instance, “For he that loveth his life shall lose it” (John 12:25).
• The 1st person singular (“I”), and all of the plural pronouns (“we,” “ye” [since the KJV never uses “you”], and “they”) are exactly the same as our modern English forms:
“The world may know that I love the Father” (John 14:31)—1st person singular.
“We know that we love God” (1 John 5:2)—1st person plural.
“If ye love them which loves you” (Matthew 5:46)—2nd person plural.
“They love to pray standing in the synagogues” (Matthew 6:5)—3rd person plural.

Other than a few additional wrinkles, it’s not much more complicated than that.

What a marvelous, thoughtful review!

Joshunda Sanders of the Austin (TX) American-Standard wrote this review of Verily, Verily today. With lots of information about what is happening around the world for the 400th anniversary, I also appreciate how thoughtfully she has read my book and appreciated what I was attempting to communicate. Thanks, Joshunda.

How Lincoln talked like the King James Bible in the Gettysburg address

Why would Abraham Lincoln begin the Gettysburg Address with “Fourscore and seven years ago …” with language that was archaic for its time? Didn’t he wish to speak directly to the people in words that they would understand? Yes, of course; but Lincoln was talking to a people deeply divided by war and yet united by a respect for the Bible. He was echoing the language of the KING JAMES BIBLE. He was, in fact, using the language of the KJV because it would be heard by his listeners as the language of God. Fourscore appears a total of forty-six times in the KJV, first in Genesis 16:16: “And Abram was fourscore and six years old, when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram.”

1 Corinthians 13:1-2 in the 1611 King James Bible

Though I speake with the tongues of men & of Angels, and haue not charity, I am become as sounding brasse or a tinkling cymbal. And though I haue the gift of prophesie, and vnderstand all mysteries and all knowledge: and though I haue all faith, so that I could remooue mountaines, and haue no charitie, I am nothing.

Christians--more than any other people--have presumed to translate holy scripture.

Every culture since time began has been deadly serious about the idea of translation—not only the English and not only Christians. The privilege of faithfully repeating, copying, and rendering sacred words is always of the utmost importance. The Vedas have always had a privileged place of honor in India. Throughout Indian history, traditionalist Hindus have proclaimed their perfection, arguing that all knowledge is to be found in them, and that the way in which they are rendered in their original Sanskrit is infallible. Similarly, the Bhagavad Gita is most holy in Sanskrit—a language that hardly anyone but scholars can read. So it is with the words of Allah in the Qur’an. The original Arabic is believed to be directly revealed by God and not of human origin. The youngest of all of the world’s major scriptures, the Qur’an existed only in Arabic until the early seventeenth century. Most Muslims today still believe that the Qur’an is the final revelation of God—but only in the original language.
Since the books of the Hebrew Bible were translated into Koine Greek in the second and third centuries BCE, Jews have stuck to the original Hebrew. In synagogues around the world, from the most liberal Reform to the most ultra-Orthodox, Jews even today only read the Torah in Hebrew. Torah scrolls are always handwritten—it can take a team of people a year or longer to complete one—and only in Hebrew.
The ancient Greeks, prideful of their schools of philosophy and skills in rhetoric, coined the word barbaroi, from which comes our word barbarians, to describe those people who speak languages other than Greek. More than any other people, it became the Christians who presumed to do the most vernacular translations of holy scripture.

Before the KJV, translating was against the law, punishable by death. Why?!

