THE ROMANCE OF 
 
 THE ENGLISH 
 
 BIBLE 
 
 BY JOHN T. PARIS 
 
 "65^55 
 T22 
 
^ OF WWc}^ 
 * NOV 2 1911 *\ 
 
 
William Tyndale 
 
NOV 2 1 
 
 %<•«, -- 
 
 ^'mi 
 
 %i 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF 
 THE ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 THE WESTMINSTER PRESS 
 
 1911 
 
Copyright 191 1, by 
 
 The Trustees of the Presbyterian Board of Publication 
 
 and Sabbath-School Work 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Foreword 5 
 
 I. In the Days of the Manuscripts 7 
 II. When Bibles Were Scarce 15 
 
 III. Tyndale^ the Martyr Translator 23 
 
 IV. Five Sixteenth Century Ver- 
 
 sions 32 
 
 V. The Story of the King James 
 
 Version 39 
 
 VI. The Debt of the English Lan- 
 guage to the King James Ver- 
 sion 46 
 
 VII. The Revised Version of 1881-1885 54 
 VIII. The American Standard Version 60 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 No novelist ever conceived a romance so 
 marvelous as the story of how God preserved 
 his Word through the centuries. Fire and 
 earthquake and war have blotted many things 
 out of existence, but God's Word has been 
 kept for his people. Mighty kings and em- 
 perors have tried to destroy the Word, but he 
 that sitteth in the heavens has laughed at them. 
 
 Only the outlines of the wonderful story 
 can be told in these pages. It is hoped that 
 the reader will be led to inquire for some of 
 the more ambitious volumes in which the story 
 is told more fully. 
 
I 
 
 IN THE DAYS OF THE MANU- 
 SCRIPTS 
 
 To-day a book is called a volume. The 
 word has an interesting history. It comes 
 from the Latin, and means ''something rolled 
 up." During the centuries before Christ the 
 books of the law, of history, of poetry and of 
 prophecy, which we call the books of the Old 
 Testament, were written by the scribes on 
 papyrus or parchment. The papyrus or parch- 
 ment was fastened to a stick, as charts or 
 maps are fastened to-day — with this differ- 
 ence, of course : the sticks on which maps are 
 rolled are placed at top and bottom, while the 
 sticks for the ancient volumes were attached 
 to either end of the long parchment, the writ- 
 ing being at right angles to the sticks. When 
 a parchment was ready for the reader it was 
 rolled upon the left-hand stick. On the right- 
 hand stick the parchment was rerolled as the 
 text was read — for the Hebrews read from 
 right to left. 
 
 7 
 
8 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 It was probably such a volume, or roll, that 
 Hilkiah, the priest, found in the temple and 
 sent to King Josiah. II Chron. 34 : 14-18. 
 The roll of the prophecy of Isaiah delivered 
 to Jesus when he entered into the synagogue 
 at Nazareth must have been of the same gen- 
 eral description. 
 
 The rolls were copied and recopied by the 
 scribes to whom this work was committed, 
 so that many copies of the books of the Old 
 Testament must have been in existence in the 
 time of Christ. Yet the oldest Hebrew manu- 
 script so far discovered was prepared in the 
 tenth century after Christ ! 
 
 However, we have older Bible manuscripts 
 than this. More than one hundred years be- 
 fore Christ, learned men finished translations 
 of the Old Testament, as well as a number of 
 other books w^hich are called apocryphal or 
 unrecognised. The work thus completed was 
 called the Septiiagint, meaning *' seventy," 
 probably because the translation was author- 
 ized by the Sanhedrin of seventy members, or 
 because of the tradition that seventy-two men 
 had done the work in seventy-two days. This 
 tradition has no basis in fact ; it is known that 
 the translation required the work of many men 
 
In the Days of the Manuscripts 9 
 
 during a period of about one hundred and fifty 
 years. 
 
 More than three hundred and thirty manu- 
 scripts of the Septuagint (or LXX) — in whole 
 or in part — are now treasured in various muse- 
 ums and Hbraries. The oldest fragment dates 
 from the third century after Christ. This was 
 not discovered until 1903, at Oxyrhynchus, in 
 Egypt. Scholars are eagerly searching for still 
 earlier manuscripts. 
 
 Other famous manuscripts of the Septuagint 
 are known as Codex Alexandrinus, or "A," 
 which is in the British Museum ; Codex Sina- 
 Itlcus, or "S," to be seen in the Imperial Li- 
 brary at St. Petersburg; Codex Ephraem, or 
 "C," the treasure of the Bibliotheque Nation- 
 ale in Paris. 
 
 The Septuagint was the standard version 
 of the Old Testament books in use among 
 Christians until Jerome prepared the Vulgate 
 or Latin version from the Hebrew. Though 
 Jerome's work was completed in the fourth 
 century, the earliest known manuscript of the 
 Vulgate dates from the seventh or eighth cen- 
 tury. Few of the more than eight thousand 
 manuscripts so far discovered are older than 
 the thirteenth or fourteenth century. 
 
10 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 The first manuscripts of the books of our 
 New Testament were written by Paul when 
 he sent his letters to the churches. These 
 manuscripts were preserved by those who re- 
 ceived them, and frequently copies were sent 
 to other churches. The Gospels and the other 
 books of the New Testament also were pre- 
 pared and multiplied by scribes. 
 
 Many of the scribes who copied the manu- 
 scripts were connected with monasteries. 
 Copying was often their sole employment. 
 Frequently they were excused from the rough 
 work of gardening, and so forth, in which all 
 the other monks had to share, in order that 
 their hands might be kept in the best possible 
 condition for writing. 
 
 The manuscripts were usually beautifully 
 prepared and illuminated on vellum or parch- 
 ment. They were of two kinds — Uncials, 
 written in capital letters; and Cursives, writ- 
 ten in a running hand. The ordinary Uncial 
 manuscript was written without spaces, ac- 
 cents or punctuation marks. Abbreviations, 
 which were frequently used, were marked by 
 a stroke above the letters. 
 
 The strange appearance of the Greek manu- 
 script thus prepared may be illustrated by this 
 
In the Days of the Manuscripts 1 1 
 
 arrangement of the English words of John 
 14: I, 2. 
 
 LETNOTYOURHEARTBETROUBLED 
 BELIEVEINgdBELIEVEALSOINMEIN 
 MYFATHERSHOUSEAREMANYMANS 
 lONSIFITWERENOTSOIWOULDHAVE 
 TOLDYOUFORIGOTOPREPAREAPLAC 
 EFORYOU 
 
 Of all the New Testament manuscripts pre- 
 pared by the scribes we have to-day only one 
 hundred and twelve Uncials and about thirty- 
 five hundred Cursives. The oldest of the 
 Uncials dates from about the middle of the 
 fourth century, while the oldest of the Cur- 
 sives dates from the ninth century. 
 
 Only two of the Uncials contain the entire 
 New Testament. The story of the discovery 
 of one of these — Codex Sinaiticus — gives a 
 hint of the wonderful way in which God has 
 preserved the Bible through the centuries. 
 
 This story takes us to Arabia, where — at the 
 foot of Mount Sinai — St. Catherine's Convent 
 was built by order of the Emperor Justinian 
 on the supposed site of the burning bush from 
 which God spoke to Moses, commanding him 
 to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. One of 
 the treasures of the convent was a valuable 
 
12 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 library, largely made up of manuscripts. These 
 were esteemed of little value, and the inmates 
 were gradually using them up for fuel. 
 
 In 1844 Constantine Tischendorf, a German 
 scholar, determined to find his way to the con- 
 vent, hoping to discover manuscripts said to 
 be there. It was comparatively easy to reach 
 the walls, but he found it a difficult proposi- 
 tion to persuade the residents to admit him. 
 Finally he gained his point, and was lifted to 
 the entrance high up on the wall by a rude 
 elevator fastened to a rope which wound 
 around a drum turned by four of the monks. 
 He searched through the library, but, although 
 he saw many rare manuscripts, there was noth- 
 ing of the kind he had in mind. 
 
