Misplaced Pages

#156843

135-790: The King James Version ( KJV ), also the King James Bible ( KJB ) and the Authorized Version ( AV ), is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England , which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of King James VI and I . The 80 books of the King James Version include 39 books of the Old Testament , 14 books of Apocrypha , and

270-564: A Calvinistic Puritanism that was too radical for James. The translators of the Geneva Bible had translated the word king as tyrant about four hundred times—the word tyrant does not appear once in the KJV. Because of this, it has been assumed King James purposely had the translators of the KJV translate the word tyrant as either "troubling", "oppressor", or some other word to avoid people being critical of his monarchy. James convened

405-588: A boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scriptures than thou dost." Within his lifetime, only his New Testament and part of his Old Testament were published. He set out to London fully expecting to find support and encouragement there, but he found neither. He found, as he once said, that there was no room in the palace of the Bishop of London to translate the New Testament; indeed, that there

540-723: A complete Bible) ceased before the first issue of the new official (though not formally "authorized") version, the King James Version of 1611. The Douai (or Douay) version was the work of English Roman Catholic scholars connected with the University of Douai in France. The New Testament was issued at Rheims in 1582, and the Old Testament in two volumes, in 1609 and 1610, just before the King James version. It

675-511: A descriptive phrase, is found being used as early as 1814. "The King James Version" is found, unequivocally used as a name, in a letter from 1855. The next year King James Bible, with no possessive, appears as a name in a Scottish source. In the United States, the "1611 translation" (actually editions following the standard text of 1769, see below) is generally known as the King James Version today. The followers of John Wycliffe undertook

810-739: A false London imprint. However, few if any genuine Geneva editions appear to have been printed in London after 1616, and in 1637 Archbishop Laud prohibited their printing or importation. In the period of the English Civil War , soldiers of the New Model Army were issued a book of Geneva selections called "The Soldiers' Bible" . In the first half of the 17th century the Authorized Version is most commonly referred to as "The Bible without notes", thereby distinguishing it from

945-674: A marginal note. A more thoroughly corrected edition was proposed following the Restoration , in conjunction with the revised 1662 Book of Common Prayer , but Parliament then decided against it. By the first half of the 18th century, the Authorized Version was effectively unchallenged as the sole English translation in then current use in Protestant churches, and was so dominant that the Catholic Church in England issued in 1750

1080-692: A monopoly shared between the Oxford University Press, the Cambridge University Press and the "King's Printers". This situation continued into the 20th century, at which time Eyre and Spottiswoode were the King's Printers. Printers' errors inevitably escaped detection in some editions. Perhaps the most famous faulty edition is the so-called " Wicked Bible ", a 1631 printing of the King James version (Herbert #444) in which Exod. 20:14 read: "Thou shalt commit adultery." For this

1215-661: A new past form ( dared ), distinct from the modal durst . The perfect of the verbs had not yet been standardised to use only the auxiliary verb "to have". Some took as their auxiliary verb "to be", such as this example from the King James Version : "But which of you... will say unto him... when he is come from the field, Go and sit down..." [Luke XVII:7]. The rules for the auxiliaries for different verbs were similar to those that are still observed in German and French (see unaccusative verb ). The modern syntax used for

1350-546: A new period of internal peace and relative stability, which encouraged the arts including literature. Modern English can be taken to have emerged fully by the beginning of the Georgian era in 1714, but English orthography remained somewhat fluid until the publication of Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language , in 1755. The towering importance of William Shakespeare over the other Elizabethan authors

1485-524: A number of other apparatus , including a table for the reading of the Psalms at matins and evensong , and a calendar , an almanac , and a table of holy days and observances. Much of this material became obsolete with the adoption of the Gregorian calendar by Britain and its colonies in 1752, and thus modern editions invariably omit it. So as to make it easier to know a particular passage, each chapter

SECTION 10

#1732765498157

1620-503: A phoneme that became modern / ɜːr / . By the time of Shakespeare, the spellings ⟨er⟩ , ⟨ear⟩ and perhaps ⟨or⟩ when they had a short vowel, as in clerk , earth , or divert , had an a -like quality, perhaps about [ɐɹ] or [äɹ] . With the spelling ⟨or⟩ , the sound may have been backed, more toward [ɒɹ] in words like worth and word . In some pronunciations, words like fair and fear , with

1755-579: A qualification that the translators would add no marginal notes (which had been an issue in the Geneva Bible ). King James cited two passages in the Geneva translation where he found the marginal notes offensive to the principles of divinely ordained royal supremacy : Exodus 1:19, where the Geneva Bible notes had commended the example of civil disobedience to the Egyptian Pharaoh showed by

1890-582: A revision committee, with instructions to follow closely wherever possible the Great Bible , to avoid contentious notes and to make such a version that it might be freely, easily and naturally read. The result is known as the Bishops' Bible . It was issued in Elizabeth's tenth year (1568), but there is no record that she ever noticed it, though Parker sent her a copy from his sick-bed. Its publication (as

2025-559: A revision of the 1610 Douay–Rheims Bible by Richard Challoner that was much closer to the Authorized Version than to the original. However, general standards of spelling, punctuation, typesetting, capitalization and grammar had changed radically in the 100 years since the first edition of the Authorized Version, and all printers in the market were introducing continual piecemeal changes to their Bible texts to bring them into line with then current practice—and with public expectations of standardized spelling and grammatical construction. Over

2160-404: A rival translation. The Authorized Version became the only then current version circulating among English-speaking people. A small minority of critical scholars were slow to accept the latest translation. Hugh Broughton , who was the most highly regarded English Hebraist of his time but had been excluded from the panel of translators because of his utterly uncongenial temperament, issued in 1611

2295-556: A roman typeface, which itself made a political and a religious statement. Like the Great Bible and the Bishops' Bible , the Authorized Version was "appointed to be read in churches". It was a large folio volume meant for public use, not private devotion; the weight of the type—blackletter type was heavy physically as well as visually—mirrored the weight of establishment authority behind it. However, smaller editions and roman-type editions followed rapidly, e.g. quarto roman-type editions of

