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.