The 15th Sunday after Pentecost - 400th Anniversary of the KJV

The readings you have just heard sounded the way the Bible in English sounded for quite a number of years—four hundred of them, in fact!  Some of us grew up with the King James Version of the Bible in our homes.  I remember trying to read it as a young person and becoming quite frustrated. In college, though, I discovered two modern translations—the Revised Standard Version and the New English Bible.  I became entranced with each new translation or well-done paraphrase published. Each offered me another opportunity to better understand holy scripture.

I can only imagine what it would have been like in the late middle ages to only know the Bible through stained glass windows or medieval miracle plays and mystery plays.  Actually I like all those things, but they don't have the authority of scripture.  And if I managed to live through bearing children, I would have been kept in my place by the authority of mother church and the priests and bishops who ran the church.  I would not have been taught Latin.  So when I did go to mass, I would have had no idea what was being said.  For example, the words we can use to describe something that fools people, “hocus-pocus,” came from the Latin words used by the priest as he elevated the host and said (in Latin, of course) “Hoc est corpus meum.”  The most sacred moment of worship turned on its head!

What Bob Dylan sang about in the 1960's, “The times they are a-changin’,” could be applied to late 15^th century and all of the 16^th century as well.  Although I love history, I am not an historian. Others can explain the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance much better than I.  The same is true of the Reformation. Nevertheless, I will spotlight what I hope will help us appreciate—400 years later—the great gift of the Authorized Version of the Bible—authorized by King James I of England.

Moveable metal type changed the cost and availability of books.  By 1500 the mechanization of bookmaking led to the first mass production of books in history in assembly line style. A single Renaissance printing press could produce 3,600 pages per workday, compared to forty pages by typographic hand-printing and a few pages by hand-copying.  Printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million volumes. [This information about printing came from Wikipedia.] So when the King James Bible was published in 1611, it could be made available to any literate person.

There were several Bibles in English prior to the King James Version. William Tyndale, the first English Bible translator, worked in the 1520's and 30's.  He described his motivation for this work to a disapproving clergyman:  “If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more scripture than thou doest.”  Oxford-educated, Tyndale fled from England to the continent to escape church authorities. Cardinal Wolsey of the English church had declared Tyndale a heretic, and the Reformation was not yet supported by King Henry VIII.

Until he was betrayed in 1536, Tyndale translated and published all the New Testament.  He also completed the translation of Genesis through Joshua.  He used original Hebrew and Greek texts—the best ones he could find.  His gift for this work was clear when the committee responsible for the translation authorized by King James used Tyndale's work as the basis of theirs.  Eighty percent of the King James Bible uses Tyndale's work.

A man of well-chosen words, Tyndale spoke just before he was executed, “Lord, open the King of England's eyes.”  In fact, just four years later, no longer bowing to the authority of the Roman church and the Bishop of Rome, Henry allowed English translations of the Bible to be published in England.  All were based on Tyndale's work.

As Jesus challenged the religious authorities who questioned whether he had true authority to teach about God and perform miracles, Tyndale challenged the authority of church and King who tried to keep people ignorant of what holy scripture said in a language they could understand.  Tyndale's claim that the plough boy would know more scripture than churchmen and scholars has the same flavor as Jesus' upbraiding of the religious authorities of his time:  “Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.”

Yes, the Reformation challenged many questionable practices in the church.  One of the most profound challenges was to the church's control of how holy scripture should be interpreted. We may choose to agree with the church’s teaching or not.  But if we can read and understand the scriptures for ourselves, then we can disagree on a rational basis.

We should be grateful for this opportunity.  We should be grateful, too, that gifted writers and scholars produced these two great works in English: our Book of Common Prayer, first published in 1549, and the King James Bible.  And we should be grateful that the English Reformation developed three sources of authority—scripture, tradition and reason—equal and in conversation with one another.  Yet, scripture, translated so that native speakers—in our case, English speakers—can read and understand it, will always hold a place of primacy.  Yes, for all these things, instead of saying “Deo Gratias,” we now say, “Thanks be to God.”