Nick Spencer on the Bible and Politics

Nick Spencer, ‘The Bible and Politics: Christian Sources of British Political Thought’, Cambridge Papers 21, 2 (June 2012).

The latest Cambridge Paper from the Jubilee Centre is available online, this one by Nick Spencer looking at the Bible and politics, following his book published last year, Freedom and Order: History, Politics and the English Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2011), which demonstrates the strong and positive impact of the Bible on British political life.

Here is the summary:

‘This paper contends that the Bible has been the single most influential document in British political history. It takes six major political ideas, each with contemporary relevance, and shows how the Bible has shaped our attitude to each, highlighting particular hermeneutical principles critical in explaining this influence. It is suggested that a continued, strong commitment to such political virtues may be difficult to sustain if Christianity is further eroded from British public life.’

Anvil 27, 3 (2011) on Bible Translation

Some contents of the latest issue of Anvil are now available online (after a pain-free registration process), with essays on translating the Bible, with special reference to the 400th anniversary of the King James’ Version.

N.T. Wright

The Monarchs and the Message: Reflections on Bible Translation from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-First Century

In this article, Tom Wright, whose own translation of the New Testament was published in 2011, highlights the importance of translation within Christian faith as the message of the universal kingship of the Jewish messiah is communicated to the nations. Exploring the translations of the Reformation era, he sets Tyndale’s translation and the King James Version in their contrasting political contexts before explaining the significance of the word ‘Christ’ and the issues it raises today both for translators wishing to be faithful to the New Testament message and Christians seeking to live out Jesus’ radical definition of ‘lordship’. He concludes, drawing on his own experience, with reflections upon some of the other challenges facing translators today – such as the inevitability of distortion and the tensions that can arise between accuracy of word and tone or flavour – as they seek to convey the Bible’s message to contemporary readers and rulers.

Graham Tomlin

The King James Version and Luther’s Bible Translation

Graham Tomlin here examines perhaps two of the most influential Reformation texts: Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible (1534) and the King James Version (1611). He shows how their different emphases reflect different strands in tension within the Reformation as well as their different historical contexts. For Luther, translation should be idiomatic and so accessible, theological and the work of a faithful translator who has been humbled by God’s grace. His is a translation of immanence and incarnation into his culture. In contrast, the KJV is not concerned to propound a particular theological standpoint but seeks simplicity and the integrity of precise translation of the original languages. It thus preserves the Scripture’s strangeness and trusts the reader with the text’s uncertainties.

Lamin Sanneh

Bible Translation and Human Dignity

In this article, Lamin Sanneh explores the revolutionary impact, in various contexts, of translating Scripture into people’s mother tongue. He shows this significant religious, social and cultural event is an expression of Christianity as a translated religion which empowers those who receive the translation and affirms their human dignity. These findings are illustrated from history and more recent mission experience in Kenya, West Africa and Zululand and a sketch is offered of the spread of Bible translation and the social and cultural renewal that has followed.

Adam Nicolson on the King James Bible

The December 2011 edition of National Geographic magazine carries an article by Adam Nicolson on ‘The Bible of King James’, which is available online here.

As the opening blurb says:

‘First printed 400 years ago, it molded the English language, buttressed the “powers that be” – one of its famous phrases – and yet enshrined a gospel of individual freedom. No other book has given more to the English-speaking world.’

John D. Woodbridge on the King James Bible

An essay by John Woodbridge, available here, was given as an address at the King James Version Festival, hosted by the R.C. Ryan Center for Biblical Studies at Union University, in September 2011 It will also appear, along with other papers from the event, in Ray Van Neste (ed.), KJV400: Legacy and Impact (Borderstone Press, forthcoming 2012).

Woodbridge sets something of the historical background to the translation, noting that ‘it was created in a context of genuine turmoil for many Europeans’.

