The Greatest English Classic: A Study of the King James Version of the Bible and Its Influence on Life and LiteratureMcAfee, Cleland Boyd
History
The Greatest English Classic: A Study of the King James Version of the Bible and Its Influence on Life and Literature
McAfee, Cleland Boyd
Bible -- History; Bible -- Influence; Bible and literature; Bible. English -- Versions -- Authorized
We do not know much of the personnel of
the company. Their names would mean very
little to us at this distance. All were clergymen
except one. There were bishops, college
principals, university fellows, and rectors. Dr.
Reynolds, who suggested it in the first place,
was a member, though he did not live to see the
work finished. This Dr. Reynolds, by the way,
was party to a most curious episode. He had
been an ardent Roman Catholic, and he had a
brother who was an equally ardent Protestant.
They argued with each other so earnestly that
each convinced the other; the Roman Catholic
became a Protestant, and the Protestant became
a Roman Catholic! Dr. Lancelot Andrewes,
chairman of one of the two companies that met
at Westminster, was probably the most learned
man in England. They said of him that if he
had been present at the tower of Babel he could
have interpreted for all the tongues present.
The only trouble was that the world lacked
learning enough to know how learned he was.
His company had the first part of the Old
Testament, and the simple dignity of the style
they used shows how scholarship and simplicity
go easily together. Most people would consider
that the least satisfactory part of the work is
the second section, running from I Chronicles
to Ecclesiastes. A convert from another faith,
who learned to read the Bible in English, once
expressed to a friend of my own his feeling that
except for the Psalms and parts of Job, there
seemed to be here a distinct letting-down of the
dignity of the translation. There is good excuse
for this, if it is so, for two leading members
of the company who had that section in charge,
both eminent Cambridge scholars, died very
early in the work, and their places were not
filled. The third company, sitting at Oxford,
were peculiarly strong, and had for their portion
the hardest part of the Old Testament--all the
prophetical writings. But they did their part
with finest skill. The fourth company, sitting at
Cambridge, had the Apocrypha, the books which
lie between the Old and the New Testaments
for the most part, or else are supplemental to
certain Old Testament books. Their work was
rather hastily and certainly poorly done, and
has been dropped out of most editions. The
fifth company, sitting at Oxford, with great
Greek scholars on it, took the Gospels, the Acts,
and the Revelation. This company had in it
the one layman, Sir Henry Savile, then the greatest
Greek scholar in England. It is the same
Sir Henry Savile who heard, on his death-bed
in 1621, that James had with his own hands
torn from the Journal of Parliament the pages
which bore the protest in favor of free speech
in Parliament. Hearing it, the faithful scholar
prayed to die, saying: "I am ready to depart,
the rather that having lived in good times I
foresee worse." The sixth company met at
Westminster and translated the New Testament
epistles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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