2430-483: A total condemnation of the new version. He especially criticized the translators' rejection of word-for-word equivalence and stated that "he would rather be torn in pieces by wild horses than that this abominable translation (KJV) should ever be foisted upon the English people". Walton's London Polyglot of 1657 disregards the Authorized Version (and indeed the English language) entirely. Walton's reference text throughout

2565-408: A translation of the New Testament. Tyndale's translation was the first printed Bible in English. Over the next ten years, Tyndale revised his New Testament in the light of rapidly advancing biblical scholarship, and embarked on a translation of the Old Testament. Despite some controversial translation choices, and in spite of Tyndale's execution on charges of heresy for having made the translated Bible,

2700-657: A translation that became known as the Geneva Bible . This translation, dated to 1560, was a revision of Tyndale's Bible and the Great Bible on the basis of the original languages. Soon after Elizabeth I took the throne in 1558, problems with both the Great and Geneva Bibles (namely, that the latter did not "conform to the ecclesiology and reflect the episcopal structure of the Church of England and its beliefs about an ordained clergy") became apparent to church authorities. In 1568,

2835-543: A vowel or an h , as in mine eyes or thine hand . During the Early Modern period, the verb inflections became simplified as they evolved towards their modern forms: The modal auxiliaries cemented their distinctive syntactical characteristics during the Early Modern period. Thus, the use of modals without an infinitive became rare (as in "I must to Coventry"; "I'll none of that"). The use of modals' present participles to indicate aspect (as in "Maeyinge suffer no more

SECTION 20

#1732765498157

2970-466: Is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. Early Modern English Early Modern English (sometimes abbreviated EModE or EMnE ) or Early New English ( ENE ) is the stage of the English language from

3105-484: Is a retention of ecclesiastical terms, and an explanation of the passages on which Protestants tended to differ rather sharply from Roman Catholics, as in the matter of the taking of the cup by the people, and elsewhere. In 1589, the Protestant scholar William Fulke issued a point by point refutation of the notes of the Rheims New Testament, in which he also printed the biblical text both of Rheims and of

3240-883: Is made, not from the Hebrew and the Greek, though it refers to both, but from the Latin Vulgate . The result is that the Old Testament of the Douai version is a translation into English from the Latin, which in turn is, mostly, a translation from the Hebrew. Yet scholars are scholars, and it shows some influence of the Genevan version; and, indeed, of other English versions, especially that of Myles Coverdale. Its notes were strongly anti-Protestant, and in its preface it explains its existence by saying that Protestants have been guilty of "casting

3375-509: Is one story that tells how money came to free Tyndale from heavy debt and prepare the way for more Bibles. The Bishop of London, Cuthbert Tunstall , was set on destroying copies of the English New Testament. He therefore made a bargain with a merchant of Antwerp , to secure them for him. The merchant was a friend of Tyndale, and went to him to tell him he had a customer for his Bibles, The Bishop of London. Tyndale agreed to give

3510-608: Is reckoned to be nearly 90% unaltered Tyndale. 'A complete analysis of the Authorised Version, known down the generations as the AV or the King James , was made in 1998. It shows that Tyndale's words account for 84 per cent of the New Testament, and for 75.8 per cent of the Old Testament books that he translated.' The first complete printed translation into English, and the first complete translation into Modern English,

3645-645: Is recognisably similar to that of today , but spelling was unstable. Early Modern and Modern English both retain various orthographical conventions that predate the Great Vowel Shift . Early Modern English spelling was broadly similar to that encountered in Middle English . Some of the changes that occurred were based on etymology (as with the silent ⟨b⟩ that was added to words like debt , doubt and subtle ). Many spellings had still not been standardised. For example, he

3780-611: Is the Vulgate. The Vulgate Latin is also found as the standard text of scripture in Thomas Hobbes 's Leviathan of 1651. Hobbes gives Vulgate chapter and verse numbers (e.g., Job 41:24, not Job 41:33) for his head text. In Chapter 35: ' The Signification in Scripture of Kingdom of God ' , Hobbes discusses Exodus 19:5, first in his own translation of the ' Vulgar Latin ' , and then subsequently as found in

3915-584: The Bishops' Bible would serve as the primary guide for the translators, and the familiar proper names of the biblical characters would all be retained. If the Bishops' Bible was deemed problematic in any situation, the translators were permitted to consult other translations from a pre-approved list: the Tyndale Bible , the Coverdale Bible , Matthew's Bible , the Great Bible , and

4050-589: The Geneva Bible . In addition, later scholars have detected an influence on the Authorized Version from the translations of Taverner's Bible and the New Testament of the Douay–Rheims Bible . It is for this reason that the flyleaf of most printings of the Authorized Version observes that the text had been "translated out of the original tongues, and with the former translations diligently compared and revised, by His Majesty's special commandment." As

4185-400: The annus mirabilis (year of wonders), and in prose lasts until 1688. With the increasing tensions over succession and the corresponding rise in journalism and periodicals, or until possibly 1700, when those periodicals grew more stabilised. The 17th-century port towns and their forms of speech gained influence over the old county towns . From around the 1690s onwards, England experienced

King James Version - Misplaced Pages Continue

4320-400: The Authorized Version was published by Robert Barker , the King's Printer, in 1611 as a complete folio Bible. It was sold looseleaf for ten shillings , or bound for twelve. Robert Barker's father, Christopher, had, in 1589, been granted by Elizabeth I the title of royal Printer, with the perpetual Royal Privilege to print Bibles in England. Robert Barker invested very large sums in printing

4455-549: The Church of England to allegiance to Rome. The secret use of Reformed translations of the Bible began again, despite official efforts to restore England to Roman Catholic unity. The only Bible translation published during Mary's reign was the Whittingham New Testament of 1557 printed in Geneva (Herbert #106). English scholarship was driven into exile, and found its way to Frankfurt and Geneva again. There

4590-566: The Great Bible ), 'They were not obedient;' the original being, 'They were not disobedient.' Thirdly, psalm cvi. 30 (also from the Great Bible), 'Then stood up Phinees and prayed,' the Hebrew hath, 'executed judgment.' Instructions were given to the translators that were intended to use formal equivalence and limit the Puritan influence on this new translation. The Bishop of London added

4725-502: The Great Vowel Shift ; see the related chart. The difference between the transcription of the EME diphthong offsets with ⟨ j w ⟩, as opposed to the usual modern English transcription with ⟨ ɪ̯ ʊ̯ ⟩ is not meaningful in any way. The precise EME realizations are not known, and they vary even in modern English. The r sound (the phoneme / r / ) was probably always pronounced with following vowel sounds (more in

4860-650: The Hampton Court Conference in January 1604, where a new English version was conceived in response to the problems of the earlier translations perceived by the Puritans , a faction of the Church of England. James gave translators instructions intended to ensure the new version would conform to the ecclesiology , and reflect the episcopal structure, of the Church of England and its belief in an ordained clergy. In common with most other translations of

4995-584: The Hebrew and Ancient Greek distinction between second person singular ("thou") and plural ("ye"). It was not to denote reverence (in the King James Version , God addresses individual people and even Satan as "thou") but only to denote the singular. Over the centuries, however, the very fact that "thou" was dropping out of normal use gave it a special aura and so it gradually and ironically came to be used to express reverence in hymns and in prayers. Like other personal pronouns, thou and ye have different forms dependent on their grammatical case ; specifically,

5130-411: The Hebrew midwives , and also II Chronicles 15:16, where the Geneva Bible had criticized King Asa for not having executed his idolatrous 'mother', Queen Maachah (Maachah had actually been Asa's grandmother, but James considered the Geneva Bible reference as sanctioning the execution of his own mother Mary, Queen of Scots ). Further, the King gave the translators instructions designed to guarantee that

5265-681: The Protestant Reformation , England was actually one of the last countries in Europe to have a printed vernacular Bible. There were several reasons for this. One was that Henry VIII wanted to avoid the propagation of heresies—a concern subsequently justified by the marginal notes printed in Tyndale's New Testament and the Geneva Bible , for example. Another was the Roman Catholic doctrine of Magisterium which describes

5400-569: The Puritan faction of the Church of England. Here are three examples of problems the Puritans perceived with the Bishops and Great Bibles : First, Galatians iv. 25 (from the Bishops' Bible). The Greek word susoichei is not well translated as now it is, bordereth neither expressing the force of the word, nor the apostle's sense, nor the situation of the place. Secondly, psalm cv. 28 (from

5535-512: The historiated initial letters provided for books and chapters – together with the decorative title pages to the Bible itself, and to the New Testament. In the Great Bible, readings derived from the Vulgate but not found in published Hebrew and Greek texts had been distinguished by being printed in smaller roman type . In the Geneva Bible, a distinct typeface had instead been applied to distinguish text supplied by translators, or thought needful for English grammar but not present in

King James Version - Misplaced Pages Continue

5670-584: The progressive aspect ("I am walking") became dominant by the end of the Early Modern period, but other forms were also common such as the prefix a- ("I am a-walking") and the infinitive paired with "do" ("I do walk"). Moreover, the to be + - ing verb form could be used to express a passive meaning without any additional markers: "The house is building" could mean "The house is being built". A number of words that are still in common use in Modern English have undergone semantic narrowing . The use of

5805-429: The "New Translation" was the only edition on the market. F. F. Bruce reports that the last recorded instance of a Scots parish continuing to use the "Old Translation" (i.e. Geneva) as being in 1674. The Authorized Version ' s acceptance by the general public took longer. The Geneva Bible continued to be popular, and large numbers were imported from Amsterdam, where printing continued up to 1644 in editions carrying

5940-588: The 1662 Book of Common Prayer , the text of the Authorized Version finally supplanted that of the Great Bible in the Epistle and Gospel readings—though the Prayer Book Psalter nevertheless continues in the Great Bible version. The case was different in Scotland, where the Geneva Bible had long been the standard church Bible. It was not until 1633 that a Scottish edition of the Authorized Version

6075-454: The 17th and 18th centuries was "our English translation" or "our English version", as can be seen by searching one or other of the major online archives of printed books. In Britain, the 1611 translation is generally known as the "Authorized Version" today. The term is somewhat of a misnomer because the text itself was never formally "authorized", nor were English parish churches ever ordered to procure copies of it. King James' Version, evidently

6210-550: The 19th century, this version of the Bible had become the most widely printed book in history, almost all such printings presenting the standard text of 1769 , and nearly always omitting the books of the Apocrypha. Today the unqualified title "King James Version" usually indicates this Oxford standard text. The title of the first edition of the translation, in Early Modern English , was "THE HOLY BIBLE, Conteyning

6345-542: The 27 books of the New Testament . Noted for its "majesty of style", the King James Version has been described as one of the most important books in English culture and a driving force in the shaping of the English-speaking world. The King James Version remains the preferred translation of many Protestant Christians, and is considered the only valid one by some Evangelicals . It is considered one of

6480-418: The 2nd year of our reign of England, France, and of Ireland, and of Scotland xxxvii. The six committees started work towards the end of 1604. The Apocrypha committee finishing first, and all six completed their sections by 1608. From January 1609, a General Committee of Review met at Stationers' Hall, London to review the completed marked texts from each of the committees, and were paid for their attendance by

6615-562: The Barker and Norton printing dynasties, while each issued rival editions of the whole Bible. In 1629 the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge successfully managed to assert separate and prior royal licences for Bible printing, for their own university presses—and Cambridge University took the opportunity to print revised editions of the Authorized Version in 1629, and 1638. The editors of these editions included John Bois and John Ward from

6750-420: The Bible in 1612. This contrasted with the Geneva Bible, which was the first English Bible printed in a roman typeface (although black-letter editions, particularly in folio format, were issued later). In contrast to the Geneva Bible and the Bishops' Bible , which had both been extensively illustrated, there were no illustrations in the 1611 edition of the Authorized Version, the main form of decoration being