But in line with a number of his own published concerns, he focuses particularly on the specific beliefs of the translators regarding biblical authority, arguing that ‘their understanding of Scriptural authority remained within the central Augustinian tradition of the Western Christian churches’.

The struggle over biblical authority between Roman Catholics and Protestants, he avers, is revealed in the writings of the William Whitaker (1547-95), master of St. John’s College, Cambridge University, who was an Anglican and a Reformed theologian.

In his A Disputation on Holy Scripture (1958), Whitaker identified certain significant traits as constituent elements of his doctrine of Scriptural authority: (1) that Scripture is completely truthful (in line with what Whitaker believed was the central teaching of the western churches); (2) that Scripture’s principal author is God, the Holy Spirit; (3) that Scripture is an infallible rule of faith and practice (in that it contains sufficiently all we need to know about salvation); (4) that Scripture’s original texts were inspired of God (the Greek and Hebrew originals as opposed to, say, the Latin Vulgate); (5) that vernacular translations of the Bible are authoritative to the extent they faithfully reflect the Hebrew and Greek originals inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Woodbridge maintains that ‘the translators shared many of the same perspectives as those of William Whitaker’, showing that they too affirmed the full truthfulness of Scripture, that its principal author was the Holy Spirit, etc.

He ends the essay with a personal note:

‘Personally, one of the great joys in having pursued this study of the translators’ views of biblical authority was to encounter their closing counsel to their readers regarding their love of the Word of God. Their preface ends in an exposition of their heartfelt desire that readers of their translation would love the Word of God. Their comments are genuinely inspirational. Hopefully, they will lead us to treasure God’s Word even more than we may presently do.’

Larry Hurtado on the King James Bible

Larry W. Hurtado, ‘The King James Bible and Biblical Scholarship’, Expository Times 122, 10 (2011), 478-89.

It won’t last forever, but this essay is currently available for free download from SAGE Publications. It is slightly modified text of Hurtado’s 2011 Ethel Wood Lecture, given in Kings College London, on 2 February earlier this year.

Here is the summary:

‘As well as a product of statecraft and religious aspirations, the King James Version of the Bible (KJV) was also a product of the biblical scholarship of its day. The company of translators included a number of the best scholars in Hebrew and Greek, and they drew upon then-recent advances in the study of ancient languages, as well as the prior translation efforts of Tyndale and many others. In the centuries after its publication, the KJV both reflected and contributed to the spread of a popular interest in the Bible and in developments in biblical scholarship. These developments, however, also resulted in a critical appraisal of the KJV, especially concerning the Greek text on which the translation of the New Testament depended. So, ironically, the KJV was both a product and then itself, in a manner of speaking, a victim of biblical scholarship.’

The Spectator on Harold Bloom on the King James Bible

The Spectator carries a brief review by Matthew Richardson of Harold Bloom’s The Shadow of a Great Rock: A Literary Appreciation of the King James Bible (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011).

Under the title ‘A quirky dish’, Richardson notes that Bloom’s book ‘excels in showing the ways the Bible has influenced later literature’, but ‘is too often marred by the author’s idiosyncrasies’.

Mark Noll on the King James Bible

Mark Noll, ‘Long Live the King: The 400th Anniversary of the KJV’, Books & Culture (28 October 2011).

Mark Noll notes that the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible ‘has produced a magnificent harvest of exhibitions, conferences, and scholarship’. In comparison with the 300th anniversary celebrations in 1911, he points out, ‘most commemorations have resulted from local initiatives under local sponsorship’.

The substance of his piece reflects on six books and one video published around the 400th anniversary. Leaving aside the literary influence of the KJB, the accuracy or otherwise of its translation, and the nature of its influence on English vocabulary, he explores the books under review via four questions.

(1) What were the circumstances in which the KJB was created, and what implications should be drawn from understanding those circumstances?

In a word, politics.

(2) What is the relationship of the KJB to its predecessor translations, and how did this one new translation win out so decisively over all its competitors?