 He was about to leave the convent when 
 he was attracted by a basketful of parchments, 
 intended, as he learned, for kindling. Eagerly 
 turning them over he found several leaves of 
 the Old Testament in Greek, parts of a manu- 
 script older than any Bible manuscript of 
 which he knew. He begged to be allowed to 
 carry away the ''kindling," and succeeded in 
 securing forty-three pages. The rest of the 
 basketful was carefully carried back to the 
 library. Tischendorf^s eagerness had revealed 
 
In the Days of the Manuscripts 13 
 
 to the monks the real vakie of the khidHng! 
 In the quiet of his own cell, the German 
 scholar examined the leaves, and identified 
 them as an important part of the Old Testa- 
 ment, including four or five books. In vain 
 he pleaded for other sheets; the monks were 
 firm in their refusal. 
 
 For years Tischendorf dreamed of securing 
 this manuscript treasure of St. Catherine's. 
 Again in 1854 he sought the monks, but with- 
 out success. After waiting five years more 
 he was for the third time the guest of the 
 monks of St. Catherine's. They were courte- 
 ous, but still refused to grant his request. 
 
 Sick at heart, the scholar had made arrange- 
 ments to go back home when the steward 
 asked him to go to the steward's cell to see a 
 copy of the Septuagint he had been reading. 
 The bulky volume, wrapped carefully in red 
 cloth, proved to be the long-desired fragments 
 of the Old Testament, the entire New Testa- 
 ment, as well as several other manuscripts. 
 With beating heart, but with assumed care- 
 lessness, Tischendorf asked to take the book 
 to his room in order to examine it more at 
 his leisure. Once by himself, the cloak of 
 indifference was laid aside. Eagerly he lit 
 
14 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 his lamp, and all night long he toiled to copy 
 a part of the manuscript which gave a ver- 
 sion of an epistle as yet unknown to scholars 
 in the original Greek. 
 
 In the morning, growing bolder, he asked 
 permission to carry the volume to Cairo, where 
 it might be copied from beginning to end. 
 Learning that the prior, the only man who 
 had authority to give the permission, had 
 started to Cairo, Tischendorf hurried after 
 him, and — when he had overtaken him — 
 pleaded his case so well that permission was 
 given. But the scholar was not content; he 
 wanted the original as well as his copy. To 
 his great joy he was given permission to carry 
 it to St. Petersburg, where it is to-day. 
 
 By many it is thought that this copy of the 
 Bible was one of the fifty manuscripts pre- 
 pared by order of Constantine for the prin- 
 cipal churches of his empire. For these manu- 
 scripts only the finest materials and the most 
 skillful copyists were to be employed. The 
 fact that the Codex Sinaiticus was prepared 
 in the most beautiful manner on the finest 
 parchment, probably made from the skins of 
 antelopes, would seem to go at least part way 
 to prove this theory. 
 
II 
 
 WHEN BIBLES WERE SCARCE 
 
 In the sixth century after Christ, when Eng- 
 land had not yet been Christianized, the h- 
 braries of the monasteries of Ireland held 
 precious portions of the Bible in Latin, and 
 perhaps also in Greek and Hebrew. From 
 these various manuscripts were made some of 
 the first translations of parts of the Bible used 
 in England. 
 
 The Irish monks guarded their treasured 
 manuscripts most carefully. Those who were 
 privileged to study them were forbidden to 
 copy them for their own use. Historians tell 
 of an incident that grew, so it is said, out of 
 the failure of one man to whom a manuscript 
 was lent, to regard the prohibition. Columba, 
 famous as one of the early missionaries who 
 introduced Christianity to Great Britain, while 
 visiting Finian of Ulster, made a copy of his 
 host's Psalter, working while everybody else 
 in the house was asleep. When Finian dis- 
 covered this he claimed the copy as his own 
 
 15 
 
16 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 property. Because Cokimba declined to give 
 it up, the case was appealed to Diarmad, king 
 of Tara. After careful consideration, the 
 king decided that Finian was in the right, 
 since ''to every book belongs its son-book (or 
 copy), as to every cow belongs her calf!" 
 
 Not many years after the death of Columba 
 a laborer named Caedmon was employed at the 
 abbey of Whitby in Northumbria, England. 
 He was an ignorant fellow, and so felt that 
 he was unable to take part in the entertain- 
 ment of those who gathered at the abbey on 
 winter evenings. It was the custom to ask 
 each person present to sing, accompanying 
 himself on the harp. Caedmon, after listening 
 to the songs of his companions, would steal 
 away from the hall before he could be asked 
 to take part in the entertainment. One night, 
 after such an escape from the abbey, he must 
 have fallen asleep thinking of his inability to 
 sing, for he dreamed that a voice said, "Sing 
 to me." When he answered that he could not 
 sing, the voice said, ''Sing to me the first be- 
 ginning of created things." He thought he 
 sang a hymn of praise to God. "The next 
 morning" — so the incident is told in "The 
 Ancestry of our English Bible" — "the story 
 
When Bibles Were Scarce 17 
 
 of his dream brought him before the Lady 
 Abbess, and he was found to be possessed of 
 a divine gift. For as soon as the monks trans- 
 lated any portion of the Bible story out of the 
 Latin text, he immediately sang it to the ac- 
 companiment of his harp in short lines of 
 Saxon verse." The songs he sang were writ- 
 ten down, and as ''Casdmon's Paraphrase" of 
 parts of the Scriptures they have come down 
 to us. 
 
 Sixty-five years after the Paraphrase was 
 written a monk named Bede died in the mon- 
 astery of Jarrow. But before he died he 
 wanted to finish the translation of the Gospel 
 of John, which he had been making, because, 
 as he said, *'I do not want my boys (monks) 
 to read a lie, or to work to no purpose after 
 I am gone." When all was done but one 
 chapter Bede was nearly gone. *'Take thy pen 
 and write quickly," Bede said to his scribe. 
 At last all was done but one sentence, so the 
 scribe told him. Again the word came, ''Write 
 quickly." The scribe wrote, and Bede died 
 with a word of praise on his lips that he had 
 been able to finish the work he longed to do. 
 
 More than one hundred years after Bede's 
 death the good King Alfred expressed the 
 
18 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 wish that all the free-born youths of his king- 
 dom should employ themselves on nothing 
 until they could first read well the English 
 Scripture. In order to make the way easy for 
 those who would do as he wished, he began 
 a translation of the Psalms, but he died be- 
 fore the work was completed. He had, how- 
 ever, accomplished one purpose that has had 
 its influence on all English law : he made the 
 Ten Commandments a part of the law of the 
 land. This is the way his version of seven of 
 the Commandments reads in the quaint Anglo- 
 Saxon : 
 
 Drihten wses sprecende thaes word to Moyse and 
 thus cwseth : 
 
 Ic earn Drihten thy God. Ic the sit gelsedde of 
 Aegypta londe and of heora theowdome, 
 
 Ne kifa thu othre fremde godas ofer me. . . . 
 
 Ara thinum faeder and thinre meder dia the Drihten 
 sealde the, that thu sy thy leng libbende on eorthan. 
 
 Ne slea thu. 
 
 Ne stala thu. 
 
 Ne like thu dearnunga. 
 
 Ne saege thu lease gewitnesse with thinum nehstan. 
 
 Ne wilna thu thines nehstan yifes mid unrihte. 
 