6885-615: The Bible in the Geneva Version, as small editions were available at a relatively low cost. At the same time, there was a substantial clandestine importation of the rival Douay–Rheims New Testament of 1582, undertaken by exiled Catholics. This translation, though still derived from Tyndale, claimed to represent the text of the Latin Vulgate. In May 1601, King James VI of Scotland attended the General Assembly of

SECTION 50

#1732765498157

7020-417: The Bishop's Bible in parallel columns. This work, which sold very widely, had the consequence of making the Rheims New Testament much more accessible than would otherwise have been the case. The Douai translation was updated in 1750 by Bishop Challoner and while it continued to be known as the Douai version, many consider it to be equivalent to a separate translation. In various updates, this version remained

7155-557: The Church as the final authority in the interpretation of the Scriptures; in the volatile years of the Reformation, it was not felt that encouraging private Scriptural interpretation, and thereby possible heresy, would be helpful. Several of the early printed English Bibles were suppressed, at least temporarily. Henry VIII complained about Tyndale's "pestilent glosses ", and only tolerated the Coverdale and Matthew Bibles because

7290-502: The Church of England and all except Sir Henry Savile were clergy. The scholars worked in six committees, two based in each of the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, and Westminster . The committees included scholars with Puritan sympathies, as well as high churchmen . Forty unbound copies of the 1602 edition of the Bishops' Bible were specially printed so that the agreed changes of each committee could be recorded in

7425-436: The Church of England responded with the Bishops' Bible , a revision of the Great Bible in the light of the Geneva version. While officially approved, this new version failed to displace the Geneva translation as the most popular English Bible of the age, in part because the full Bible was printed only in lectern editions of prodigious size and at a cost of several pounds. Accordingly, Elizabethan lay people overwhelmingly read

7560-429: The Church of Scotland at Saint Columba's Church in Burntisland , Fife , at which proposals were put forward for a new translation of the Bible into English. Two years later, he ascended to the throne of England as James I. The newly crowned King James convened the Hampton Court Conference in 1604. That gathering proposed a new English version in response to the perceived problems of earlier translations as detected by

7695-424: The Geneva "Bible with notes". There were several printings of the Authorized Version in Amsterdam—one as late as 1715 which combined the Authorized Version translation text with the Geneva marginal notes; one such edition was printed in London in 1649. During the Commonwealth a commission was established by Parliament to recommend a revision of the Authorized Version with acceptably Protestant explanatory notes, but

7830-459: The Geneva Bible. For one thing, John Knox had been a party to its preparation; so had Calvin. The Queen and many of the bishops detested them both, especially Knox. For another thing, its notes were not favorable to royal sovereignty. Finally, it had been made in a foreign land and was under suspicion on that account. The result was that Elizabeth's Archbishop of Canterbury , Matthew Parker , set out to have another official version made. He selected

7965-405: The Great Bible. The leading religious reformers took flight and fled to European Protestant towns like Frankfurt and Strassburg. Under Edward VI , the regency cast off all restrictions on translation and publication of the Bible; all the suppressed versions were republished. The order for a Great Bible in every church was renewed, and there was to be added to it a copy of Erasmus's paraphrase of

8100-411: The Greek or Hebrew; and the original printing of the Authorized Version used roman type for this purpose, albeit sparsely and inconsistently. This results in perhaps the most significant difference between the original printed text of the King James Bible and the current text. When, from the later 17th century onwards, the Authorized Version began to be printed in roman type, the typeface for supplied words

8235-501: The Old Teſtament, AND THE NEW: Newly Tranſlated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Tranſlations diligently compared and reuiſed, by his Maiesties ſpeciall Cõmandement ". The title page carries the words "Appointed to be read in Churches", and F. F. Bruce suggests it was "probably authorised by order in council ", but no record of the authorisation survives "because the Privy Council registers from 1600 to 1613 were destroyed by fire in January 1618/19". For many years it

SECTION 60

#1732765498157

8370-556: The Reader , a long and learned essay that defends the undertaking of the new version. It observes the translators' stated goal, that they "never thought from the beginning that [they] should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one, ... but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against; that hath been our endeavour, that our mark." They also give their opinion of previous English Bible translations, stating, "We do not deny, nay, we affirm and avow, that

8505-404: The Stationers' Company. The General Committee included John Bois , Andrew Downes , John Harmar , and others known only by their initials, including "AL" (who may be Arthur Lake ). John Bois prepared a note of their deliberations (in Latin) – which has partly survived in two later transcripts. Also surviving of the translators' working papers are a bound set of marked-up corrections to one of

8640-499: The Wycliffe Bible was translated from the Latin Vulgate , and because it also contained no heterodox readings, the ecclesiastical authorities had no practical way to distinguish the banned version. Consequently, many Catholic commentators of the 15th and 16th centuries (such as Thomas More ) took these manuscripts of English Bibles and claimed that they represented an anonymous earlier orthodox translation. In 1525, William Tyndale , an English contemporary of Martin Luther , undertook

8775-454: The addition of his unpublished Old Testament material. The remainder used Coverdale's translation. It received the approval of Henry VIII. Taverner's Bible is a minor revision of Matthew's Bible edited by Richard Taverner and published in 1539. There appeared what is known as the Great Bible in 1539, also compiled by Myles Coverdale . The Great Bible was issued to meet a decree that each church should make available in some convenient place

8910-477: The beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration , or from the transition from Middle English , in the late 15th century, to the transition to Modern English , in the mid-to-late 17th century. Before and after the accession of James I to the English throne in 1603, the emerging English standard began to influence the spoken and written Middle Scots of Scotland. The grammatical and orthographical conventions of literary English in

9045-415: The binding stage, a title page from one edition might be combined with text from another edition. The exact origins of a Bible can therefore only be determined by detailed examination of the text. Print runs for early Bibles were relatively short by present-day standards; typically perhaps 1000 to 2500 copies. Editions printed in England required a royal licence. Later the printing of Bibles in England became