In a sense, again, politics! Readers recognised its dependence on previous versions, and the good work of those who had prepared a revised version. ‘Yet it was not this recognition as such that won the day. It was rather that those who controlled the monopoly for publishing Bibles in England stopped producing the Bishops’ Bible, supported the regime’s effort to keep the Catholic Douay-Rheims translation as far away as possible, and maneuvered to freeze out publication of the Geneva Bible.’

(3) What kind of translation is the KJB, and why should we care?

In two words, ‘essentially literal’.

Among other interesting points here, Noll refers to Myles Smith’s prefatory ‘note to the reader’, claiming that ‘the very meanest translation of the Bible in English... containeth the word of God, yea, is the word of God’.

Noll himself comments:

‘Even as Smith was taking pains to explain why the Bible he had worked on was a good translation, he contended that “the word of God” was what any even half-way adequate translation communicated. For Smith, “the word of God” was of utmost importance since, as he wrote in another part of the prefatory note: “But now what piety without truth? What truth, what saving truth, without the word of God? What word of God whereof we may be sure, without the Scripture?”’

He also says a few things about the relationship between the KJB as a literary masterpiece and the KJB as the word of God:

‘What, in particular, should be said about those readers who esteem the literary qualities of the KJB but pay no heed to its spiritual message? T.S. Eliot’s dictum in response was unequivocal: “Those who talk of the Bible as a ‘monument of English prose’ are merely admiring it as a monument over the grave of Christianity.”’

(4) The most complicated questions, both historically and theologically, arise from combining the circumstances of the KJB’s origins (question 1), its cultural dominance from the early 17th century until the recent past (question 2), and the interplay of spiritual purpose and literary excellence in its history (question 3). These questions ask what studying the history of the KJB reveals about the relationship between divine revelation and its human reception, about words on a page and the message of salvation, about the use of secondary means and the life-giving work of the Holy Spirit.

The Bible in Transmission (Summer/Autumn 2011) on Translating the Bible

The latest issue of the excellent publication, The Bible in Transmission, from Bible Society carries a collection of articles on translating the Bible:

Tony Graham

Editorial

Gordon Campbell

Translating the Bible for King James

At the Hampton Court Conference in 1604 a new English version of the Bible ‘to be read in churches’ was conceived in response to the perceived problems of earlier translations. So began the task of about 50 of England’s finest scholars.

Nick Spencer

The Geneva Bible

Substantially based on the earlier translations by William Tyndale, the Geneva Bible was the most successful, influential and widely read English translation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The English authorities, however, disliked the Geneva’s militant phrases and seditious notes, and eventually it was replaced by the Authorised Version.

Jon Riding

Bible Translation in a Changing World

After a brief survey of the history of translation, Jon Riding considers three key developments in recent decades that have radically transformed the task of translating the Bible. He also reflects on what the future holds for Bible translation.

Paula Gooder

Why Produce Your Own Translation?

Biblical scholar Paula Gooder reflects on why she often produces her own translation of Scripture. Translating a passage afresh allows the different levels of potential meaning to be highlighted in a way not possible if we just use published translations.

Neil Rees

Dissecting the Bible

A concordance is a key aid when studying the Bible. After a brief overview of the history of concordances, Neil Rees explains how computer technology has aided the production of concordances in languages that would not have had the resources to produce them a few years ago.

Simon Crisp

Bible Availability Around the World

A consideration of Bible availability around the world. Examples from four continents illustrate the impact the translated Word can have on individuals and whole communities.

Chris Sunderland

Telling Bible in a Prophetic Age

Stories have an important place in every society. They express a community’s deepest views about life and how it should be lived. This article encourages us to recover the art of storytelling as a valuable discipline and hear the Bible again as a told story that can deeply affect our society.

James Catford

News from Bible Society

Credo Magazine 1 (October 2011)

Credo – which describes itself as ‘self-consciously Evangelical, Reformational, and Baptistic’ – is a brand new digital magazine, to be published bimonthly.