 Near the close of the tenth century ap- 
 peared Archbishop's Aelfric's Anglo-Saxon 
 
When Bibles Were Scarce 19 
 
 Bible intended for reading in churches. Of 
 course, the form of many of the letters was 
 different from what we use to-day, but this is 
 a fair representation of the words of Alatt. 
 7:26, 2y\ 
 
 And aelc thaera the geh3rath thas mine word and 
 tha ne wyrcth se bith gelic tham dysigan man tha 
 getimbrode hys bus ofer sand-ceosel. Tha rinde h3t 
 and thaer comun flod and bleovvun windas and 
 ahruron on that bus, and that bus feoll and bys 
 bryre waes mycel. 
 
 For more than three hundred years not 
 much attention was paid in England to Bible 
 translation. The land was in confusion ; there 
 were wars and rumors of wars which took the 
 attention of both rulers and priests. But in the 
 latter part of the fourteenth century John 
 Wyclif, who had been at the head of Balliol 
 College, Oxford, and was later a country 
 priest, determined to translate the Bible so 
 that it might be read by the common people. 
 The translation was made from the Vulgate, 
 half of the Old Testament and all of the New 
 Testament being the work of Wyclif himself, 
 while the remainder was done by Nicholas of 
 Hereford. 
 
20 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 No sooner was this manuscript version bear- 
 ing Wyclif's name completed than he was 
 brought to trial, in 1378, on several cliarges, 
 the most important being that he had made the 
 Bible more ''common and more open to lay- 
 men and to women than it was wont to be to 
 clerks well learned and of good understanding, 
 so that the pearl of the gospel is trodden 
 under foot of swine." 
 
 Having triumphed over the enemies who 
 sought his life, Wyclif began to plan to get 
 the Bible before the common people. Few 
 could afford a Bible of their own, so he gath- 
 ered about himself a company of devoted men, 
 called "Lollards," who went about the coun- 
 try teaching the Scriptures to all who would 
 listen. One of Wyclif's enemies said, "You 
 cannot travel anywhere in England but of 
 every two men one will be a Lollard." 
 
 In 1384 John Wyclif was stricken with 
 palsy while kneeling with his people in his 
 own parish church. A monk who did not like 
 him spoke of his death in vigorous words, 
 calling him "the idol of heretics, the image 
 of hypocrites, the restorer of schism, the store- 
 house of lies, the sink of flattery." 
 
 The Bible of Wyclif was revised soon after 
 
John Wyclif 
 
When Bibles Were Scarce 21 
 
 his death under the supervision of Richard 
 Purvey, who — in a preface — told the story of 
 his work : 
 
 A simpel creature hath translated the Scripture out 
 of Latin into Englische. First, this simpel creature 
 had much travayle with divers fellows and helpers to 
 gather many old Bibles and other doctors and glosses 
 to make one Latin Bible some deal true and then to 
 study it anew the texte and any other help he might 
 get, especially Lyra on the old Testament, which 
 helped him much with this work. The third time to 
 counsel with olde grammarians and olde divines of 
 hard words and hard sentences how they might best 
 be understood and translated, the fourth time to 
 translate as clearly as he could to the sense, and to 
 have many good fellows and cunnyng at the correct- 
 ing of the translacioun. ... A translator hath great 
 nede to study well the sense both before and after, 
 and then also he hath nede to live a clene life and be 
 full devout in preiers, and have not his wit occupied 
 about worldli things that the Holy Spyrit author of 
 all wisdom and cunnynge and truthe dresse him for 
 his work and suffer him not to err. . . . God grant 
 to us all grace to ken well and to kepe well Holie 
 Writ, and to suft'er joiefulH some paine for it at the 
 laste. 
 
 The circulation of Wyclif's Bible was so 
 general, in spite of all difficulties in the way, 
 that in 1414 all persons were legally warned 
 against reading the Scriptures in English, on 
 
22 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 pain of forfeiture of ''land, catel, life and 
 goods from their heyres forever." Efforts 
 were made to destroy the books bearing 
 Wyclif's name, yet one hundred and seventy 
 copies have been preserved to this day. 
 
 The law against Wyclif's version was not 
 enough to satisfy his enemies. They were not 
 content until his bones had been burned and 
 the ashes thrown into the river Swift. An 
 old writer, speaking of this occurrence, said : 
 '*As the Swift bare them into the Severn, and 
 the Severn into the narrow seas, and they 
 again into the ocean, thus the ashes of Wyclif 
 is an emblem of his doctrines, which is now 
 dispersed over all the world." 
 
 Unfortunately, a single copy of Wyclif's 
 Bible cost what would be equal to two hun- 
 dred dollars of our money. Yet many who 
 could not afford to own a copy gained access 
 to one by paying a fee for the privilege. The 
 case is recorded of one man who gave a load 
 of hay that he might read a manuscript an 
 hour a day for a number of days. 
 
 But better times were soon to come. Less 
 than seventy years after the death of Wyclif 
 the art of printing was invented, and cheap 
 Bibles were made possible. 
 
Ill 
 
 TYNDALE, THE MARTYR TRANS- 
 LATOR 
 
 In the early days of the sixteenth century 
 a young EngHshman named WilHam Tyndale 
 found it difficult to get access to the Bible. 
 There were no printed copies in English, and 
 the manuscripts of Wyclif's version — which 
 was completed in 1382 — were so expensive 
 that they could be consulted only by the 
 wealthy or by those who could use the few 
 libraries so fortunate as to possess copies. 
 The heart of the young man went out in pity 
 to the millions who had not even his slender 
 opportunity to read God's Word. So he made 
 the resolution that shaped his life ; and he 
 stated it to one who was his opponent in a 
 debate : 
 
 If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause 
 a boy that driveth the plow shall know more of the 
 Scripture than thou dost. 
 
 The task thus set himself by Tyndale would 
 have been comparatively easy if he had been 
 
 23 
 
24 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 content to print the text of one of Wyclif 's 
 manuscript Bibles. But he knew that WycHf 
 had merely translated into English the Vul- 
 gate, the Latin version of the Bible, and he 
 was resolved to make a translation from the 
 Greek and Hebrew. Moreover, the English 
 of WycHf's version was already out of date, 
 as may be judged from his translation of Luke 
 10:30-34: 
 
 And Jhesu biheld, and seide, A man came doun 
 from Jerusalem in to Jerico, and fel among theves, 
 and thei robbiden hym, and woundiden hym, and 
 wente awei, and leften the man half alyve. And it 
 bifel that a prest cam domi the same weie, and 
 passide forth, whanne he hadde seyn hym. Also a 
 dekene, when he was bisidis the place, and saw hym, 
 passide forth. But a Samaritan, goynge the weie, 
 cam bisidis hym ; and he saw hym, and had ruth on 
 hym; and cam to hym, and bound together his 
 woundis, and helde in oyle and wynne : and laid hym 
 on his beast, and ledde in to an ostrie (inn), and 
 dyd the cure of hym. 
 
 Tyndale knew that he faced almost certain 
 death if he persisted in his attempt to give the 
 Bible to the people, but he did not pause be- 
 cause of the danger. The man who, when a 
 student at Oxford and when tutor to the boys 
 of a country gentleman, had not hesitated to 
 
Tyndale, the Martyr Translator 25 
 
 defend what he beheved to be the truth, even 
 if by so domg he made enemies of powerful 
 men, would not be held back from what he 
 believed to be his duty merely by the fear of 
 death. 
 
 He did not begin his translation at once, but 
 first devoted years of study to gaining a more 
 exact knowledge of Hebrew and Greek. He 
 became such a skilled linguist that it was later 
 said of him that he spoke Hebrew, Greek, 
 Latin, Italian, Spanish and French as if each 
 were his native tongue. 
 
 But his studies did not take him away from 
 the people. As he had opportunity he left his 
 books and went out to the village in the neigh- 
 borhood of Bristol, where he was staying, and 
 preached in the open air to all who would 
 gather. There were those in authority who 
 misunderstood his actions, and he was "re- 
 viled and rated as ... a dog," to use his own 
 expression. 
 