9180-419: The bishops of the province of Cant.[erbury] signifying unto them, that we do well and straitly charge everyone of them ... that (all excuses set apart) when a prebend or parsonage ... shall next upon any occasion happen to be void ... we may commend for the same some such of the learned men, as we shall think fit to be preferred unto it ... Given unto our signet at our palace of West.[minister] on 2 and 20 July, in

9315-468: The book was subsequently re-bound. Psalters and prayer-books were often bound with the Bible. In addition, there are a number of other translations of individual books. For example, George Joye 's Protestant translations of the Psalms (1530), Isaiah (1531), Proverbs (1533), Ecclesiastes (1533), Jeremiah (1534) and Lamentations (1534), all executed in Antwerp , were the first printed English translations of these biblical books. William Tyndale

9450-443: The city", where the second reads "she went into the city"; these are known colloquially as the "He" and "She" Bibles. The original printing was made before English spelling was standardized, and when printers, as a matter of course, expanded and contracted the spelling of the same words in different places, so as to achieve an even column of text. They set v for initial u and v , and u for u and v everywhere else. They used

9585-405: The course of the 18th century, the Authorized Version supplanted the Hebrew, Greek and the Latin Vulgate as the standard version of scripture for English speaking scholars and divines, and indeed came to be regarded by some as an inspired text in itself—so much so that any challenge to its readings or textual base came to be regarded by many as an assault on Holy Scripture. In the 18th century there

9720-522: The disputes over Tyndale 's translation of the Bible in the 1520s and the 1530s) but by 1650, "thou" seems old-fashioned or literary. It has effectively completely disappeared from Modern Standard English . The translators of the King James Version of the Bible (begun 1604 and published 1611, while Shakespeare was at the height of his popularity) had a particular reason for keeping the informal "thou/thee/thy/thine/thyself" forms that were slowly beginning to fall out of spoken use, as it enabled them to match

9855-528: The early 19th century confirm the widespread use of this name on both sides of the Atlantic: it is found both in a "historical sketch of the English translations of the Bible" published in Massachusetts in 1815 and in an English publication from 1818, which explicitly states that the 1611 version is "generally known by the name of King James's Bible". This name was also found as King James' Bible (without

9990-425: The era's long GOAT vowel, rather than today's STRUT vowels. Tongue derived from the sound of tong and rhymed with song . Early Modern English had two second-person personal pronouns: thou , the informal singular pronoun, and ye , the plural (both formal and informal) pronoun and the formal singular pronoun. "Thou" and "ye" were both common in the early 16th century (they can be seen, for example, in

10125-538: The final "s"): for example in a book review from 1811. The phrase "King James's Bible" is used as far back as 1715, although in this case it is not clear whether this is a name or merely a description. The use of Authorized Version, capitalized and used as a name, is found as early as 1814. For some time before this, descriptive phrases such as "our present, and only publicly authorised version" (1783), "our Authorized version" (1731, 1792) and "the authorized version" (1801, uncapitalized) are found. A more common appellation in

10260-522: The first complete English translations of the Christian scriptures in the 14th century. These translations were banned in 1409 due to their association with the Lollards . The Wycliffe Bible pre-dated the printing press but it was circulated very widely in manuscript form, often inscribed with a date which was earlier than 1409 in order to avoid the legal ban. Because the text of the various versions of

10395-456: The forty Bishops' Bibles —covering the Old Testament and Gospels; and also a manuscript translation of the text of the Epistles , excepting those verses where no change was being recommended to the readings in the Bishops' Bible . Archbishop Bancroft insisted on having a final say making fourteen further changes, of which one was the term "bishopricke" at Acts 1:20. The original printing of

10530-468: The four gospels , in an English translation undertaken in part by Princess Mary , the King's Catholic sister. Nearly fifty editions of the Bible, in whole or in part, appeared in those six years. When Mary herself succeeded to the throne in 1553, she maintained her brother's policy of encouraging public reading of the Great Bible and Paraphrases; but versions with overtly Protestant notes were once again liable to be burned. Queen Mary temporarily restored

10665-442: The great volume located throughout St. Paul's. The Great Bible appeared in seven editions in two years, and continued in recognized power for thirty years. Much of the present English prayer-book is taken from it. But this liberty was so sudden that the people naturally abused it. King Henry VIII became vexed because the sacred words "were disputed, rimed, sung, and jangled in every ale-house". King Henry began to put restrictions on

10800-543: The holy to dogs and pearls to hogs." The version's English was not colloquial, but ecclesiastical and highly latinate. In Hebrews 13:17, the version reads, "Obey your prelates and be subject unto them." In Luke 3:3, John came "preaching the baptism of penance." In Psalm xxiii :5, where the King James Version reads, "My cup runneth over", the Douai version, taking its cue from the Greek Septuagint, reads, "My chalice which inebriateth me, how goodly it is." There

10935-507: The important literary accomplishments of early modern England. The KJV was the third translation into English approved by the English Church authorities: The first had been the Great Bible (1535), and the second had been the Bishops' Bible (1568). In Switzerland the first generation of Protestant Reformers had produced the Geneva Bible which was published in 1560 having referred to the original Hebrew and Greek scriptures, which

11070-417: The largest possible copy of the whole Bible, where all the parishioners could have access to it and read it at their will. The version gets its name from the size of the volume. That decree dates 1538, twelve years after Tyndale's books were burned, and two years after he was burned. The installation of these great books caused tremendous excitement as crowds gathered everywhere. Bishop Bonner had six copies of

11205-508: The late 16th century and the 17th century are still very influential on modern Standard English . Most modern readers of English can understand texts written in the late phase of Early Modern English, such as the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare , and they have greatly influenced Modern English. Texts from the earlier phase of Early Modern English, such as the late-15th-century Le Morte d'Arthur (1485) and

11340-465: The long s ( ſ ) for non-final s . The letter or glyph j occurs only after i , as in the final letter in a Roman numeral , such as XIIJ. Punctuation was relatively heavy (frequent) and differed from modern practice. When space needed to be saved, the printers sometimes used ye for the (replacing the Middle English thorn , Þ, with the continental y ), set ã for an or am (in

