A lovely book has recently come into my hands, A Visual History of the King James Bible: The Dramatic Story of the World's Best-Known Translation by Donald L. Brake with Shelly Beach. I come to this book late. It was published in 2011, on the 400th anniversary of the publication of the Bible commissioned by James I of England. Curiously, although this translation never received written royal authorization, it is frequently called the Authorized Version. Thus, the frontispiece of the folio printings during the first decades of issuance (and many later printings of all sizes) contain the words "Appointed to be Read in Churches", rather than "Authorized…" etc. Therefore, in Visual History it is never called the Authorized Version but is uniformly the King James Version or King James Bible.
The book is indeed a visual history, replete with portraits of many important figures in the history leading up to the translation work of 1604-1608, and for some time thereafter; and even more pictures of many historical Bibles and Bible pages. Dr. Brake is a Bible collector, with access to many rare volumes in addition to his own sizable collection.
By the time of the conference at Hampton Court in 1604, during which a Puritan minister challenged King James I to support the production of a new translation (and, to everyone's surprise, the king agreed), there were several competing versions of the Bible in English, in particular the Bishop's Bible, the Geneva Bible and the Great Bible of Coverdale.
The English language was in flux, transforming from late Middle English into what we call Shakespearean English. The actual vocabulary and grammar used by the translators to produce the translation of 1608 dated to the generation before Shakespeare. This was for reasons similar to the love many people today have for the King James Bible's sonorous phrasing: it sounds "old" and thus "dignified". Also, since many of the translators were rather elderly (several died before the work was complete), it was the language of their childhood. Actual Shakespearean English was thought by them in the same vein that people of my generation think of the kind of English spoken by Millennials today. We and our grandchildren can easily converse together, but we sometimes use expressions that evoke a quizzical look from "the kids"…and they from us. I was interested to learn that the antique pronouns "thee" and "thou" and so forth were already falling out of use in 1604, but were retained for the same set of reasons.
The typeface of Bibles before the late 1700's was nearly always blackletter (as in the image above), with its calligraphic look. But although the early printings of the King James Bible used blackletter for the text, they used a Roman typeface for explanatory notes and certain other apparatuses. Modern typefaces are nearly all either Roman—or similar "serif" faces—or Swiss—or similar "sans serif" faces.
The largest technical section involves the rules for translation, which are explained in some detail. The scholars wanted to be sure they got it right. However, they made last-minute changes in translating certain expressions. Even though the translation was considered complete in 1608, late changes continued for years. In addition, the way large books were printed, such that a changed word could often be replaced in the impression plate between one print run and the next, meant that the "1611" printing, which really went on for three years, led to numerous variations from book to book. This, plus printers' errors, that would be changed whenever they were found, led to an amazing consequence: While nobody knows how many "first edition" copies were printed, of the 150 or so that presently are known, none is identical in every respect to any of the others.
This poses a bit of a problem for those who consider the King James Version, or KJV, to be inspired as a translation. There is no letter-perfect copy of the "original text"! Numerous re-compilations of the text were made. When you buy a modern reprinting of the "1611 version", it is from one of these. However, the King James Bible one commonly finds at any Christian bookstore is a reprint of the third revision of 1769. It is the Bible that was coming into common use when the Constitution of the U.S. was crafted. The English text of the KJV was revised in 1629, 1675, and 1769.
In a late chapter the author takes up the matter of inspiration. The KJV is loved for many reasons, but there are two groups who revere it far more, to a point that I sometimes characterize as idolatry. Some believe the English translation itself is literally inspired, separately from the Hebrew and Greek originals. I believe the paragraph above disposes of such a notion. Others believe that, for the New Testament in particular, the Greek text used, commonly called the Textus Receptus, or Received Text, is exactly the text God wants to be used when translating into English. This is in spite of the fact that the text prepared by Erasmus, to which they usually refer, was secondary to a text by Beza that was the Textus Receptus of the translators in 1604-1608. The Beza text was favored because some of the text by Erasmus had actually been translated into Greek from the Latin Vulgate, because Erasmus could not get access to Greek texts for all the Bible books! But there is a further consideration.
The primary sources of both "flavors" of the Textus Receptus are Byzantine-era Greek manuscripts dating from the Ninth Century or later. They are both considered "near-majority" texts. I have a modern reprint of the Beza text that came with an appendix containing notes on the changes needed to convert it to a true Majority Text, that is, one that uses the version of each word or phrase as found in the majority of Byzantine manuscripts. There are thousands of such manuscripts, and literal criticism (criticism of the letters and words) is a serious discipline in its own right. Starting in the 1700's a number of older manuscripts were discovered, which fall into two categories names Alexandrian and Western. They are considered to be closer to the Koiné Greek of the First Century, though the Western manuscripts contain some passages in a more paraphrased form.
Over the past couple of centuries it has become clear that, whereas Greek fell out of use in favor of Latin in Europe, and in favor of Coptic in Egypt, it remained the common language of the Byzantine Empire in the East. Thus, the Greek New Testament, and the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, were used for centuries in the East. As a result there are many more Greek manuscripts from that region still in existence. However, the Greek language changed over the centuries. Byzantine Greek of the 800's or 900's was as different from Koiné Greek as modern English is from Middle English: Go back to the image of the Wycliffe Bible page above. You can figure it out, but it really is a different language from modern English. For the same reason, hardly anyone reads Chaucer "in the original", but in a translation. The Byzantine texts are copies of a translated Greek text, not copies of Koiné Greek texts. This is a significant reason behind the production of the text of Novum Testamentum Graece, currently in its Fifth edition by United Bible Society, which relies more upon the Alexandrine manuscripts. It is considered closer to a genuine Koiné text than any other.
The words of Dr. Brake are most relevant here:
Christians and Bible scholars throughout history agree that insofar as our English translations render the meaning of the Word of God as intended by the original authors in a language we can understand, they are inspired. (p. 244)That is, the focus should not be on whether the written words in our hands are inspired, but on whether we are inspired by the Holy Spirit when we read them. As I heard frequently when I was a young Christian, "The Bible is the only book whose Author is present whenever we read it."
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