 Opposition only strengthened his purpose 
 to give to the people the Bible in their own 
 tongue that they might be able to stand against 
 any errors of ignorant and designing men. 
 
 Persecution in the country led the young 
 scholar to go, in 1523, to London, in the hope 
 
26 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 that at the home of the Bishop of London he 
 might find a refuge while he undertook his 
 difficult task. But the bishop treated him 
 coldly. Humphry Monmouth, an alderman of 
 the city, opened his doors to the poor scholar, 
 and showed him other kindnesses for which 
 he later suffered imprisonment in the Tower 
 of London. We owe it to this generous host 
 that we have a picture of the six months spent 
 by Tyndale with him : 
 
 He studied most part of the day and of the night 
 at his book; and he would eat but sodden meat by 
 his good will, nor drink but single beer. I never 
 saw him wear linen about him during the space he 
 was with me. 
 
 A year's residence in . the city showed Tyn- 
 dale that if he would succeed in translating 
 the Bible he must leave England and go to 
 the Continent. So he went to Hamburg in 
 1524. There he was compelled to do his work 
 in secret in order that his life might be pre- 
 served till the Book should be translated and 
 printed. After a few months of arduous 
 labor, the New Testament was completed. 
 English friends provided funds for the print- 
 ing at Cologne. 
 
Tyndale, the Martyr Translator 27 
 
 Peter Quentel, who was engaged to do the 
 mechanical work, had run through the press 
 a large number of the sheets required for the 
 modest edition of three thousand copies, when 
 word was brought to him that enemies of the 
 Reformation had obtained from the Cologne 
 Senate an order prohibiting the printing. Tyn- 
 dale hastily went to Worms, carrying the 
 sheets with him. 
 
 In Worms plans were changed. It became 
 necessary to print an octavo edition as well as 
 a quarto edition, because a description of the 
 latter had been sent to England by spies. Of 
 the six thousand copies prepared — three thou- 
 sand of each edition — only three are known 
 to-day, an imperfect copy of the quarto edi- 
 tion and two copies of the octavo edition ! 
 
 The finished books were smuggled to Eng- 
 land, hidden in cases of other goods. As the 
 people came to know about them they clam- 
 ored for them. It is said that some men of 
 wealth were so eager for a copy that they 
 were willing, if necessary, to give a hundred 
 thousand pieces of money in exchange for one. 
 The poor people, for whom the translation 
 had been especially prepared, were as hungry 
 for the books as the wealthy, and the king 
 
28 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 and his counselors were as eager to secure 
 the volumes as the people. However, their 
 object was to get hold of the books only that 
 they might destroy them. 
 
 Bonfires were made of the copies secured 
 by the authorities. In London, Oxford and 
 Antwerp many volumes were thus destroyed. 
 Overtures w^re made to an English merchant 
 named Pakington trading in Antwerp to buy 
 up secretly all the copies he could find. 
 
 It was not known that Pakington, being a 
 warm friend of Tyndale, was interested in the 
 success of the new translation. So the Bishop 
 of London did not hesitate to approach him. 
 To his overtures the merchant replied : 
 
 "My lord, if it be your pleasure, I could 
 do in this matter probably more than any mer- 
 chant in England ; so if it be your lordship's 
 pleasure to pay for them — for I must disburse 
 money for them — I will insure you to have 
 every book that remains unsold." 
 
 "Gentle Master Pakington," was the reply, 
 "do your diligence and get them for me, and 
 I will gladly give you whatever they may cost 
 for the books are naughty, and I intend surely 
 to destroy them all, and to burn them at Paul's 
 Cross." ' 
 
Tyndale, the Martyr Translator 29 
 
 Pakington went to Tyndale and asked him 
 to sell him testaments. Tyndale was indignant 
 till the explanation w^as given that by means 
 of the high price offered for the books by 
 those who would destroy them a much larger 
 edition could be printed, and the good work 
 of spreading knowledge of the Bible would 
 be carried on and by the aid of the very men 
 who sought to stop his work ! The copies 
 were furnished, the money paid and Tyndale's 
 empty pockets w-ere filled. 
 
 The Pentateuch and parts of the Prophets 
 were next translated, and were printed in 
 1534. In the same year appeared a revision 
 of the New Testament printed in 1526, which 
 showed the extreme care of Tyndale's work. 
 His greater familiarity with the Greek enabled 
 him to correct many mistakes. 
 
 With such accuracy w^as the work done that 
 the Authorized Version of 161 1 and the Re- 
 vised Version of 1881 retained many of his 
 words and sentences. For instance, of the two 
 hundred and two words in the difficult pas- 
 sage. Col. 1:9-17, one hundred and thirty- 
 eight are retained in the Revised Version. 
 Some of the words used look strange to us 
 because of the old spelling, but most of them 
 
30 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 are the words to which we are accustomed, 
 as may be seen from Phil. 2 : 5-8 : 
 
 Let the same mynde be in you that was in Christ 
 Jesu : which beynge in the shape of God, and thought 
 it not robbery to be equall with God. Nevertheless, 
 he made him silfe of no reputacion, and toke on him 
 the shape of a se'rvaunte, and became lyke unto men, 
 and was found in his aparell as a man. 
 
 The study of the pure, vigorous English of 
 this version played a wonderful part in fixing 
 the form of the English language. We are 
 using in our daily speech words and phrases 
 put together by a half-starved exile living con- 
 stantly in the shadow of sudden death. 
 
 The enmity of those in authority for Tyn- 
 dale, increased as his version of the Bible 
 found its way into the hearts of the people 
 in spite of all efforts made to prevent this. 
 To Antwerp — where he was living in 1535 — 
 he was pursued. He was arrested and im- 
 prisoned for more than a year. On October 
 6, 1536, he was strangled, and his body was 
 burned. His last words were the prayer, 
 ''Lord, open the king of England's eyes." 
 
 Tyndale's monument is the English Bible 
 for which he gave his life, for, as one modern 
 
Tyndale, the Martyr Translator 31 
 
 scholar has said : ''The Bible of the English- 
 speaking nations was very largely the work 
 of one heroic, simple-minded, scholarly man, 
 William Tyndale." 
 
IV 
 
 FIVE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 
 VERSIONS 
 
 The first complete printed Bible in English 
 was issued one year before Tyndale's death. 
 This volume was compiled by one Miles 
 Coverdale, a monk who had acquired a taste 
 for Bible study while he was in St. Augustine 
 Monastery. He used Tyndale's translations 
 as a basis, supplementing these by translations 
 from other versions. By some means the 
 favor of Henry VIII was secured for the new 
 edition, and within a year after Tyndale's 
 martyrdom the Bible was being sold openly 
 to the English people. 
 
 In 1537 another compilation and translation 
 came from the press. This was known as 
 Matthew's Bible. It was so superior to Cover- 
 dale's Bible that on all sides it was heartily 
 received. This is the story of the new ver- 
 sion : 
 
 John Rogers frequently visited Tyndale in 
 Vilvorde Castle, where the heroic Bible stu- 
 
 32 
 
Five Sixteenth Century Versions 33 
 
 dent was confined. Tyndale, knowing that he 
 would be unable to publish the parts of his 
 Bible not yet given to the world, turned them 
 over to Rogers. Rogers then issued a version 
 of the Bible made up largely of Tyndale's 
 work, though Coverdale's translation was used 
 for the latter part of the Old Testament. 
 Credit could not be given to Tyndale for his 
 part, since his Bible had been forbidden. 
 Rogers would not use his own name for what 
 was not his work. So the book appeared with 
 the name 'Thomas Matthew" on the title-page. 
 Possibly this was the name of a man of means 
 who paid the expenses of the edition, though 
 it may have been merely a name assumed by 
 Rogers to save himself from taking the credit 
 which belonged to Tyndale. 
 