11475-407: The loue & deathe of Aurelio" from 1556), and of their preterite forms to indicate tense (as in "he follow'd Horace so very close, that of necessity he must fall with him") also became uncommon. Some verbs ceased to function as modals during the Early Modern period. The present form of must , mot , became obsolete. Dare also lost the syntactical characteristics of a modal auxiliary and evolved

11610-409: The margins. The committees worked on certain parts separately and the drafts produced by each committee were then compared and revised for harmony with each other. The scholars were not paid directly for their translation work. Instead, a circular letter was sent to bishops encouraging them to consider the translators for appointment to well-paid livings as these fell vacant. Several were supported by

11745-605: The merchant the Bibles to pay his debt and finance new editions of the Bible. Ironically, Tyndale's was perhaps the most influential single translation of the Bible ever made into English. Several immediately subsequent publications, among them the Matthews and Great Bibles, relied heavily on Tyndale's wording while softening his radical Protestantism. The original 1611 version of the King James New Testament

11880-415: The merits of Tyndale's work and prose style made his translation the ultimate basis for all subsequent renditions into Early Modern English. With these translations lightly edited and adapted by Myles Coverdale , in 1539, Tyndale's New Testament and his incomplete work on the Old Testament became the basis for the Great Bible . This was the first "authorised version" issued by the Church of England during

12015-470: The mid-16th-century Gorboduc (1561), may present more difficulties but are still closer to Modern English grammar, lexicon and phonology than are 14th-century Middle English texts, such as the works of Geoffrey Chaucer . The change from Middle English to Early Modern English affected much more than just vocabulary and pronunciation. Middle English underwent significant change over time and contained large dialectical variations. Early Modern English, on

12150-774: The name "Rhemish Testament" for the Douay–Rheims Bible version. Similarly, a "History of England", whose fifth edition was published in 1775, writes merely that "[a] new translation of the Bible, viz. , that now in Use, was begun in 1607, and published in 1611". King James's Bible is used as the name for the 1611 translation (on a par with the Genevan Bible or the Rhemish Testament) in Charles Butler 's Horae Biblicae (first published 1797). Other works from

12285-637: The new edition, and consequently ran into serious debt, such that he was compelled to sub-lease the privilege to two rival London printers, Bonham Norton and John Bill. It appears that it was initially intended that each printer would print a portion of the text, share printed sheets with the others, and split the proceeds. Bitter financial disputes broke out, as Barker accused Norton and Bill of concealing their profits, while Norton and Bill accused Barker of selling sheets properly due to them as partial Bibles for ready money. There followed decades of continual litigation, and consequent imprisonment for debt for members of

12420-482: The new version would conform to the ecclesiology of the Church of England. Certain Greek and Hebrew words were to be translated in a manner that reflected the traditional usage of the church. For example, old ecclesiastical words such as the word "church" were to be retained and not to be translated as "congregation". The new translation would reflect the episcopal structure of the Church of England and traditional beliefs about ordained clergy. The source material for

12555-467: The number of 4 and 50, for the translating of the Bible, and in this number, divers of them have either no ecclesiastical preferment at all, or else so very small, as the same is far unmeet for men of their deserts and yet we in ourself in any convenient time cannot well remedy it, therefor we do hereby require you, that presently you write in our name as well to the Archbishop of York, as to the rest of

12690-469: The objective form of thou is thee , its possessive forms are thy and thine , and its reflexive or emphatic form is thyself . The objective form of ye was you , its possessive forms are your and yours and its reflexive or emphatic forms are yourself and yourselves . The older forms "mine" and "thine" had become "my" and "thy" before words beginning with a consonant other than h , and "mine" and "thine" were retained before words beginning with

12825-561: The only English translation used in Anglican and other English Protestant churches, except for the Psalms and some short passages in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. Over the 18th century, the Authorized Version supplanted the Latin Vulgate as the standard version of scripture for English-speaking scholars. With the development of stereotype printing at the beginning of

12960-422: The original translators. This did not, however, impede the commercial rivalries of the London printers, especially as the Barker family refused to allow any other printers access to the authoritative manuscript of the Authorized Version . Two editions of the whole Bible are recognized as having been produced in 1611, which may be distinguished by their rendering of Ruth 3:15; the first edition reading "he went into

13095-479: The other hand, became more standardised and developed an established canon of literature which survives today. The English Civil War and the Interregnum were times of social and political upheaval and instability. The dates for Restoration literature are a matter of convention and differ markedly from genre to genre. In drama, the "Restoration" may last until 1700, but in poetry, it may last only until 1666,

13230-448: The period, the New Testament was translated from Greek , the Old Testament from Hebrew and Aramaic , and the Apocrypha from Greek and Latin . In the 1662 Book of Common Prayer , the text of the Authorized Version replaced the text of the Great Bible for Epistle and Gospel readings, and as such was authorized by an Act of Parliament. By the first half of the 18th century, the Authorized Version had become effectively unchallenged as

13365-413: The printer, Robert Barker , was fined heavily. Of the 1000 copies of the "Wicked Bible" only 11 survive. The nine versions summarized below are dealt with in separate articles. With the exception of Tyndale's Bible , all are complete Bibles, although usually the New Testament was also issued separately. The Apocrypha were normally included in Bibles of the Reformation period, although sometimes omitted if

13500-500: The project was abandoned when it became clear that these would nearly double the bulk of the Bible text. After the English Restoration , the Geneva Bible was held to be politically suspect and a reminder of the repudiated Puritan era. Furthermore, disputes over the lucrative rights to print the Authorized Version dragged on through the 17th century, so none of the printers involved saw any commercial advantage in marketing

13635-431: The publication sometimes worked under pseudonyms. Dates and places of publication might also be given incorrectly. Identification of a particular Bible as belonging to a specific edition is complicated by the flexibility of the whole production process at the time. The text, being set in movable type, could be corrected or changed in the middle of a print run; thus copies of a given edition may differ on some pages. Also, at