Issue 1, just out, is devoted to Scripture – ‘The Living Word’ – with pieces by Matthew Barrett on ‘Inspiration, Inerrancy, and the Trustworthiness of God’, Robert Saucy on the debate between Peter Enns and Greg Beale, Owen Strachan on Sola Scriptura, Gregg Allison on the clarity and sufficiency of Scripture, Fred Zaspel on B.B. Warfield and inerrancy, Michael A.G. Haykin on the story behind the King James Bible, and an interview with John Frame on his recent Doctrine of the Word of God, along with some other items. A section of reviews includes a review (by Fred Zaspel) of Christian Smith’s recent book, The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011), which has already caused a bit of a stir in some places.

The magazine is available as an interactive pdf here, and can be downloaded as a 15.5 MB pdf here.

Nick Spencer on the Political Bible (Parts 5-8)

Nick Spencer, Research Director at Theos, the Public Theology Think Tank, has now completed an eight-part series on ‘the political Bible’ in The Guardian. The short articles helpfully summarise aspects of his recent publication, Freedom and Order: History, Politics and the English Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2011).

Parts 1-4 are linked to from here.

Parts 5-8 are as follows:

Part 5: Equality

Part 6: Welfare

Part 7: Nationhood

Part 8: Freedom and order

Union University on the King James Bible

Union University recently hosted the ‘KJV400 Festival’, celebrating the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Version of the Bible. Audio files from the conference are available for free download here.

Plenary sessions were taken by Timothy George (‘William Tyndale and the Making of the English Bible’), John Woodbridge (‘The Status of Biblical Authority Among Europeans at the Creation of the King James Bible’), and Leland Ryken (‘What Makes the King James Version Great?’ and ‘The Legacy of the King James Bible’). Several fascinating-looking Breakout sessions are also available for download.

A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (1)

Not long before he left LICC to take up a post at A Rocha, Nigel Hopper (Lecturer in Contemporary Culture and Communications Manager at LICC) asked me some questions about the Bible’s impact on culture and the implications for Christians and churches today. A trimmed version of our ‘electronic’ interview will appear in September 2011’s edition of EG, LICC’s quarterly magazine, but I will also post the transcript of the whole conversation over a series of entries here.

Nigel: 400 years after the publication of the King James Bible, how would you describe the place of the Bible in contemporary British culture?

Antony: Well, there’s no doubt that the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible has given the Bible an increased public exposure, which means the issue of the impact of the Bible on British culture has been raised again and again in recent months.

And from some unlikely places too. In the first week of May, Stylist magazine carried a piece on the Bible. So, in amongst profiles of Karren Brady and Gwyneth Paltrow, beauty tips, fashion pages, and perfume adverts, was a three-page article on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible! That article also included examples of ways the Bible has inspired contemporary culture, taking in examples from songs (like Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’), art, novels (like Yann Martel’s Life of Pi), music, and film.

So, we’ve had lots of reminders of the impact of the Bible on English literature and language. In fact, even well-known atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchins have been saying that our language and culture would be somehow incomplete without the King James translation of the Bible.

But others have been pointing out that its impact is more extensive even than that.

Melvyn Bragg, for instance, has published a volume called Book of Books: The Radical Impact of the King James Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2011) in which he traces an emancipatory impulse in the Bible – showing how it has played a role in changing society. Of course, there’s already a revolutionary notion at work in the Bible being translated from Latin into English which moves Scripture from the elite to give access to all – the ploughboy as well as the priest. And then that impulse continues – in the movement to abolish slavery, for instance, and in the charitable work of the Victorian social reformer Octavia Hill. In others sorts of ways, Bragg argues that the King James Bible was a force for democracy.

Along similar lines, Nick Spencer, Research Director at Theos and formerly at LICC, also has a book out this year called Freedom and Order: History, Politics and the English Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2011). And Nick too argues that the Bible has been influential on British political history – whether on the rights and duties of kings, democracy, and tolerance – again highlighting the point that, on balance, the Bible has had a positive impact on British political life.