 Henry VIII, to whom the new version was 
 dedicated, gave permission for its open sale in 
 England. He did not know that so much of 
 it was the work of Tyndale. Thomas Crom- 
 well, who had urged the approval of the Bible, 
 was evidently afraid that the king might learn 
 the truth, so he hastened to arrange with 
 Coverdale to undertake a new translation. In 
 this Coverdale was to be aided by many Greek 
 and Hebrew scholars. 
 
34 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 The version prepared under Coverdale's di- 
 rection was printed in 1539. I" reality it was 
 only a hastily compiled version of Matthew's 
 Bible. 
 
 Enemies of the circulation of the Bible in- 
 terfered with the printing of this book in 
 Paris, so the sheets were taken to England, 
 and the work was completed there. After 
 many vicissitudes it came from the binder's 
 hands, a handsome book, so large that it was 
 called "the Great Bible." 
 
 In 1538 — less than thirteen years after the 
 burning of Tyndale's Bible — orders were sent 
 by the king's command to all ministers in the 
 kingdom directing them to secure "one boke 
 of the whole Bible, in the largest volume, in 
 Englyshe, sett up in summe convenyent place 
 within the churche that ye have cure of, 
 whereat your parishioners may most com- 
 modiously resort to the same and rede it." 
 
 The people received the open Bible gladly. 
 One writer says : 
 
 It was wonderful to see with what joy this Book 
 of God was received, not only among the learneder 
 sort and those that were noted lovers of the Reforma- 
 tion, but generally all England over among all the 
 vulgar and common people; and with what greedi- 
 
' jlrhf e arc tbclav\(a iljat l( •, 
 1^ t^oun?altl37ebtro;cil?e;ii. y / 
 
 BIBHA 
 
 fully Ant) ttuly tranflatcb out 
 of 2)0U(tcant>il<ttyri 
 
 j ^4uefrepafra3e,ant>b€3iw6«&.tjd* 
 
 SpaulCoI.IH. 
 fcet t^e wojbc of C^)u(i bwclfin y^U pTcn 
 t««ufly in all wy^bome tc£ 
 
 ^ofuc I. 
 JLtt not tl?c bote of t^fe fcwebf parte 
 outoft^ymoutb,but excrcyfc t^yfelfc 
 t^crmtxtycftilb tiist)tc tcf.- 
 
 TiTLE Page of Co\nERDALE's Bible 
 
Five Sixteenth Century Versions 35 
 
 ness God's Word was read, and what resort to places 
 where the reading of it was. Everybody that could 
 bought the book or busily read it, or got others to 
 read it to them, if they could not themselves, and 
 divers more elderly people learned to read on pur- 
 pose. And even little boys flocked among the rest 
 to hear portions of the Holy Scripture read. 
 
 So great was the interest of the people in 
 the Bibles placed in the churches that Bishop 
 Bonner complained to the king that "diverse 
 willful and unlearned persons inconsiderately 
 and indiscreetly read the same, especially and 
 chiefly at the times of divine service, yea in 
 the time and declaration of the Word of God." 
 And the king found it necessary to tell the 
 minister to warn the people that they should 
 use the Bible ''most humbly and reverently," 
 not "having thereof any open reasoning in 
 your open taverns or alehouses." 
 
 The name of Richard Taverner must be 
 written on the roll of sixteenth century heroes 
 who suffered for his devotion to the Bible. 
 When a young man he was imprisoned be- 
 cause he had been caught reading a copy of 
 the New Testament, translated by Tyndale. 
 Later, while practicing law, he devoted his 
 spare time to preparing a new edition of the 
 
36 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 Bible, on the basis of earlier translations. This 
 was published in 1539. His knowledge of 
 Greek enabled him to correct errors made by 
 others, but his work as a whole was not re- 
 markable. Taverner's Bible passed through 
 several editions, yet the version was soon dis- 
 placed by others destined to have more influ- 
 ence on the permanent form of the English 
 text. 
 
 In later life Taverner was a preacher. If 
 his sermons were all as strongly worded as 
 the report that has come down to us of the 
 introduction to a discourse given at Oxford, 
 he must have been an oddity. On this occa- 
 sion he said : "I have brought you some fine 
 biscuits, baked in the oven of charity, care- 
 fully conserved for the chickens of the church, 
 the sparrows of the spirit, and the sweet swal- 
 lows of salvation." 
 
 Enemies of the Reformation in England 
 were not pleased that the Bible was becoming 
 so well known, so in 1543 they persuaded 
 King Henry VIII to order that no laboring 
 men and women "should read to themselves 
 or to others, publicly or privately, any part 
 of the Bible, under pain of imprisonment." 
 When, however, Edward VI became king the 
 
Five Sixteenth Century Versions 37 
 
 circulation of the Bible was again allowed. 
 Thirty-five editions of the New Testament 
 and thirteen of the entire Bible were issued 
 during his brief reign from 1547 to 1553. 
 
 Mary, who began to reign in 1553, did her 
 best to stop the circulation of the Bible. Even 
 its public use was forbidden. Copies were 
 taken from the churches and burned. Hun- 
 dreds of reformers were burned at the stake, 
 among these being John Rogers, the compiler 
 of Matthew's Bible. 
 
 To escape the persecution in England many 
 leaders of the Reformation fled to Geneva. 
 During their exile a company of scholars 
 among these prepared a new version of the 
 Bible which was printed in 1560. The ver- 
 sion was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, Mary's 
 successor, who gave permission for the print- 
 ing and circulation of the book. The Geneva 
 Bible — the first Bible printed in Roman type, 
 instead of black letters — was received in eager- 
 ness. Before long it became the popular Bible 
 of the hour. 
 
 The popularity of the Geneva Bible did not 
 please the authorities of the established church, 
 so the Archbishop of Canterbury ordered the 
 revision of the Great Bible, in the hope that 
 
38 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 the new work would displace the others. The 
 translation was done by a company of scholars, 
 several of whom were bishops. Their com- 
 pleted work — known as *'the Bishops' Bible" — 
 was published in 1568. 
 
 The new Bible was not popular. It was 
 far inferior to the Geneva Bible, and the 
 circulation was comparatively small. Only 
 twenty editions were published, while one hun- 
 dred and twenty editions of the Geneva Bible 
 were printed before 161 1. 
 
 The Rhemes New Testament of 1582 and 
 the Douai Old Testament of 1609 did not play 
 much of a part in the development of the 
 modern English Bible, though these were the 
 last of the early versions that brought about 
 the fulfillment of Tyndale's dream to make 
 the Bible familiar to every ''boy that driveth 
 the plow." They had paved the way for the 
 King James Version of 161 1, the version that 
 displaced all other versions for nearly three 
 hundred years. 
 
V 
 
 THE STORY OF THE KING JAMES 
 VERSION 
 
 Early in the sixteenth century the Puritans 
 of England made complaint to King James I 
 because of certain things in church govern- 
 ment which they thought should be corrected. 
 They did not dream that there could be any- 
 thing better in store for them than the grant- 
 ing of their petitions for reforms. Yet, while 
 their requests were denied, these bore fruit in 
 one of the most momentous events in the his- 
 tory of the English Bible — the king's call for 
 a new translation. 
 
 At the time the Puritans made their com- 
 plaints. King James called a conference of 
 leaders both of the Puritans and of the High 
 Church party. The conference met at Hamp- 
 ton Court in 1604. On the second day Dr. 
 Reynolds, president of Corpus Christi College, 
 Oxford, complained that the rival Bible ver- 
 sions of the day— the Bishops' Bible, used by 
 authority of Parliament in the churches, and 
 39 
 
40 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 the Geneva Bible, the greater favorite with 
 the people — were defective. Then he sug- 
 gested that a new and more accurate version 
 be prepared at once. 
 
