Section A18 DECEMBER 2011

Late one night ater three days’ hard ride,messengers inormed Jim Stuart that

his cousin Bess had died. Bess had run heraairs by the motto “Always the same,” but when Jim took over, he wanted change.

 Jim was a brilliant scholar, linguist, poet,

story o a change Jim orchestrated – one o the most infuential and enduring changesever, and one that bears his name. It’s a sto-ry o murder, intrigue, burning at the stake, scholar-ship, courage. It’s the story o the King James Bible.

Impact This year marks the 400th anniversary o the King James version o the Bible (KJV), the most infu-ential translation ever published. It was the domi-nant expression o God’s Word in English or nearly our centuries – a runaway best-seller in print 400straight years.

American journalist and scholar H. L. Menck-en lauded the KJV as “probably the most beautiulpiece o writing in all the literature o the world.”

 The impact o the KJV on Englishlanguage and western culture – art,education, government, law, litera-ture, religion, science – is beyond es-timation. It’s the only book that hasover 1 billion copies in print.

Skeptic and playwright GeorgeBernard Shaw, the only person tohave won both a Nobel prize and anOscar, wrote admiringly o the KJV translators: “They carried out their  work with boundless reverence andcare, and achieved a beautiully artistic result… They made a translation so magnicent that…thecommon human Britisher or citizen o the UnitedStates accepts and worships it as a single book by a single author, the book being the Book o Booksand the author being God.”

English speakers today use over 1,000 sayingslike “thorn in the fesh,” “eye or an eye,” “wol insheep’s clothing,” “writing on the wall” or “the truthshall make you ree,” oten without awareness thatthey are quoting the KJV. This ar exceeds any othersource including Shakespeare.

Lecturing at Berkeley in March 1911 on the300th anniversary o the KJV, President TheodoreRoosevelt said, “The great debt o the English-speaking peoples everywhere is to the translationo the Bible…as it was put orth in English threecenturies ago. No other book o any kind ever writ-ten in English – perhaps no other book ever writtenin any other tongue – has ever so aected the wholelie o a people as this Authorized Version o theScriptures [KJV].”

English Bibles have sold six billion copies – in-comparably more than any other language includ-ing the original Hebrew and Greek languages. How did the Bible get into English?

 JohnW yclIffe

KJV was not the rst English Bible. That appearedaround 1382 when John Wyclie (1328-1384)translated Jerome’s Latin version into English.

  Wyclie gave his handwritten translation toitinerant preachers who spread it throughout Eng-land. Hand copying took ten months, so distribu-tion was limited; it was also banned by governmentedict in 1409.

In 1415 Wyclie was declared a heretic or hisunlicensed translation o the Bible. His body wasexhumed and burned to ashes.

Inspired by the winepress, Johann Gutenberg

dale (1494-1536). He published the New   Testament in 1525 and the Pentateuchshortly thereater. Wide distribution o histranslation thwarted the Roman CatholicChurch’s determination to control accessby keeping the Bible in Latin and out o English.

  Tyndale was a superb Greek scholar.He was so fuent in seven languages thatstrangers could not tell which one was hisnative tongue.

One day arguing about ecclesiastical au-thority, a clergyman told Tyndale, “We had betterbe without God’s laws than the Pope’s.” Tyndale re-plied, “I dey the Pope and all his laws. And i Godspare me, I will one day make the boy that drivesthe plow to know more o the Scripture than thePope does.”

 Tyndale was not easily cowed. He even publicly opposed England’s King Henry VIII with a 1530book condemning as unbiblical Henry’s intendeddivorce rom Catherine o Aragon (to marry AnneBoleyn).

 Tyndale smuggled thousands o his New Tes-taments rom Europe into England inside bags o 

four. The Roman Catholic Church dis-

approved o Tyndale’s work. He wastried or heresy, strangled and burnedat the stake beore he nished trans-lating the Old Testament. His last  words cried out at the stake were,“Lord, open the King o England’seyes.”

Eighty years later, the King JamesBible, sponsored by another kingo England, was based on Tyndale’s

 work. A 1998 scholarly analysis showed that Tyn-dale’s translation accounted or 84% o the New 

  Tyndale broke the stranglehold the CatholicChurch had on the Bible, and his work was theoundation or subsequent English Bibles. He’s the“Father o the English Bible.”