One more example worth mentioning, although it casts the net wider than the Bible’s influence on Britain, is Vishal Mangalwadi’s The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011). This is particularly interesting because it’s written by an Indian scholar and author. Mangalwadi is a Christian but grew up immersed in Eastern religions, and so he brings a perspective to this topic which allows him to explore the differences between what he sees as the biblical perspective on life compared with alternative worldviews found in (for instance) Islam and Hinduism. Not unlike some of the others mentioned here, Mangalwadi makes the case that the Bible provides the foundation upon which Indian democracy as well as western civilization rests. Pretty much anything seen as of ‘value’ in western civilization – and Mangalwadi covers rationality, technology, heroism, revolution, languages, literature, university, science, morality, family, compassion, true wealth, and liberty – he credits to the influence of the Bible.

In all these ways, then, the Bible has shaped various dimensions of our culture – often without us really being aware of the extent to which it has done so!

Bobby Gruenewald on the Bible in a Technological Age

Q Ideas has a nice nine-minute video of Bobby Gruenewald here, taking its cue from the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, but moving into sharing some reflections on the impact of contemporary technology (e.g., being able to read the Bible on our smart phones) on our engagement with Scripture.

Here’s the Q Ideas summary:

‘This year marks the 400th birthday of the most widely distributed and most widely read translation of the Bible ever. Begun in 1604, the King James version was completed, approved and sent to the royal printer in 1611. Such a hallmark in history undoubtedly warrants attention. How has the Bible changed throughout history? How will it go forward in a technological age that’s moving beyond the printed word? Gruenewald, Innovation Leader for the YouVersion online Bible, explores the possible futures for our sacred text.’

Six of the Best 8: Books on the King James Bible

This is the eighth in an occasional series of ‘Six of the Best’ books in a particular area related to engaging with Scripture which are first posted on the website of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. This one looks at books on biblical interpretation written at an intermediate level.

Half-way through 2011 – the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible – it’s worth taking stock of some of the best of the books that have come out (or have been reissued) which tell the story behind the so-called ‘authorised’ version of the Bible and explore its influence on subsequent history and culture. Other good and helpful treatments of this topic have been published, and still others will doubtless appear during the remainder of the year, meaning it will be worthwhile revisiting ‘books on the King James Bible’ in six months time. Watch this space. Meanwhile...

Benson Bobrick, Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001, reissued 2010).

Focusing on the period between the European Reformation and the American Revolution, Bobrick argues that the translation of the Bible into the English vernacular sparked a popular social revolution, helping kickstart the birth of modern democracy – first in England, and then later in America. The democratisation of a translated Bible was itself significant, and Scripture was seen to be on the side of those who demanded the rights of the individual in matters of governance.

Gordon Campbell, Bible: The Story of the King James Version 1611-2011 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

A full but concise sweep, with a reasonably generous smattering of illustrations, through the history of the King James Bible from its beginnings in Wycliffe and Tyndale through its reception and adaptation across the centuries to the present day.

David Crystal, Begat: The King James Bible and the English Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

Vestiges of the influence of the King James Bible on the English language are seen in the continued use of phrases like ‘lamb to the slaughter’, ‘my brother’s keeper’, ‘as old as the hills’, ‘written in stone’, ‘sour grapes’, etc. In this engaging and illuminating study, David Crystal counts 257 of them, showing how the Bible ‘begat’ such phrases in the English language – now found in newspaper headlines, TV sitcoms, song lyrics, and book titles.

Alister E. McGrath, In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How it Changed a Nation, a Language and a Culture (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001, reissued).

A clear and accessible account of events leading up to the publication of the KJV in 1611 and its influence on subsequent generations.

Adam Nicolson, When God Spoke English: The Making of the King James Bible (London: HarperCollins, 2011).