13770-523: The publishers carefully omitted any mention of Tyndale's involvement in them. Later, the "authorized" Great Bible of 1539 was suppressed under Mary I because of her Roman Catholic beliefs. In this period the roles of printer and publisher were not necessarily as now, and the accuracy of the information given on title pages cannot be relied on. The person named as translator might at most be an editor, since all Bible versions depended heavily on Tyndale's and/or Coverdale's work. Printers and others involved in

13905-531: The reign of King Henry VIII . When Mary I succeeded to the throne in 1553, she returned the Church of England to the communion of the Catholic faith and many English religious reformers fled the country, some establishing an English-speaking community in the Protestant city of Geneva . Under the leadership of John Calvin , Geneva became the chief international centre of Reformed Protestantism and Latin biblical scholarship. These English expatriates undertook

14040-517: The spellings ⟨air⟩ and ⟨ear⟩ , rhymed with each other, and words with the spelling ⟨are⟩ , such as prepare and compare , were sometimes pronounced with a more open vowel sound, like the verbs are and scar . See Great Vowel Shift § Later mergers for more information. Nature was pronounced approximately as [ˈnɛːtəɹ] and may have rhymed with letter or, early on, even latter . One may have been pronounced own , with both one and other using

14175-434: The spirit of scholarship was untrammeled. They found material for scholarly study of the Bible, and there they made and published a new version of the Bible in English, the Geneva Bible . During Elizabeth's reign sixty editions of it appeared. The Geneva Bible was first published in 1560 (Herbert #107). It made several changes: for one, the Geneva edition was the first to show the division into verses. The chapter division

14310-478: The standard Catholic English-language Bible until 1941. The King James Version (KJV), or Authorized Version is an English translation of the Holy Bible, commissioned for the Church of England at the behest of James I of England . First published in 1611, it has had a profound impact not only on most English translations that have followed it, but also on English literature as a whole. The King James Version

14445-420: The style of scribe's shorthand ), and set & for and . In contrast, on a few occasions, they appear to have inserted these words when they thought a line needed to be padded. Later printings regularized these spellings; the punctuation has also been standardized, but still varies from current usage. As can be seen in the example page on the left, the first printing used a blackletter typeface instead of

14580-665: The style of today's General American , West Country English , Irish accents and Scottish accents, although in the case of the Scottish accent the R is rolled, and less like the pronunciation now usual in most of England.) Furthermore, at the beginning of the Early Modern English period there were three non-open and non- schwa short vowels before /r/ in the syllable coda : /e/ , /i/ and /u/ (roughly equivalent to modern /ɛ/ , /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ ; /ʌ/ had not yet developed). In London English they gradually merged into

14715-697: The translation of the New Testament was the Textus Receptus version of the Greek compiled by Erasmus ; for the Old Testament, the Masoretic text of the Hebrew was used; for some of the apocrypha , the Septuagint Greek text was used, or for apocrypha for which the Greek was unavailable, the Vulgate Latin. James' instructions included several requirements that kept the new translation familiar to its listeners and readers. The text of

14850-625: The translation, it is widely admired for its style and use of language. The edition of the King James Bible found in modern printings is not that of the 1611 edition, but rather an edition extensively modernised in 1769 (to the standards of the mid-18th Century) by Benjamin Blayney for the Oxford University Press . Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it

14985-433: The use of the Bible. There were to be no notes or annotations in any versions, and those that existed were to be blacked out. Only the upper classes were to be allowed to possess a Bible. Finally, the year before his death, all versions were again prohibited except the Great Bible, whose cost and size precluded personal use. The decree led to another great burning of Bibles in 1546—Tyndale, Coverdale, Matthew—all but

15120-420: The various colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, while others were promoted to bishoprics , deaneries and prebends through royal patronage . On 22 July 1604 King James VI and I sent a letter to Archbishop Bancroft asking him to contact all English churchmen requesting that they make donations to his project. Right trusty and well beloved, we greet you well. Whereas we have appointed certain learned men, to

15255-424: The verb "to suffer" in the sense of "to allow" survived into Early Modern English, as in the phrase "suffer the little children" of the King James Version , but it has mostly been lost in Modern English. This use still exists in the idiom "to suffer fools gladly". Also, this period includes one of the earliest Russian borrowings to English (which is historically a rare occasion itself ); at least as early as 1600,

15390-474: The versions he terms "... the English translation made in the beginning of the reign of King James" , and "The Geneva French" (i.e. Olivétan ). Hobbes advances detailed critical arguments why the Vulgate rendering is to be preferred. For most of the 17th century the assumption remained that, while it had been of vital importance to provide the scriptures in the vernacular for ordinary people, nevertheless for those with sufficient education to do so, Biblical study

15525-431: The very meanest translation of the Bible in English, set forth by men of our profession, (for we have seen none of theirs [Catholics] of the whole Bible as yet) containeth the word of God, nay, is the word of God." As with the first preface, some British printings reproduce this, while most non-British printings do not. Almost every printing that includes the second preface also includes the first. The first printing contained

15660-410: The work proceeded, more detailed rules were adopted as to how variant and uncertain readings in the Hebrew and Greek source texts should be indicated, including the requirement that words supplied in English to 'complete the meaning' of the originals should be printed in a different type face. The task of translation was undertaken by 47 scholars, although 54 were originally approved. All were members of

15795-429: The years, introducing about 1,500 misprints (some of which, like the omission of "not" from the commandment "Thou shalt not commit adultery" in the " Wicked Bible ", became notorious). The two Cambridge editions of 1629 and 1638 attempted to restore the proper text—while introducing over 200 revisions of the original translators' work, chiefly by incorporating into the main text a more literal reading originally presented as

15930-617: Was a scholar who graduated at Oxford, was a student in Cambridge when Martin Luther posted his theses at Wittenberg and was troubled by the problems within the Church. In 1523, taking advantage of the recent invention of the printing press, Tyndale began to cast the Scriptures into English. His aims were simple but ambitious (as expressed to an educated man): "I defy the Pope and all his laws: and if God spare my life, ere many years I will cause

