King James Version of the Bible

:This page is about the version of the Bible; for the Harvey Danger album, see King James Version (album).

Background

Protestantism derived from Martin Luther the idea that the Bible was the sole source of doctrine (see sola scriptura) and as such should be translated into the local vernacular. The act of Bible translation into any vernacular was a political as well as a religious statement, and remained so whether the Bible translation was a private endeavour, or sponsored by a monarch and his government. The English translations made by John Wyclif's followers, and later by William Tyndale, were the opening salvos of the Protestant Reformation in England and Scotland.

Related Topics:
Protestantism - Martin Luther - Sola scriptura - Vernacular - Bible translation - John Wyclif - William Tyndale - Protestant Reformation - England - Scotland

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By the time the King James Version was written, there was already a tradition going back almost a hundred years of Bible translation into English (not counting the Old English Bible translations that had been made in the Early Middle Ages, before the Roman Catholic Church started mandating the exclusive use of the Latin Vulgate). The King James Bible represents a revision of Tyndale's translation. When his New Testament appeared in 1525, Tyndale was a "Lutheran" to the extent that denominational labels had meaning in 1525, in other words, a supporter of Luther's movement to reform the whole Christian community. Tyndale's translation was deliberately provocative in a number of ways; he rendered Greek presbuteros, traditionally translated as "priest", as "elder" — a literal translation that slighted the connection between the Catholic clergy and the former biblical texts; in a similar fashion he translated ekklesia, traditionally "church", as "congregation"; these renditions were at the basis of a notorious controversy between Tyndale and Sir Thomas More, who took the establishment's side. In the preface, the translators of the King James note: ?we have on the one side avoided the scrupulosity of the Puritans, who leave the old Ecclesiastical words, and betake them to other, as when they put WASHING for BAPTISM, and CONGREGATION instead of CHURCH:?. Still, despite these controversial renderings, the merits of Tyndale's work and prose style made his translation the basis for most of the subsequent renditions into Early Modern English, even though Tyndale himself was burned at the stake for heresy. With these controversial translations lightly edited, Tyndale's New Testament and Pentateuch became the basis for the Great Bible, the first "authorized version" issued by the Church of England in the reign of King Henry VIII.

Related Topics:
Old English Bible translations - Early Middle Ages - Roman Catholic Church - Vulgate - New Testament - 1525 - Denominational - Greek - Priest - Elder - Clergy - Church - Congregation - Thomas More - Early Modern English - Burned at the stake - Heresy - Pentateuch - Great Bible - Henry VIII

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When Mary I took the throne, she sought to re-establish Roman Catholicism as the established church. Some English Protestant leaders, fleeing the "fires of Smithfield" instituted by Queen Mary, established an English-speaking Protestant colony at Geneva. With the help of Theodore Beza, successor to John Calvin as leader of the Reformed church there, they created the Geneva Bible. This translation, which first appeared in 1560, was a revision of Tyndale's and the Great Bible, which was furnished copiously with Protestant annotations and references. By the time Elizabeth I took the throne, the flaws of the Great Bible were apparent; those parts of it not translated by Tyndale were translated from the Latin Vulgate rather than the original languages. In 1568 the established church responded with the Bishops' Bible, but their version failed to displace the Geneva version as the most popular English version.

Related Topics:
Mary I - Roman Catholicism - Smithfield - Geneva - Theodore Beza - John Calvin - Reformed church - Geneva Bible - 1560 - Elizabeth I - Vulgate - 1568 - Bishops' Bible

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