This was first published in 2003 as Power and Glory: Jacobean England and the Making of the King James Bible, and subsequently as God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible, before the arrival of this reissue. A bit wordy, perhaps, but Nicolson is clearly a fan of the language and style of the King James Bible, and an enthusiastic teller of its story against the backdrop of seventeenth-century England.

Derek Wilson, The People’s Bible: The Remarkable History of the King James Version (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2010).

A highly readable historical sketch, from the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 that ‘the secret mysteries of the faith should not be explained to all men in all places’ to the NIV of more recent times.

Previous entries in this series:

• Books for beginners on interpreting the Bible

• Books on biblical themes

• Books on biblical worldview formation

• Books on the biblical story

• Books on the biblical genres

• Books on preaching biblical genres

• Books on biblical interpretation at an intermediate level

Pauline Croft and Mark Noll on the King James Version

There are two nice articles on the King James Bible in the latest edition of Theology – 114, 4 (2011) – currently with a free trial period.

Pauline Croft

The Emergence of the King James Version of the Bible, 1611

In 2011 we celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of the publication in 1611 of the King James Version of the Bible. It is by far the best-known of all Bible translations, still used worldwide. In 1604 at the Hampton Court Conference, the more puritan wing of the Church of England pressed King James I to reform various ecclesiastical practices which they saw as abuses. He refused but agreed that there should be a new Bible translation. The article discusses this key event and traces the background, from Anglo-Saxon translations to the Reformation scholarship of men such as Tyndale and Coverdale, who used the new technology of printing to make Scripture widely available to those who knew no Latin or Greek. The process culminated in 1611 with the King James Bible, an exceptionally scholarly and readable version, at a time when expanding literacy allowed far more people to read the Scriptures for themselves.

Mark A. Noll

William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and the King James Version of the Bible

During 1911 three of the United States’ leading statesmen (Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and William Jennings Bryan) delivered lengthy speeches to commemorate the tercentenary of the King James Bible. While all three emphasized this Bible’s important contribution to American democratic ideals, Bryan also stressed the Bible’s role in revealing Jesus Christ as ‘Son of God and Saviour of Mankind’. Shades of difference in how these leaders spoke of the Bible and in how their careers promoted progressive politics suggests the range of meanings to which the King James Version has been put in American history.

N.T. Wright on Bible Translation

N.T. Wright, ‘Lost and Found in Translation: From 1611 to 2011’, ABC Religion and Ethics (10 May 2011).

This sprawling essay by Tom Wright begins with the significance of translation for the Christian faith seen, not least, in the conviction that Jesus is ‘the rightful Lord of all the world’.

‘Translating the message into the world’s many languages is... organically linked to the central claim of the gospel itself... To translate is to imply that, just as the gospel of Jesus is for all people, so the early Christian writings which bear witness to Jesus are for all people.’

He takes in the King James Version of 1611, reflects at some length on the appropriate translation for ‘Christ’ and ‘righteousness’, before making a distinction between the ‘technical accuracy’ of a translation and ‘the accuracy of flavour and feel’. In this respect, commenting on Paul’s letters, he says that it is ‘imperative to allow the New Testament to speak with different tones of voice, aiming often for street-level English rather than the somewhat donnish tradition of the King James, the Revised Standard Version and the New Revised Standard Version’.

He finishes with a mention of his own forthcoming translation of the New Testament which he hopes will perhaps ‘jolt people out of the familiar, and open their eyes and imaginations to new possibilities’.

Mark Noll on the King James Version

Mark Noll, ‘A World Without the King James Version’, Christianity Today (6 May 2011).

Mark Noll has a longish piece in Christianity Today on the King James Bible in which he asks where we would be without the most popular English Bible ever.

