The King James Bible In America
THE KING JAMES BIBLE IN AMERICA
The English language was brought to America by English colonists, who began to settle in the region in the late sixteenth century. The settlement of America thus took place around the time when the English language itself was undergoing a major period of transition, on which both the works of Shakespeare and the King James Bible were significant influences. English was, of course, by no means the only European language that became established in America around this time.
Several waves of European immigration led to Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish becoming established, often in very specific geographical regions. The emergence of English as the dominant, and finally the official, language of the United States is a fascinating and complex matter, and cannot be told in detail in this chapter. Our concern is primarily with noting the influence of the King James Bible on the shaping of written and spoken English in the region.
Three major periods can be distinguished in the European settlement of North America.
From the settlement of Jamestown in 1607 to 1788 when the new federal constitution was finally ratified. At this stage, some 90 percent of the immigrant population, which was mostly to be found east of the Appalachian Mountains, was from the British Isles, and hence predominantly English-speaking.
From 1787 to about 1860, during which the immigrant population moved westward, eventually reaching the Pacific Ocean. This period can be thought of as ending with the Civil War. The failure of the Irish potato harvest in 1845 led to massive emigration from Ireland, and the establishment of large Irish immigrant communities in cities such as Boston.
The third phase saw increased emigration from southern Europe, including Italy, as well as from parts of Asia.
While all of these periods are of considerable interest to American historians, the first is of special importance for our limited purposes. This was the settlement of the original thirteen colonies on the Eastern seaboard, stretching from Maine to Georgia. The earliest New England settlements were in the Massachusetts Bay area. However, the tidewater district of Virginia was also of importance. Jamestown was founded in 1607, and the colony attracted many refugees from England, especially under the reign of Charles I. Although some were Anglicans, the evidence suggests that many were Puritans, fleeing what they regarded as an oppressive England to find religious toleration in the New World.
The landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth on December 11, 1620, by Currier & Ives
It was clear from the outset that many of those settling in the American colonies had strong religious reasons for wishing to leave England. America was to be the promised land, the Atlantic Ocean the Red Sea, and England under Charles I and Archbishop William Laud was the new Egypt. The resonances with the great biblical account of the exodus of the people of God from Egypt and the settlement in a new land, prepared for them by God, were too obvious to miss.
The émigrés brought their Bibles with them to the New World. These were not simply reminders of the lands they had left behind; they were also to serve as a spiritual and literary resource in their new lives. It would be many years before the American colonies could sustain a printing industry. Many of the families who settled in the colonies had one book only—and that was the Bible. The evidence strongly suggests that the first English Bible to be brought to the New World was the Geneva Bible. Not only had this been available longer, it was the translation of choice for the Puritans, who valued its extensive annotations. The Geneva Bible offered both text and commentary, which served as a framework to interpret the hand of providence that had delivered them from Egypt and brought them to this new Canaan.
Gaps soon opened between the forms of English spoken in America and Britain. American English preserved features of both the written and spoken English of the seventeenth century, which were soon eroded in England itself. Standard American English is in many ways reminiscent of the spoken English of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Phrases such as “I guess,” nouns such as “platter” and verbal forms such as “gotten”—all of which go back to Chaucer—dropped out of use in England, yet were retained in America.
Despite substantial immigration to America from other European nations, and the presence of a large number of Native American languages, English became de facto the language of the United States. The gradual dispersion of the English-speaking population throughout the entire continent of North America ensured its geographical universality. Other languages might predominate in certain localities; English was spoken throughout.
The literary text that shaped American Christianity in this formative phase proved to be the King James Bible. Its prominent place in the public life of the prerevolutionary American colonies ensured that English continued to be written after the fashion of England. Cut off from their linguistic homeland, the colonists found that the text of the Bible was an important means of sustaining both their religious faith and their English prose. Both their faith and their language was nourished and governed by the King James translation.
There is no doubt that the King James Bible was a formative influence on the shaping of American English. As the great American man of letters Noah Webster (1758–1843) pointed out, “the language of the Bible has no inconsiderable influence in forming and preserving our national language.” Its role in public discourse was guaranteed through its prominent role in the worship of the churches and in private devotion. As the complex history of American Christianity makes abundantly clear, often highly charged debates on practically every aspect of Christian life and thought broke out regularly. Yet the common factor that united the warring factions was often the King James Bible. The lowest common denominator of English-speaking American Protestant Christianity especially in the nineteenth century was the King James Version of the Bible.