Restoration: The Final Acceptance Of The King James Bible
RESTORATION: THE FINAL ACCEPTANCE OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE
The restoration of Charles II in 1660 put an end to any talk about revising the King James translation, or replacing it with any rival. Charles's concern was to restore the Church of England to its proper place in English society and regain the stability that had been so painfully lacking in recent years. The publication of the Book of Common Prayer in 1662 alongside the King James translation of the Bible was designed to ensure religious conformity and security so that the problems of the past might be left behind. The King James Bible was now seen as a pillar of Restoration society holding together church and state, the bishops and monarch, at a time when social cohesion was essential to England's future as a nation. The Act of Uniformity (1662), which brought into being a new Book of Common Prayer, firmly upheld the establishment of the Church of England. Nobody wanted to return to the chaos of the Puritan commonwealth. England turned its back on Puritanism as quickly and totally as Germany disowned its Nazi past after the Second World War.
This was bad news for the Geneva Bible, which was now viewed as a seditious text, giving theological support to a politically and religiously discredited section of English society. To praise or to possess the Geneva Bible could spell instant social death. It had become a potent symbol of a period in English history that was both feared and despised by the leaders of the polite culture of the Restoration.
With the restoration of the monarchy to popular acclaim, the “battle of the Bibles” had ended. The King James Bible had finally triumphed over its rival. The grounds of that triumph may partly rest in its eloquence, or in the excellence of its translation. Yet the most significant factor in its final triumph appears to have been the fact that it was associated with the authority of the monarch at a time when such authority was viewed positively. In marked contrast, the Genevan Bible was marginalized, not on account of the quality of its translation or English prose, but because it had been the preferred translation of the detested Puritan faction, who had now been comprehensively routed, militarily and politically.
The “new translation”—as the King James Bible was still termed even late in the seventeenth century—was still regarded with some misgivings at the opening of the eighteenth. Yet it was during this century that a decisive change in attitude toward the “new” translation developed. It is virtually impossible to point to any defining moment or event that crystallized the perception that this was indeed a great work of religious literature; but at some time during this century, perhaps around 1750, such a perception settled over the work, and would remain in place until the end of the First World War. If the first 150 years of its history were encumbered with hints of discontent, criticism, and suspicion, its next 150 years were characterized by something at times approaching uncritical adulation.
When, why and how did this take place? It is impossible to say. Perhaps an increasing distance from the origins of the translation began to allow the work to be endowed with the characteristics of a classic. Perhaps a fading of memories allowed rival versions—such as the Geneva Bible or the Bishops' Bible—or hostile initial reactions to be forgotten. Perhaps familiarity dulled the senses to the weaknesses of the translation, or allowed well-known words to become embedded in the memory. Whatever the reasons—and these remain less than fully understood—there is no doubt that a decisive and irreversible change came about in the esteem in which the King James Bible was held in England and beyond.
Yet the triumph of the King James Bible was not limited to Great Britain (within which the translation continues to be known as the “Authorized Version”). The expansion of British economic and military influence in the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was preceded and accompanied by missionary work, based on the King James Bible. Wherever English-language versions of Christianity sprang up, these would usually be nourished by this definitive translation. The impact of the King James Bible on the language and worship of Christianity in Africa and Australasia has been immense.
The Christian church in America represents by far the most important English-language community of faith outside the British Isles. The story of how the King James Bible was received in North America thus merits especially close attention. How did a translation so closely linked with the British establishment fare in this former colony, which broke those links during the War of Independence?