ACTS 24:1–4
ACTS 24:1–4
And after five days Ananias the high priest descended with the elders, and with a certain orator named Tertullus, who informed the governor against Paul. And when he was called forth, Tertullus began to accuse him, saying, Seeing that by thee we enjoy great quietness, and that very worthy deeds are done unto this nation by thy providence, We accept it always, and in all places, most noble Felix, with all thankfulness. Notwithstanding, that I be not further tedious unto thee, I pray thee that thou wouldest hear us of thy clemency a few words.
Some have suggested that the King James Bible's use of “Thee,” “Thou,” and “Thy” to refer specifically to God is a title of respect, and argued that modern Christianity should retain this practice. This is clearly indefensible, at least for the following two reasons:
These same forms of address are used indiscriminately for God, Satan, and human beings, reflecting the usage of the early sixteenth century;
The use of these forms of address was, if anything, derogatory, implying superiority on the part of the user over the one being thus addressed. It is one thing for God to address a human being as “thou;” for this hint of superiority to be returned is quite another.
Yet this raises a fascinating question: why does the King James Bible retain this mode of speaking, when it was already falling out of use? The answer is not difficult to discern, and lies in the first of the very specific directions given to the translators:
The ordinary Bible read in the Church, commonly called the Bishops' Bible, to be followed, and as little altered as the Truth of the original will permit.
The King's translators were thus forbidden to depart to any significant extent from the text of the Bishops' Bible of 1568. Yet what were the instructions given to those who prepared the Bishops' Bible? To use the Great Bible of 1539 except where it did not accurately represent the original texts. The directions given to the translators over the years 1539–1604 were thus virtually guaranteed to ensure continuity of language over a period in which the English language itself underwent considerable change and development. The inbuilt conservatism of the translation process, reflecting the concerns of those who sponsored and directed the three “official” English Bibles, thus led directly—yet unintentionally—to the retention of older English ways of speaking in religious contexts, creating the impression that religious language was somehow necessarily archaic.
But the Great Bible of 1539 is in reality little more than Miles Coverdale's revision of Matthew's Bible, which is turn was a revision of Tyndale's translation—at least, those parts of the Bible that Tyndale managed to translate. As study after study has shown, the vast bulk of Tyndale's translation has thus been incorporated indirectly into the King James Bible, on account of the instructions provided to official translators of the Bible.
To illustrate this point, we may simply set out, side by side, Tyndale's 1525 New Testament translation of a well-known passage and the translation provided by the Second Oxford Company, who were entrusted with the four gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Book of Revelation. The passage in question is Matthew 7:1–7.