 But for this suggestion perhaps the con- 
 ference would not have found a place in his- 
 torical records, for the advance plans made 
 by the Puritans came to naught. However, 
 the suggestion made by Dr. Reynolds, the 
 leader of the Puritans, bore unexpected fruit. 
 The idea of a new Bible version made by men 
 chosen under his direction appealed to King 
 James, who was proud of the scholarly attain- 
 ments that secured for him the title, **the theo- 
 logian king." 
 
 The Bishop of London objected to a new 
 translation on the ground that ''if every man's 
 humor should be followed, there would be no 
 end of translations." King James deferred to 
 the objection by giving the direction that no 
 marginal notes should be added to the new 
 version, complaint having been made against 
 previous versions because of such notes. 
 
 The Bishop of London was asked by the 
 king to invite all men acquainted with Hebrew 
 or Greek to make known through their bishops 
 any changes they thought should be made in 
 
The Story of the King James Version 41 
 
 the text. These changes were to be considered 
 by fifty-four Oxford and Cambridge men, 
 whom the king named. Only forty-seven of 
 these took part in the work. 
 
 The revisers set about their work in 1607, 
 three years after the king decided to under- 
 take the revision. They were divided into 
 five companies, each of which had its own por- 
 tion of the Bible assigned to it. The com- 
 panies met in Westminster, Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge. The expenses of the revision were to 
 be paid out of funds contributed for the pur- 
 pose by the bishops. Unfortunately, thirty of 
 the scholars received nothing but their enter- 
 tainment while at work. The seventeen men 
 to whom other payment was made met in Lon- 
 don. 
 
 The king made known to the translators fif- 
 teen rules by which they were to be guided 
 in their work. It is said that these rules were 
 followed at the discretion of the revisers ! 
 
 One of these rules directed that the divi- 
 sion into chapters should be altered "either not 
 at all, or as little as may be." This division 
 first appeared in Tyndale's Bible; the division 
 into verses first appeared in the Geneva Bible, 
 it is said, having been prepared by Robert 
 
42 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 Stephen while he was making a journey from 
 Paris to Lyons ! 
 
 Other rules decreed that "every particular 
 man of each company" should translate the 
 same chapter, and should then compare his 
 work with that done by the rest of the com- 
 pany; that, when a book was completed by 
 one company, the result should be sent for 
 judgment to the other companies; and that 
 any disagreement should be considered at a 
 general meeting to take place when all had 
 done their work. 
 
 The men chosen for the work were the best 
 Hebrew and Greek scholars of the time. We 
 know a little of some of them, through a 
 writer of the day who says that Lively was 
 ''one of the first linguists of the world" ; Rey- 
 nolds was "a very treasury of erudition" ; 
 Killbye was ''another Apollos" ; Doune was 
 "composed of Greek and industry" ; and Miles 
 Smith "had Hebrew at his finger ends." 
 
 The details of the work have not come down 
 to us. There is not even a copy of one of 
 the old versions used by the translators. A 
 document like that, with notes of proposed 
 readings, would be a valuable relic. But we 
 are left to imae^ine the earnest discussions of 
 
The Story of the King James Version 43 
 
 the men who gladly set to work on the task 
 assigned them by the king. One writer says, 
 "Never was a great production like our 
 Authorized Version carried on with less 
 knowledge handed down to posterity of the 
 laborers, their methods and order of work- 
 ing." 
 
 It is known that when the three companies 
 busy at Westminster and Cambridge and Ox- 
 ford completed their work each sent the result 
 to London in the hands of two of the com- 
 pany. There the six men met and received 
 all the suggestions made, and decided on final 
 renderings in the case of every passage con- 
 cerning which there were different opinions. 
 
 How profitable it would be if we could read 
 a report of the proceedings of the conferences 
 held by these men ! What a lesson we would 
 have in the art of making concessions to those 
 whose opinions differ from our own ! 
 
 This fi.nal revision in London required nine 
 months, while the work of the committee had 
 occupied perhaps three years. Since three 
 years had elapsed after the announcement of 
 the proposed revision before the work was 
 actually begun, the finished King James Ver- 
 sion was not given to the world until 1611. 
 
44 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 The year 191 1, then, is to be observed by the 
 Bible societies of the English-speaking world 
 as the three hundredth anniversary of the 
 appearance of the epoch-making Book. 
 
 While the King James Version has always 
 been called the Authorized Version, there is 
 no evidence that it was ever authorized by any- 
 body in power. The title-page bears the 
 words, "Appointed to be read in churches," 
 but history does not tell by whom the appoint- 
 ment was made. We only know that the king- 
 ordered the revision. 
 
 Of course there was widespread opposition 
 to the new version on the part of those who 
 had become used to the Ijishops' Bible or the 
 Geneva Bible. But opposition gradually be- 
 came approval as the readers learned that the 
 best things in previous versions had been re- 
 tained. Within a generation the superiority 
 of the Authorized Version was generally ac- 
 knowledged. No one can wonder at this who 
 goes back to the old versions and finds there 
 such phrases as : ''The sin that hangeth so 
 fast on us," and "As the hart brayeth for the 
 rivers of water." 
 
 The King James Version was a triumph 
 for William Tyndale, the martyr translator of 
 
The Story of the King James Version 45 
 
 the early sixteenth century. His proscribed 
 version was the basis of the versions on vi^hich 
 the revisers of King James did their work, 
 many of his expressions being transferred 
 bodily by them. The Revised Version made 
 in the latter part of the nineteenth century 
 completed this triumph, for eight ninths of 
 the words used in the Authorized Version 
 appeared in the Revised Version. 
 
VI 
 
 THE DEBT OF THE ENGLISH LAN- 
 GUAGE TO THE KING JAMES 
 VERSION 
 
 Some years ago a professor of English 
 literature in Yale University in a lecture 
 called attention to the fact that Percy Bysshe 
 Shelley, when a boy of eighteen, declared 
 that it was absolutely essential to man's hap- 
 piness that every leaf should be torn ''from 
 the accursed book of God/' He himself 
 scorned to think that the Bible influenced him 
 in any way. Yet it is a fact that within eight 
 years after these words were quoted by Shelley, 
 he wrote this sentence in which he showed 
 the influence of the Bible on his thought and 
 his style : "Their errors have been weighed 
 and have been found to be dust in the bal- 
 ance; if their sins were as scarlet, they are 
 now white as snow; they have been washed 
 in the blood of the mediator and redeemer, 
 Time." 
 
 Shelley could not escape this unconscious 
 
 46 
 
English Language and King James Version 47 
 
 use of phrases of Scripture which have be- 
 come a part of the effective language of the 
 plain people. In spite of himself his thoughts 
 found expression in the forceful, picturesque 
 English employed by the translators of the 
 King James Version. 
 
 In the same manner the speech and the 
 writings of many who sneer at the teachings 
 of the Bible bear unconscious testimony to 
 the influence of the rugged English of the 
 Bible on the language of every day, for, as 
 has been said, "the Bible is of all books the 
 most thoroughly woven into the thought and 
 language of English-speaking people." 
 
 While in many cases the use of the phrase- 
 ology of Scripture is accidental, there are 
 writers and speakers almost without number 
 who have determined definitely to read and 
 reread the Bible that the study may give vigor 
 to their style. Coleridge once insisted that 
 the study of the Bible would elevate a writer's 
 style. Masters of English have declared that 
 the writer whose style departs far from Bible 
 characteristics is not a writer of good Eng- 
 lish. Those authors whose works stand high- 
 est have learned this lesson so well that one 
 professor of English recently said ''it would 
 
48 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 be worth while to read the Bible carefully and 
 repeatedly, if only as a key to modern culture, 
 for to those who are unfamiliar with its teach- 
 ings and its diction much that is best in the 
 English literature of the present century is as 
 a sealed book." 
 
 The poetry of Shakspere is a single illus- 
 tration of this influence of the Bible on litera- 
 ture. One who has made careful study of all 
 the writings of the Bard of Avon says that he 
 used more than five hundred and fifty biblical 
 quotations, allusions, and so forth, that he 
 quotes from fifty-four of the sixty-six biblical 
 books, and that not one of his thirty-seven 
 plays is without a scriptural reference. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln made constant use of 
 Bible language — familiar to him from his 
 boyhood. Whether he was talking in the 
 privacy of his cabinet room or making one 
 of his immortal addresses, scriptural allusions 
 or quotations were continually on his tongue. 
 Because the language of the Bible enabled 
 him most effectually to make his impression 
 on those who ' heard him, he employed its 
 simple, direct, convincing words. 
 
 But it is not only the speech and the writ- 
 ings of famous men that are impregnated 
 
English Language and King James Version 49 
 
 with Scripture. The everyday language of 
 the home, the school, the place of business is 
 scriptural language. Those who are tempted 
 to question this statement need only to read 
 a list of common phrases noted by Dr. Henry 
 van Dyke. Every one of these comes straight 
 from the Bible : 
 
 "A good old age," "the wife of thy bosom," 
 ''the apple of his eye," "gathered to his 
 fathers," "a mother in Israel," "a land flow- 
 ing with milk and honey," "the windows of 
 heaven," "the fountains of the great deep," 
 "the valley of decision," "one little ewe lamb," 
 "thou art the man," "a still small voice," "as 
 the sparks fly upward," "miserable com- 
 forters," "the strife of tongues," "the pride of 
 life," "from strength to strength," "as a dream 
 when one awaketh," "the wings of the morn- 
 ing," "the highways and hedges," "the salt of 
 the earth," "the burden and heat of the day," 
 "as a drop of a bucket," "a pearl of great 
 price," "decently and in order," "a thorn in 
 the flesh," "a cloud of witnesses," "a crown 
 of life." 
 
 This list is only a suggestion. The phrases 
 are almost without number. Men use them 
 without realizing what they are doing. They 
 
50 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 are used because they express the thoughts 
 so accurately, concisely and picturesquely. 
 Those who hear them realize how apt 
 they are, and they make use of them 
 for themselves. Thus, year by year, the 
 phrases become more and more part of 
 the language. 
 
 Those who would know how the language 
 of the Bible came to have such a vital effect 
 on the English language must picture to them- 
 selves the situation of those who prepared the 
 early English versions of the Bible. They lived 
 in troublous times. It was long a crime to 
 give the Bible to the common people ; those 
 who translated the Book and those who 
 printed it took their lives in their hands. Yet 
 they persisted in the work which they felt 
 God had given them to do. Some paid for 
 their faithfulness with their lives. Others spent 
 years in exile. It is not strange that transla- 
 tions made by such men reflected what has 
 been called the intensity of their feeling — the 
 language they used was vigorous and ex- 
 pressive and it appealed to those who heard 
 it. Some of the most characteristic phrases 
 preserved in the Authorized Version were 
 coined bv Tvndalc, who worked under the 
 
English Language and King James Version 5 1 
 
 shadow of the death which soon after came 
 to him, and by the exiles at Geneva, whose 
 hearts lovingly turned back to England. 
 
 It is true that the revisers appointed by King 
 James had no such fears for their own safety, 
 but they were excited by the stirring events 
 that were constantly taking place about them. 
 The effect was the same— ^the use of the terse, 
 straightforward English words and phrases 
 that go straight to the heart. 
 
 A second reason for the vigor of the style 
 of the Authorized V^ersion is the fact that 
 when the translators did their work the Eng- 
 lish language was made up very largely of 
 Anglo-Saxon words. Not many words from 
 the Greek and Latin had been transferred into 
 English. These words came in large num- 
 bers only with the growth of scientific studies 
 in later years. Thus the translators were able 
 to transfer into English the picturesqueness of 
 Hebrew phrase in a way that would have been 
 impossible in later years when classical words 
 and phrases threatened to rob the language 
 of its simplicity and picturesqueness. 
 
 Professor J. H. Gardiner of Harvard Uni- 
 versity has illustrated the gain to the lane^uage 
 bv the use of the warm, vivid, AnHo-Saxon 
 
52 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 instead of the cold, colorless Greek and Latin, 
 by referring to a phrase used by Tyndale in 
 his epistle to the reader of his translation. 
 He speaks there of "sucking out the sweet 
 pith of the Scriptures." ~"To-day the same idea 
 would perhaps be expressed by the words, 
 "Extracting the essence of Scripture." Pro- 
 fessor Gardiner adds : "Thereby with what is 
 to us the quaintness we should have lost also 
 the eagerness and delight which color Tyn- 
 dale's words with their halo of feeling." 
 
 As illustrations of picturesque phrases which 
 would have been lost to the language if the 
 translation had been a century later these have 
 been noted : "The fat of the land," "the val- 
 ley of the shadow of death," "the end of all 
 flesh," "the seed of evildoers," "a soft an- 
 swer," "a son of perdition." 
 
 The large portion of Anglo-Saxon words 
 used by the translators of the Authorized Ver- 
 sion is to be seen from a comparison fre- 
 quently quoted. Gibbon used about seventy 
 Anglo-Saxon words in every hundred. John- 
 son used about seventy-five, Swift eighty-nine, 
 Shakspere about eighty-five, and the Author- 
 ized Version more than ninety. The Lord's 
 Prayer as given in Matthew contains, besides 
 
English Language and King James Version 53 
 
 amen, sixty-five words, of which fifty-nine are 
 Saxon, and six Latin. 
 
 The Authorized Version, prepared with a 
 view to its use by the common people, went 
 into the hands of the common people at a 
 time when the language was yet in a forma- 
 tive state. As it speedily became the best- 
 read book in the language — the only book 
 known in most homes, in fact — naturally the 
 Anglo-Saxon of the Bible became a permanent 
 part of the speech of the people. 
 
VII 
 THE REVISED VERSION OF 1881-1885 
 
 For more than two centuries the King 
 James Version was the accepted translation 
 of the EngHsh Bible. Many thought that it 
 would be the final translation. 
 
 But during the nineteenth century there 
 were so many discoveries of important biblical 
 manuscripts — some of earlier date than any 
 before known — that scholars began asking if 
 it would not be wise to have a new transla- 
 tion on the basis of a comparison of these 
 manuscripts wath those known to the makers 
 of the King James Version. Diligent study 
 of some of the newly discovered manuscripts 
 revealed differences between these and the 
 manuscripts on which the Authorized Version 
 was based. The Sinaitic manuscript especially 
 (see Chapter I) gave many different readings. 
 
 As early as 1857 a new translation of the 
 
 ' Gospel of John and of the Epistles of Paul 
 
 was published by five English scholars. The 
 
 entire Bible was soon after translated by other 
 
 54 
 
The Revised Version of 1881-1885 55 
 
 scholars, acting independently of any author- 
 ity. Another translation was given to the pub- 
 lic by an American scholar in 1869. Other 
 partial translations were made on both sides 
 of the Atlantic. 
 
 Thus the way was paved for the resolu- 
 tion presented February 10, 1870, by Bishop 
 Wilberforce in the Upper House of the Con- 
 vocation of Canterbury. He suggested the 
 appointment of a committee to report on the 
 advisability of revising the Authorized Ver- 
 sion of the New Testament. Bishop Ellicott 
 — one of the translators of 1857, referred 
 to in the previous paragraph — supported the 
 resolution. The committee appointed was in- 
 structed to include the advisability of retrans- 
 lating the Old Testament in their report. 
 
