I remember in a seminary class a student ripped into all the flaws and translation mistakes that mark the Authorized 1611 version of the King James Bible. The professor, of course well aware of any flaws in the translation, retorted that it was good enough for John Wesley and the rest of the English speaking world for well over three centuries. The professor made the simple point that it was the standard English translation for so long and there is really no way to diminish the depth of its impact upon the world and the English language. This week marks the 400th anniversary of the translation.
“Reap the whirlwind,” “a law unto themselves,” “labor of love,” and “the root of all evil” are just a few examples of vernacular expressions given to us through the King James translation. Its impact on political freedom, literature, and music is indeed deep. Those in the Protestant tradition should know the stories of the English translators, like William Tyndale, from which the King James Version is largely shaped. The path that translated the Scriptures into English was purchased with blood and often violent martyrdom.
In Benson Bobrick’s book Wide as the Waters: The story of the English Bible and the Revolution it Inspired, he says of the translation:
In the end, the King James Version was such a book, wrote Macaulay (In his essay on Dryden) that ‘if everything else in our language should perish it would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.’ Its subsequent impact on English (and American) literature might be traced in a thousand ways – in the work of religious writers like Milton and Bunyan, or their more secular brethren like D.H. Lawrence, Walt Whitman, and Defoe. Without the King James Version, it has been said, ‘there would be no Paradise Lost , no Pilgrim’s Progress, no Negro spirituals, no Gettysburg Address.’
On Christmas Eve in 1968, Apollo 8 crew members Jim Lovell and Frank Borman took turns reading from the first ten verses of Genesis. The footage of earth from a brand new vantage point captivated viewers across the world. It was the largest television viewing audience ever at the time. Below is Lovell and Borman reading from the King James Version: