Periodically I
am exposed to words from a pulpit, delivered by a well-meaning pastor, whose
grasp of history is abysmally loose for a man with what is euphemistically
referred to as a master’s degree. Every time he says, “Can I teach for a moment?”
it takes every ounce of restraint I can muster to refrain from screaming “F**k
no, you can’t!” (even I, a heathen, realize that would, however, be in bad taste.)
The latest aural
abuse was a leading question (as if a revelation was to follow) regarding the
significance of the year 1611. So, there I am, sitting and thinking, “OK, Elizabeth I died in 1603, James I is
King of England, but there was no war with France (yet), so….?” As I am pondering, he announced that it was a
significant year because Gutenberg invented the printing Press. (OK, strike one!) He then compounded the felony by going on to state that it was printed in the “old
King James version.” (yer out!) I snorted audibly,
but as stifled as I could manage, because this was, as Nobel physics laureate Wolfgang
Pauli once said of an execrable student effort, “So wrong it wasn’t even wrong!”
Because this is
a decent gent and as well-meaning as the day is long, I decided to be gentler than I am when Trump desecrates truth and logic. As a result, I wrote the below e-mail
after lunch Sunday. He responded Monday with a pleasant note that I wasn’t the only
one who caught him out. I do believe, however, that I was the only one who educated
him in depth. Read the entire letter you might learn something as well.
This is Mike Dorman (the history teacher)
we’ve spoken on several occasions. This past Sermon series on the Lord’s prayer
was excellent in context, but you crucified the history this past Sunday. When you said “1611” and “Gutenberg” in the
same breath, I could hardly wait to see where you were going, and you didn’t
disappoint <grin>! Rather than
rehash all the errors, here’s the real chronology.
Johannes Gutenberg was dead by 1468, his Bible completed and first printed in the Latin Vulgate (authorized ca 4th century by the strengthening Roman church), in 1454, not in English, and definitely not the King James version since it didn’t exist and wouldn’t for another 143 years! The reason Gutenberg did it in Latin is that he was Catholic, and the Latin Vulgate was the Bible he knew (and probably the only version he could have printed without being accused of heresy. The Pope actually saw and approved several portions of the Gutenberg Latin Vulgate folio.
It would be another 68 years until Martin Luther even began the NT translation into German, completing the rest by 1534, another 12 years. Why did Luther have such success? Easy. The printing press, commonly in use by then, and his choice of a common language understandable in both Northern and Southern German principalities enabled much wider and more rapid circulation of his common Saxony German translation and his other writings. Other High German partial translations (14 of them), dating back as far as 1456, had not been widely circulated and definitely not printed.
In English, translations of parts of the NT and psalms has been around in Old English and Middle English (the venerable Bede, 7th century (Psalms) and Andhelm, 10th century, whose Gospels and Psalms are the first recorded complete English translations known, although the language bears faint resemblance to modern English.
Following Gutenberg’s edition, Early Modern English translations became more common with Tyndale’s printing of his translated NT in 1526, the first generally recognized English version in print. His English version was published only 4 years after Luther’s German translation. Also, like Luther, Tyndale believed in justification by faith, not good works, which flew in the face of Roman Catholic teachings such as indulgences and essentially “Buying a Stairway to Heaven” (see what I did there, lol). Unlike Luther and Gutenberg before him, who died in their beds, Tyndale was betrayed to Catholic authorities in Belgium, tried, convicted of heresy and burned at the stake.
Still not to 1611 yet! Both Henry VIII (1530 something) and Elizabeth I, in 1568, had previously authorized printings of the Bible in English, but the response by the Roman Church to these relatively scholarly works was driven by the realization that it was difficult to reach English Catholics with a Latin Vulgate Bible, hence the English (and Catholic) College at Douai, France, attempting to do so, began a scholarly English translation, publishing the NT in 1582 (still not 1611!)
The New Testament portion was published in Reims, France, in 1582, in one volume with extensive commentary and notes. The Old Testament portion was published in two volumes twenty-seven years later in 1609 and 1610 by the University of Douai. Douai scholars did, however, also, add commentaries on some Greek and Hebrew sources of the Latin Vulgate. This, then was the first (by a year!) published Early Modern English translation of the entire Bible.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth having died in 1603, James VI of Scotland, now the last living Tudor, (great, great, grandson of Henry VII and great nephew of Henry VIII/Son of Mary Queen of Scots) had become King James I, of what would now be called “The United Kingdom of England and Scotland.” It was he who commissioned, as a sort of “back at ya” to the Douai version, the scholarly translation which was probably the last time the Bible was written as real literature, vice simply scripture. Begun in 1604, it was a 7-year labor of scholarly effort.
James is alleged to have personally given the translators instructions meant to ensure that the new version would conform to the dogma of and reflect the episcopal (“governed by Bishops” but you knew that) structure of, the Church of England and its belief in an ordained clergy. A most likely background reason for this was the practice of considering English Bishops as automatically seated members of the Upper House of Parliament, and, generally supporters of the “Divine Right of Kings” concept prevalent in much of the Christian world at the time (and of which James was a fan!). The translation was done by 47 scholars, all of whom were members of the Church of England. In common with most other translations of the period, the New Testament was translated from Greek, the Old Testament from Hebrew and Aramaic, and the Apocrypha from Greek and Latin.
OK, NOW it’s 1611!
Enjoy, XXXXXXl, I love history and I love writing about it.
Mike
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