16065-647: Was a serious shortage of Bibles in the American colonies. To meet the demand various printers , beginning with Samuel Kneeland in 1752, printed the King James Bible without authorization from the Crown. To avert prosecution and detection of an unauthorized printing they would include the royal insignia on the title page, using the same materials in its printing as the authorized version was produced from, which were imported from England. Early Modern English Bible translations Although Wycliffe's Bible had preceded

16200-491: Was best undertaken within the international common medium of Latin. It was only in 1700 that modern bilingual Bibles appeared in which the Authorized Version was compared with counterpart Dutch and French Protestant vernacular Bibles. In consequence of the continual disputes over printing privileges, successive printings of the Authorized Version were notably less careful than the 1611 edition had been—compositors freely varying spelling, capitalization and punctuation—and also, over

16335-406: Was changed to italics , this application being regularized and greatly expanded. This was intended to de-emphasize the words. The original printing contained two prefatory texts; the first was a formal Epistle Dedicatory to "the most high and mighty Prince" King James. Many British printings reproduce this, while most non-British printings do not. The second preface was called Translators to

16470-552: Was common not to give the translation any specific name. In his Leviathan of 1651, Thomas Hobbes referred to it as "the English Translation made in the beginning of the Reign of King James". A 1761 "Brief Account of the various Translations of the Bible into English" refers to the 1611 version merely as "a new, compleat, and more accurate Translation", despite referring to the Great Bible by its name, and despite using

16605-448: Was compiled by Myles Coverdale and published in 1535. It was much influenced by Tyndale: Coverdale took Tyndale's New Testament and the published portions of his Old Testament, and translated the remainder of the Old Testament himself from Latin and German versions. Matthew's Bible was produced by John Rodgers , working under the pseudonym "Thomas Matthew" for safety, in 1537. It was based on Tyndale's previously published editions with

16740-467: Was compiled by William Whittingham , who had succeeded John Knox as pastor of the English congregation at Geneva , Switzerland . Whittingham was married to John Calvin 's sister and the translation was viewed as too Calvinist by the Church of England. During the reign of Elizabeth I of England it was found that two versions of the Bible were in common use, the old Great Bible and the new Geneva Bible . There could be no way of gaining approval for

16875-510: Was first published in 1611 as a complete Bible (Herbert #309) and a New Testament (Herbert #310). Translated by 47 translators using the widest range of source texts, it became known as the "Authorized Version" in England and is the most widely used of the Early Modern English Bible translations. Its use has continued in some traditions up to the present. Even though modern scholarship continues to claim problems with some of

17010-432: Was frequently in danger; he was eventually executed for his work. The Church had objected to Tyndale's translations because offensive notes (the "pestilent glosses") and, in their belief, deliberate mistranslations had been included in the works in order to promote anticlericalism and heretical views. It is for this reason that Tyndale's earliest editions were so vigorously suppressed that few copies have survived. There

17145-432: Was headed by a brief précis of its contents with verse numbers. Later editors freely substituted their own chapter summaries, or omitted such material entirely. Pilcrow marks are used to indicate the beginnings of paragraphs except after the book of Acts. The Authorized Version was meant to replace the Bishops' Bible as the official version for readings in the Church of England . No record of its authorization exists; it

17280-505: Was influential in the writing of the Authorized King James Version. The English Church initially used the officially sanctioned "Bishops' Bible", which was hardly used by the population. More popular was the named "Geneva Bible", which was created on the basis of the Tyndale translation in Geneva under the direct successor of the reformer John Calvin for his English followers. However, their footnotes represented

17415-470: Was made three centuries earlier, but the verses belong to the Genevan version, and are meant to make the book suitable for responsive use and for reader reference. They were taken in large part from the work of Stephanus ( Robert Estienne of Paris), who had divided the Greek Testament into verses in 1551, during a journey which he was compelled to make between Paris and Lyon . The Geneva version

17550-627: Was no place to do it in all England. A wealthy London merchant subsidized him with the gift of ten pounds, with which he went across the Channel to Hamburg ; and there and elsewhere on the Continent , where he could be hid and where printing facilities were more accessible than in England, he brought his translation to completion. Tyndale was compelled to flee at one time with a few printed sheets and complete his work on another press. Several times copies of his books were solemnly burned, and his own life

17685-464: Was printed both in Roman type and in the older typeface, black letter. It had full "notes on hard passages", some of which eventually proved controversial to King James and were thus a prompt to a new translation; the King James version. The work itself was completed after the accession of Elizabeth, when most of the religious leaders had returned to England from their exile under Mary. The Geneva Bible

17820-597: Was printed—in conjunction with the Scots coronation in that year of Charles I . The inclusion of illustrations in the edition raised accusations of Popery from opponents of the religious policies of Charles and William Laud , Archbishop of Canterbury . However, official policy favoured the Authorized Version, and this favour returned during the Commonwealth —as London printers succeeded in re-asserting their monopoly on Bible printing with support from Oliver Cromwell —and

17955-532: Was probably effected by an order of the Privy Council , but the records for the years 1600 to 1613 were destroyed by fire in January 1618/19, and it is commonly known as the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom. The King's Printer issued no further editions of the Bishops' Bible , so necessarily the Authorized Version replaced it as the standard lectern Bible in parish church use in England. In

18090-469: Was spelled as both he and hee in the same sentence in Shakespeare's plays and elsewhere. Certain key orthographic features of Early Modern English spelling have not been retained: Most consonant sounds of Early Modern English have survived into present-day English; however, there are still a few notable differences in pronunciation: The following information primarily comes from studies of

18225-463: Was the result of his reception during the 17th and the 18th centuries, which directly contributes to the development of Standard English . Shakespeare's plays are therefore still familiar and comprehensible 400 years after they were written, but the works of Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langland , which had been written only 200 years earlier, are considerably more difficult for the average modern reader. The orthography of Early Modern English

#156843