BIBleW ars

 John Rogers and Myles Coverdale picked up Tyn-dale’s work and nished translating the Old Testa-ment rom Latin and German versions. Publishedin 1537, it was known as the Matthew Bible be-cause Rogers published it under the pseudonym Thomas Matthew.

Myles Coverdale prepared the Great Bible based on Tyndale’s work and the Matthew Bible; heremoved politically objectionable notes and transla-tions. Published in 1539, the large size earned itsname. It was the rst “authorized” English Bible inthat King Henry VIII authorized it to be read inChurch o England services.

Controversy and persecution over Bible trans-

lations peaked under the reign o Bloody Mary (1553-1558) when 300 Protestants were burned atthe stake as heretics. This included John Rogers,publisher o the Matthew Bible, and Thomas Cran-mer, publisher o the Great Bible.

Queen Mary’s persecution drove Protestantscholars to Geneva where Coverdale, Knox, Calvin,and others prepared the Geneva Bible. Based on Tyndale’s work and the Great Bible, it was the rstEnglish Bible translated entirely rom Hebrew andGreek and the rst to use numbered verses.

 The Geneva Bible was history ’s rst study Bible.For the rst time, a mass-produced Bible oered

its stronger language, convenient size, and modestprice led to its popularity over the Great Bible.

 The Geneva Bible was published in over 150editions rom 1560 to 1644. It was the mainEnglish Bible o the age. Shakespeare, Milton,

Geneva Bible.

KIng J ames  James Stuart (1566-1625) assumed Scotland’sthrone as James VI at 13 months o age. Upon the1603 death o Queen Elizabeth I, the last Tudormonarch, he ascended the throne o England andIreland as James I. James was the rst to rule overall three realms simultaneously.

 James survived many intrigues and assassinationattempts. He struggled with Parliament repeatedly over nances. Under James, American colonizationbegan at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.

In January 1604, King James commissioneda new English translation o the Bible. A scholarand author himsel, he was dissatised with exist-ing English versions because o translation deectsidentied by Puritan scholars. Plus, he and Churcho England prelates objected to some o the notes o the Geneva Bible.

  James instructed translators to conorm to theecclesiology and episcopal structure o the Churcho England. Fity-our Hebrew and Greek scholars

on the project. The King’s printer released the rstcopies in May 1611.

“The scholars who produced this masterpieceare mostly unknown and unremembered,” said Winston Churchill. “But they orged an enduringlink, literary and religious, between the English-speaking people o the world.”

 The Bible known today as the King James Bibleis not the original 1611 version. Revisions occurredin 1629, 1638, 1760. Major 1769 revisions stan-

corrected accumulated misprints. The revised texto 1769 constitutes today’s KJV.

 The King James Bible is currently the #2 Biblein dollar sales and #3 in copies sold. KJV is no lon-

Wm Tnd, t “Ftr f t engs b,” ws c-

cusd f rs nd xcutd oct. 6, 1536.

w o  o d  c  u t F R  o M F  o x e ’   s b  o  o k  o F Ma R t y R  s  ,1  5  6  3 

WilliaM T.

tHE BIBLE aND sCIENCE by WilliaM T. PelleTieR, Ph.D. [woodside news COLUMNIST]

dramatist, and outdoorsman. This is the

 A 400-Year Bestseller 

PelleTieR, Ph.D.

 Testament and for 76% of the Old Testament booksthat he translated.

notes, study aids, maps, and indexes. This along with

Donne, Bunyan, Knox, and Cromwell all used the

from Oxford, Cambridge, and Westminster worked

dardized spelling, punctuation, and word usage, and

Inspired by the winepress, Johann Gutenberginvented the printing press in 1440. Reproductionspeed rocketed to 240 pages per hour. In 1455 heprinted the rst Bible in Latin. Gutenberg’s inven-tion spread across Europe and enormously acili-tated Bible distribution to the masses.

 WIllIamt yndale

 The rst to translate the Bible directly rom He-brew and Greek into English was William Tyn-

in dollar sales and #3 in copies sold. KJV is no lon-ger the most readable translation available. But itslongevity, resonant cadence, and societal infuenceare unmatched. It continues to clearly proclaim thetruth. Soli Deo Gloria.

 E-mail Dr. Pelletier at BibleScienceGuy@ woodsidenews.org. Read the Bible-Science Guy blog at 

at http://twitter.com/BibleScienceGuy.http://BibleScienceGuy.wordpress.com and follow him

©William T. Pelletier ©2011