William Tyndale was burned at the stake for translating the Bible into English. How could an activity so seemingly innocent be so threatening? It’s not as if a theft or a murder or some other serious crime had been committed. This was simply translating Hebrew and Greek words and sentences into English equivalents. Where’s the threat to national security? Why would this sort of activity be regarded as a way of undermining king and kingdom?
Simply put: The established order and status quo were in danger. By about 1380, translating Scripture into the vernacular became criminal, and attempting to translate the Bible became dangerous and clandestine work, like smuggling Bibles into Saudi Arabia today. There was a lot at stake in such work—quite literally!
Speech has always been dangerous. Language carries ideas that can be infectious. Historically, words have demonstrated more power than swords to stir hearts and speak to souls. Some philosophers have even remarked that without speech and words human beings would be without souls.
In the Middle Ages, the words of God were believed to have been set in stone—complete and forever finished. They were not to be changed in any way. Never mind the issues that are now familiar to us about the reliability (or unreliability) of ancient or original texts, and the methods of transmission of those texts, and so on; for most people in the centuries before the KJV, messing with the particular words of God that they knew in the Latin Bible was like deciding to take a chisel and hammer to the Venus de Milo. Imagine a man who walks into the Louvre in Paris saying to himself, “I think I could take that unseemly angle off her nose with just a tap or two right about … there!”

How popular is the KJV, still today?

Just how popular is the King James Bible, still today?
Until very recently, the KJV was the world’s bestselling Bible in English. But sometime in the 1980s it was supplanted by the New International Version, which remains tops, today. Still, there are more than one billion English-speakers in the world today, and there are at least two KJV Bibles in existence for each one of them.
Interestingly—and mind-bogglingly—The Gideons International alone has printed and distributed more than 1.5 billion Scriptures—both New Testaments and complete Bibles—since 1908. They gave away nearly 76 million last year alone! For their first eighty years, the Gideons distributed the KJV exclusively, but they have tended to favor the New King James Translation over the last two decades and make both translations available to their 280,000 members, in more than 10,000 local groups spread across the globe. (When I asked the Gideons at their headquarters in Nashville for some firmer numbers I was told that they don’t keep them, nor do they attempt to publicize them.)

The very first English translators of the Bible

By the seventh century, the first spark of the idea to translate the Bible into English began to flare. According to the Venerable Bede (673-735), Caedmon, a monastery herdsman and the first English poet, paraphrased portions of the Old and New Testaments. None of the originals of Caedmon’s work are extant, but there seems to be little reason to doubt the copies that we possess of his work on Genesis, Exodus, and Daniel. Bede himself then translated portions of John’s Gospel.
Two centuries later, King Alfred the Great (871–99), the most important medieval ruler of England, became a champion of vernacular (English-language) learning. Alfred was noted above all for his courageous and creative defeats of the invading hordes of Vikings. Detailed engravings and paintings, popular in every British elementary school textbook, show him as a harp-playing minstrel in costume, spying in the camps of the Danes. But there are also legends that he translated the Latin Bible into Old English. While that isn’t exactly true—it was Alfred’s scholars who did any such work—he did translate several Latin texts, such as Pope Gregory I’s Pastoral Care, into English. Much later, King Henry VIII (reign 1509–47) probably took his own inspiration to be a scholar-king from the legends of Alfred the Great. (More on that to come in future posts. Alfred found his way into the Catholic canon of saints. Henry VIII wasn’t so fortunate!)

The King James Bible and Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom

For the last two decades, my church home has been mostly Episcopalian. Episcopalians aren’t really supposed to read the King James Version anymore. It’s almost embarrassing to tell someone that you do. It can feel like admitting that your favorite television show is still Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.
But I grew up with King James language—I breathed it like air. I memorized long passages that remain with me. As a kid, I rarely said anything worth repeating, but when I did, my mother would remark to my father, “Out of the mouth of babes!” (Psalm 8:2). Today, I can no more unhinge some of these phrases and verses from my psyche than I can go back in time and undo the mistakes that I made in high school.
I still love the cadence and language of the KJV, though I cannot agree that the newer translations are deficient or unfaithful to the original text. In fact, I know the exact opposite is usually true. The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) seems to be the preferred translation of today’s academics because of its contemporary scholarship, use of the most recent manuscripts—including those discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls—removal of archaisms, attention to the differences between genres (typesetting poetry as poetry, presenting the Song of Songs as drama, and so on), and the use of appropriate gender-inclusive language. But of course there are many others. For example, I know that the New International Version (NIV) and Today’s New International Version (TNIV) are preferred by many pastors, and quite a few poets and writers are partial to the Revised English Bible (REB).
But the KJV is the only one that is a building block of our collective cultural heritage. It is like the characters in Dickens or the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. (both fans). Where would we be without phrases like these: “the fat of the land” (Genesis 45:18), “eat, drink, be merry” (Luke 12:19), “the apple of his eye” (Deuteronomy 32:10), and bunches more?