Interestingly, he finishes by writing about the ‘mixed blessings’ of the predominance of the translation:

‘When the KJV became the cultural and literary standard for the entire English-speaking world, it was easier to focus on the literary excellence of the translation without stopping to face the divine imperatives and promises that are any Bible’s primary reason for existence. The pervasive cultural presence of this Bible also made it easy to exploit scriptural words, phrases, images, and allusions for their evocative power, even when those uses contradicted the Bible’s basic spiritual meaning.

‘Yet even soberly considered, the immense good accomplished in and through the KJV is a marvel. When the KJV became the cultural and literary standard for the entire English-speaking world, the spiritual impact of the Bible was certainly enhanced because the scriptural message was carried far and wide via an all-pervasive cultural standard. The substance of divine revelation that lay immediately beneath the words of the KJV could also exert a dramatic public impact for good, precisely because this translation so dominated the English-speaking world.’

Flic Everett on the King James Bible

Flic Everett, ‘The Ultimate Bestseller’, Stylist Issue 76 (4 May 2011), 40-42.

On all sorts of levels, I’m fascinated by this...

In amongst profiles of Karren Brady and Gwyneth Paltrow, beauty tips, fashion pages, and perfume adverts, this May 2011 issue of Stylist carries a piece on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. Apart from a few infelicities here and there, in my opinion, it’s a good summary piece. Page 42 carries a helpful panel of 10 ways the Bible has inspired culture, taking in examples from songs, art, novels, music, and film.

Christopher Hitchens on the King James Bible

Vanity Fair (yes, Vanity Fair) carries an interesting piece (here) on the King James Bible by Christopher Hitchens (yes, he of God is Not Great fame), one of its columnists.

Here’s how the article is positioned:

‘An unbeliever argues that our language and culture are incomplete without a 400-year-old book – the King James translation of the Bible. Spurned by the Establishment, it really represents a triumph for rebellion and dissent. Accept no substitutes!’

In telling something of its history, Hitchens describes the translation as ‘a fairly conservative attempt to stabilize the Crown and the kingdom, heal the breach between competing English and Scottish Christian sects, and bind the majesty of the King to his devout people’.

But, he notes, ‘the translators’ legacy remains, and it is paradoxically a revolutionary one, as well as a giant step in the maturing of English literature’.

‘Though I am sometimes reluctant to admit it, there really is something “timeless” in the Tyndale/King James synthesis. For generations, it provided a common stock of references and allusions, rivaled only by Shakespeare in this respect. It resounded in the minds and memories of literate people, as well as of those who acquired it only by listening... A culture that does not possess this common store of image and allegory will be a perilously thin one. To seek restlessly to update it or make it “relevant” is to miss the point, like yearning for a hip-hop Shakespeare. “Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward,” says the Book of Job. Want to try to improve that for Twitter?’

He blasts what he calls ‘stilted, patronizing, literal-minded’ attempts ‘to shift the translation’s emphasis from plangent poetry to utilitarian prose’. Referring to the proliferation of ‘niche Bibles’, he notes that special interest groups can have ‘their own customized version of God’s word’, yet ‘there will no longer be a culture of the kind which instantly recognized what Lincoln meant when he spoke of “a house divided.” The gradual eclipse of a single structure has led, not to a new clarity, but to a new Babel.’

He closes by saying that the abandonment of the King James Bible by churches (he refers to ‘the Church of England establishment’) ‘is yet another demonstration that religion is man-made, with inky human fingerprints all over its supposedly inspired and unalterable texts’.

Nicholas King on Translation and the KJV

Nicholas King, ‘Translation and the KJV’, Scripture Bulletin 41, 1 (2011), 19-29.

King explores four points:

‘In this essay, I should like to argue that i) all translation is a political act; that is to say, it involves the exercise of various kinds of power; ii) that all translation, especially biblical translation, fails; iii) that all translation is done into and out of a particular context; and iv) that the question of what you are doing when you translate runs close to the heart of the human quest for meaning’ (20).

The same issue also contains an an assessment, by Adrian Graffy, of the recently-published Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini, the post-synodal document to the 2008 Synod on the word of God.