THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH

A brief history - Part Three

During the reign of James I, who ascended to the throne in 1603, a conference of churchmen recommended that a new translation of the Bible be created for use in the services of the Church of England. James, who had taken a dislike to the Geneva Bible, was all in favour, and supervised the organization of the project. Rules were agreed, rules that may have been drawn up by James himself; the 'Bishop's Bible' was to serve as the basis for the new version; the most commonly used version of proper names were to be used; the old version of disputed words was to be used (for example, 'church' instead of 'congregation'); marginal notes would be used only to explain Greek or Hebrew words or to point to parallel passages; existing chapter and verse division would be kept but new headings would be created for the chapters. This was going to be a big job, so six panels of forty-seven men, who included most of the leading Biblical scholars of the time, were set up, and each took on part of the initial translation. The resulting draft version was then submitted to a smaller group, which included representatives from each panel, for review. Then the resulting text was printed in 1611. Although commonly called the Authorized Version, it was never officially authorized by either church or state. James's active participation in its creation, however, did much to recommend it and this version, popularly known in the United States as the King James version, became the most widely used Protestant English Bible.

Meanwhile, back in 1568, William Allen founded the English Roman Catholic College at Douai in France. The college moved to Rheims in 1578 and then back to Douai five years later. During the time it was located in Rheims one of its professors, Gregory Martin, produced a Bible in English, translated from the Latin Vulgate. The New Testament was published in Rheims in 1582 and the Old Testament in Douai in 1609-10. Together these books form the Douai Bible, the principal English Catholic Bible until the creation of the Jerusalem Bible in the mid-twentieth century.

By the mid-1800's, scholars and religious leaders were calling for fresh translations of the Bible. Not only had scholars more accurate knowledge of the original Hebrew and Greek texts and had uncovered many errors in the texts used by the Authorized revisers, they had also gained more knowledge of other ancient Near Eastern languages, which added to their understanding of the Biblical languages. In addition, the English language had changed greatly over the years. Many words in the King James Version no longer had the same meaning. Some were not even understood by readers of the Bible. In 1870, the Church of England decided to revise the Authorized Version. The New Testament appeared in 1881, the Old Testament in 1885, and the Apocrypha in 1895. This 'Revised Version' was popular to start with, but this popularity did not last. Most individuals and churches still preferred the Authorized Version.

Bill Hutchings