 In May, 1870, the committee reported urg- 
 ing the importance of the proposed transla- 
 tion. A revision committee — made up of 
 members of the Houses of Convocation — was 
 then appointed, with instructions to invite "the 
 cooperation of any, eminent of scholarship, to 
 whatever nation or religious body they may 
 belong." The sixteen members of the origi- 
 nal committee — all identified with the Church 
 of England — invited representatives of other 
 
56 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 evangelical churches to join them, until there 
 were fifty-four revisers in all. 
 
 Like the King James Version, the new re- 
 vision was based on certain definitely stated 
 principles. It was proposed — among other 
 things — ''to introduce as few alterations as 
 possible into the text of the Authorized Ver- 
 sion consistent with faithfulness," "to limit, as 
 far as possible, the expression of such altera- 
 tions to the language of the Authorized and 
 other earlier English versions," and "to re- 
 vise the headings of chapters and pages, para- 
 graphs, italics and punctuations." 
 
 To twenty-seven men was intrusted the work 
 of the Old Testament translation, while the 
 remaining twenty-seven agreed to undertake 
 the translation of the New Testament. The 
 New Testament section began work on June 
 22, 1870, while the Old Testament section first 
 met eighty days later in the famous Jerusalem 
 Chamber of Westminster Abbey, already fa- 
 mous in church history because there the 
 Westminster Confession had been written and 
 the Prayer Book Revision of 1689 had been 
 made. The revisers usually met four days 
 each month, ten months in the year, for ten 
 years and a half. At intervals the two com- 
 
The Revised Version of 1 88 1- 1885 57 
 
 panics had a joint session lasting about ten 
 days, sixteen hours each day. 
 
 At the end of six years the New Testament 
 company had succeeded in completing their 
 task, all differences of opinion having been 
 settled by a majority vote. Then they went 
 over the translation a second time, settling all 
 differences by a two-thirds vote. Then two 
 and one half years more were required. 
 
 But the New Testament was not yet ready 
 for publication. In 1870, Dr. Angus, rep- 
 resenting the British revision, had visited 
 America and had proposed that American 
 scholars cooperate with the British Revision 
 Committee. They were to examine diligently 
 the first draft of the work of the British re- 
 visers and return their work with their sug- 
 gestions. Then they were to examine the sec- 
 ond draft sent from England, embodying as 
 many of the suggestions as were adopted, and 
 returning this also with their further sugges- 
 tions. The British Revision would take final 
 shape only after consideration of the second 
 lot of suggestions from America. 
 
 As a result thirty men, representing many 
 denominations, met in the Bible House in New 
 York City, beginning October 4, 1872, and 
 
58 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 divided themselves into Old and New Testa- 
 ment companies. The companies were to 
 work with the British revisers in accordance 
 with these stipulations : 
 
 The English revisers promise to send confidentially 
 their Revision in all its stages to the American Re- 
 visers, to take all the American suggestions into 
 special consideration before the conclusion of their 
 labors, to furnish them before publications with copies 
 of the Revision in its final form, and to allow them 
 to present, in an Appendix to the Revised Scriptures, 
 all the remaining differences of reading and render- 
 ing of importance, which the English Committee 
 should decline to adopt; while, on the other hand, 
 the American Revisers pledge themselves to give 
 their moral support to the authorized editions of the 
 University Presses, with a view to their freest cir- 
 culation within the United States, and not to issue 
 an edition of their own, for a term of fourteen years. 
 
 After the completion by the British New 
 Testament section of the second stage of the 
 work, two years more were occupied in dis- 
 cussing, adopting or rejecting the suggestions 
 of the American New Testament section, and 
 in arranging final details. 
 
 The first printed copy of the resultant re- 
 vision came from the press May 17, 1881. 
 The Old Testament section required fourteen 
 
The Revised Version of 1881-1885 59 
 
 years for their task. During this time the re- 
 visers spent seven hundred and ninety-two 
 days in conference, going over their work 
 twice, and considering the suggestions from 
 America. 
 
 The first printed copy of the entire Revised 
 Bible appeared on May 19, 1885 — the final re- 
 sult of at least six laborious revisions — two 
 of these being made in America and four in 
 London. 
 
VIII 
 
 THE AMERICAN STANDARD 
 
 VERSION 
 
 A short time before the expiration of the 
 fourteen years during which the American 
 Committee had agreed to give no sanction to 
 the pubHcation of any other edition of the Re- 
 vised Version than that issued by the Uni- 
 versity Presses of England, an edition called 
 by its publishers "The American Revised Ver- 
 sion" was given to the public. This edition 
 bore the imprint of the University Presses. 
 British publishers had incorporated in the text 
 the changes proposed years before by the 
 American Committee which had been rejected 
 at the time by the British Committee and in- 
 serted in the American Appendix to the Re- 
 vision of 1881-1885. 
 
 In the meantime the American Committee 
 had maintained its organization, holding fre- 
 quent meetings. The services of the scholars 
 who made up the committee were rendered 
 without pay. The result of their labor of love 
 
 60 
 
The American Standard Version 61 
 
 was given to Bible readers on August 26, 1901, 
 in the American Standard Edition of the Re- 
 vised Bible. This edition did far more than 
 incorporate in the text the textual changes 
 proposed by the American Committee to the 
 British revisers. These changes were first 
 thoroughly revised in accordance with later 
 knowledge gained through new study of the 
 ancient manuscripts, especially in the light of 
 important discoveries made by explorers in 
 Bible lands. Many verbal changes were also 
 made, words in common use in America being 
 substituted for words which — though intel- 
 ligible enough to residents of Great Britain — 
 were not entirely clear to the average Ameri- 
 can reader. 
 
 It was the effort of both British and Ameri- 
 can revisers to retain the old readings except 
 where diligent comparison of manuscripts 
 showed that the old readings were incorrect, 
 or where words or phrases had been archaic 
 and therefore unintelligible. Many of the 
 changes adopted make clear passages before 
 obscure, as — for instance — Job 19 : 26. The 
 King James Version reads : "And though 
 after my skin worms destroy this body, yet 
 
62 The Romance of the English Bible 
 
 in my flesh shall I see God." The American 
 Standard Version says : "And after my skin, 
 even this body, is destroyed, then without my 
 flesh shall I see God." Another example is 
 Hebrews ii : i, 2, which reads in the Old Ver- 
 sion : ''Now faith is the substance of things 
 hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 
 For by it the elders obtained a good report." 
 In the American Standard Version the read- 
 ing is : "Now faith is assurance of things 
 hoped for, a conviction of things not seen. 
 For therein the elders had witness borne to 
 them." 
 
 Examples of the substitution of modern 
 words for archaic expressions arc: ''Settings" 
 for "ouches," "baggage" for "stufif," "find" for 
 "amerced," "traders" for "chapmen," "um- 
 pire" for "daysman," "hinder" for "let." 
 
 The American Standard Version has been 
 accepted by many who look upon it as the best 
 translation of the Bible in the English lan- 
 guage. There are many others who find it 
 impossible to give up the King James Version, 
 whose words and phrases have become dear 
 to them by reason of years of familiarity. 
 
 But whether one chooses to read the King 
 
The American Standard Version 63 
 
 James Version or the Revised Version, it is 
 the Word of God he takes in his hand — the 
 Word preserved so wonderfully through the 
 ages — the Word of which God says : "It shall 
 not return unto me void, but it shall accom- 
 plish that which I please." 
 

 Date Due 
 
 
 *'fe '53 
 
 
 
 
 MY 21-^3 
 
 
 
 
 FACULTY 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 
BS455 .F22 
 
 The romance of the English Bible, 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00011 0330