King James Bible Trust

If you haven't already seen this, the Brits have really done it right. The UK government established The King James Bible Trust in order to coordinate celebrations for the 400th anniversary across the country, through the media, in every way possible.

Their website is here, and includes a calendar of events (visit London this year!), as well as terrific video segments.

Ye, thee, and thou -- also good stuff!

Following up on my last post about how the less-familiar adverbs and pronouns of the KJV are actually good for you…let me add that from its very beginnings 400 years ago, the KJV was meant to be somewhat old-fashioned and classic. Its language and syntax were not always grounded in the spoken language of the day, and were instead a bit more literary. We see this in the way that the translators usually steered away from “you” for the 2nd person pronoun, using “ye” instead for the plural, and “thee” and “thou” in the singular. These had become fairly uncommon as pronouns by 1600; so “ye,” “thee,” and “thou” carried a bit of literary flair and lent more music to the KJV than was present in the earliest English vernacular Bibles. For these reasons, some scholars have called the KJV “a deliberate piece of social and linguistic engineering.” (The Bible: Authorized King James Version, Introduction and Notes by Robert Carroll and Stephen Prickett; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008; xxviii.)

But those Jacobean adverbs and pronouns get in the way!

I want to convince you to try the King James Bible for the very reason that you may have avoided it in the past: those obscure, ancient words and phrases that get in the way of understanding. Behold … forasmuch … thence. I believe that, if you read slowly, those very words and phrases, as you pause over them and consider their meanings more deliberately than you do when reading other things, like a novel, will give you a whole new perspective on what it means to read “scripture.”
In contrast to the KJV, contemporary English translations – as they try so hard to make the Word of God accessible, can also make it seem ordinary. In their attempt to be faithful to the Hebrew and Greek originals, the translators of the KJV sometimes even chose language that was a bit old by the standards of their day. They didn’t always aim for what we might call “contemporary English.” Accessibility wasn’t their only intention. To reach people who feel that what the Bible has to say is already alien to their experience, most Bible publishers today often use language that’s made to read like a popular novel. There doesn’t seem to be much evidence that these strategies have worked to find more readers, however. (One notable exception was the first publication of the complete Living Bible, paraphrased by Kenneth N. Taylor, who was at that time the director of Moody Press in Chicago. It was first published in 1971 and amazingly became the bestselling book – not just Bible or religious book – in the United States in both 1972 and 1973.) Does the average adult know the Bible better today, for instance, with our dozens of contemporary English translations, than a similar adult may have, say, 150 years ago? No way.

Free audio clip of Verily, Verily

Zondervan now has a free audio clip from my forthcoming book on the KJV's 400th anniversary: VERILY, VERILY. Pretty sure the voice is a computer, but it still seems to work!

Matthew's Gospel is great on blindness

Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
Mt. 23:24

And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
Mt. 15:14

Even atheist Richard Dawkins likes the KJV!

This article was published in a British magazine just before Christmas 2010. The famous atheist understands the cultural, literary, and poetic value of the world's most important Bible.

Deuteronomy 8:3

Man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.

Volunteers reading out the entire KJV in March

News update related to the 400th anniversary...

This is so very cool. A group of people in Bath, England, will be doing a public read-aloud of the entire KJV from March 1-5, 2011. Check out this story from yesterday's London Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/23/king-james-bible-reading-bath

It would be marvelous if we could do something similar in other parts of the world, and here in the U.S.

Burying Bibles

I have buried a lot of Bibles in the last decade—Bibles that are leftover after our summer church fair. That’s what you’re supposed to do with no-longer-needed holy books. At the end of the fair, I carry the leftovers home and get the tall shovel out of the shed. Using the heel of my right shoe, I thrust its blade deep into the soil and make a hole large enough for a dead pet. In they go.
In fact, each of the three monotheistic faiths practice some form of this. There are a series of underground tunnels in the Chiltan Hills near Quetta, Pakistan, where nearly 100,000 discarded and partial Qur’ans are carefully packed in bags, buried (which they actually call “storing” in a hopeful sort of way), and then watched over by devout Muslims who feel called to the sacred task. The first of these many tunnels was dug in 1992 and measures 130 feet in length, and is about seven feet in circumference.
On a much less impressive scale, someday someone will buy my old house, dig up the rear part of the garden (look to the area closest to the shed, near the remnants of last year’s tomato plants), and likely scratch their heads at what they find about twenty-two inches down.

A wholesome tongue is a tree of life

A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit. -Proverbs 15:4

One more thought on Dr. King

Still thinking about Martin Luther King, Jr., this week...
Dr. King was a powerful example of how the KJV can shape us. As he knew very well, nearly every time that the word “servant” appears in the Old or New Testaments of the KJV it means “slave.” It’s a confusing blessing. On the one hand, there are numerous slaves spoken of in Scripture in ways that clearly condones the practice of keeping humans in servitude to a master; on the other hand, Jesus speaks of himself as a servant/slave (see Matthew 12:18) and he praises the lowliness of the servant/slave as the prime example of one his followers (Matthew 23:11). What to do with these contradictions?
The prophetic language of the KJV helped spur on the Civil Rights Movement. The words and cadences of the original translation entered American living rooms for two decades in one of the most tumultuous periods of the twentieth century. King James’s old Bible has the power to affect us still today, put to work in the life of someone like Dr. King, but perhaps even more broadly, in the lives of all of us.

Dr. King and the KJV

In Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered on August 28, 1963, on the Mall in Washington, he said: “No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” The reference is to the King James Bible’s Amos 5:24: “But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” Dr. King always quoted from the KJV.
He also rang out with “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” He was quoting Isaiah 40:4, which then continues, “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.”

Bard vs. Bible -- Believe

BELIEVE

Before my God, I might not this believe
without the sensible and true avouch of mine own eyes.
Hamlet I, 1

Blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of
those things which were told her from the Lord.
Luke 1:45

Bard vs. Bible -- Lies

William Shakespeare--who lived at the time that the KJV was translated and first published--is the next most often quoted source in English literature, after the King James Bible. This is the first in a series of, Which is better, Bard or Bible?

LIES

Doubt the equivocation of the fiend
that lies like truth.
Macbeth, V, 5

Your tongue is like a sharp razor, you worker of treachery.
You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking the truth.
Psalm 52:2-3

Common Misconceptions about the King James Bible

You may have heard that 2011 marks the 400^th anniversary since the original publication of the King James Bible. So what? The KJV (King James Version) is not simply a Bible, it is the Bible that has influenced the English-speaking world more than any other.

There are, however, several, popular, mistaken notions about this book. First of all, it was not the first English translation of the Bible. Several came before it—including a famous one by a guy named Wycliffe, and another by a man who was burnt at the stack for translating the Bible into the vernacular: Tyndale.

Second, King James did none of the work. He appointed someone who then assembled a series of translation committees made up of scholars and poets who did the work.

Third, there is no record of King James ever actually authorizing the KJV for use in the churches of England, once it was completed, making it all the more odd that the KJV is also often referred to as the “Authorized Version.” That’s what my grandfathers called it.

"Let thy words be few"

Surely this is a KJV line that no blogger has ever followed!

It comes from Ecclesiastes 5:2 and was a favorite phrase of George Fox (1624-1691), founder of the Quaker movement in England and later, in America. He quoted it often, using it to buttress Quaker ideas of silence, holy listening, and just plain shutting up.

We could all use a bit of "Let thy words be few" today.

Reason #1 to Like the KJV

There is no Bible translation that has a larger impact on the culture, language, and worldview of English-speaking people--than the King James Bible. Read it this year--2011, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of its first publication--and you will hear echoes of Martin Luther King, Jr., Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Join me, here, this year, as we read together and discuss what makes the KJV special.