AUTHORIZED VERSION

 AUTHORIZED VERSION

Porter, Stanley E. 2013. How We Got the New Testament: Text, Transmission, Translation. Edited by Lee Martin McDonald and Craig A. Evans. Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

There is little that needs to be said about the Authorized Version of 1611 (also known as the King James Version) that has not already been said elsewhere.72 King James, not sharing the Calvinistic theology of the Geneva Bible, welcomed the proposal in 1603 of a new translation. He commissioned six groups of translators, involving roughly fifty-seven translators in all, to perform the translational work. Three groups worked on the Old Testament, two on the New Testament, and one on the Apocrypha. Their drafts were revised by a smaller group and then published. Common names and ecclesiastical wording were retained, while added words were put in italics. Although the Authorized Version is a translation in its own right, in the sense that the scholars involved probably used Beza’s fifth edition for the Greek New Testament (according to F. H. A. Scrivener, though some think that a version of Stephanus from 1550 was used),73 it is also a major revision in that it was based upon the Bishops’ Bible and ended up retaining such a high percentage of Tyndale’s wording.74 The early editions of the Authorized Version were full of all kinds of mistakes, such as rendering Matthew 23:24 with “strain at a gnat” instead of “strain out a gnat,” a mistake that was retained in subsequent editions. The edition of 1631 left the word “not” out of the seventh commandment, “You shall not commit adultery,” for which the printer was fined, and this Bible became known as the “Wicked Bible.” In an edition of 1795 Mark 7:27 was rendered “Let the children first be killed” (instead of “filled”). Another has “the dogs liked his blood” in 1 Kings 22:38 (rather than “licked up”), and, finally (for my list, not finally for the list of all errors and misprints!), Psalm 119:161 is rendered “Printers [rather than “princes”] have persecuted me without a cause.” Despite these difficulties, the Authorized Version, because of its official support—though no one has any official record of its being “authorized” by the government—and the quality of its resulting language, in large part because of Tyndale’s prior work but also because of the intentions of those involved, became the Bible of the English-speaking world, only finally being challenged in the nineteenth century. Even so, there have been a number of efforts to revise it and keep it current, including the New King James Version (1979)75 and the 21st Century King James Version (1994). 

Footnotes:

72 The year 2011 celebrated the four-hundredth anniversary of the first publication of the Authorized Version. As a result, many works were written about it in the years leading up to the celebration. Some are exercises in hagiography rather than historical, cultural, or linguistic investigation. The translators’ own words are captured in Erroll F. Rhodes and Liana Lupas, eds., The Translators to the Reader: The Original Preface of the King James Version of 1611 Revisited (New York: American Bible Society, 1997). A reasonable history is Adam Nicolson, God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible (New York: HarperCollins, 2003). A linguistic treatment by a significant linguist is David Crystal, Begat: The King James Bible and the English Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). A specialized treatment of the individuals involved is Gustavus S. Paine, The Men behind the King James Version (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1959). Two collections of essays on various related issues are David G. Burke, ed., Translation That Openeth the Window: Reflections on the History and Legacy of the King James Bible, BSNA 23 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009) (unfortunately, the photo on the cover is not of a portion of Hampton Court Palace in existence during the time of James, but a portion added under William and Mary); David Lyle Jeffrey, ed., The King James Bible and the World It Made (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2011). A fascinating book is Ward Allen, trans. and ed., Translating for King James (London: Allen Lane Penguin, 1970), an edition of the only set of notes taken by a member involved in the revision stage of the Authorized Version.

73 Stanley E. Porter, “Language and Translation of the New Testament,” in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies, ed. John W. Rogerson and Judith M. Lieu (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 197.

74 Bruce, History of the Bible, 97–98.

75 Arthur L. Farstad, The New King James Version: In the Great Tradition (Nashville: Nelson, 1989).