THE REVISION OF 1611—THE SO-CALLED AUTHORIZED VERSION.

At the accession of James I. the Genevan Bible and the Bishops’ Bible were, as we have seen, the Bibles in current use, the latter being the Bible upheld by ecclesiastical authority, the former the favourite Bible of the people at large. The Book of Psalms also in the version of the Great Bible survived, as it still does, in the psalter of the Prayer Book, and probably in some few parish churches old and worn copies of the Great Bible still maintained their place.

The state of religious parties at that date rendered it almost an impossibility that either of the two first-named versions should become universally accepted. The close connection of the Genevan Bible with the Puritan party, and the decidedly puritanic cast of some of its notes, created an insuperable prejudice against it in the minds of the more zealous advocates of Episcopal authority; while the inferiority[36] of the Bishops’ Bible as a version effectually barred its claim to an exclusive use. The need, then, for a new version was obvious, and a desire for it was probably felt by many of all parties.Public expression was first given to this desire on the second day of the Hampton Court Conference, January 16, 1604, by Dr. John Rainolds,[37] the leading representative of the Puritans in that assembly. It was not brought forward as one of the matters which he had been deputed to lay before the Conference; it seems rather to have been mentioned by him incidentally in connection with certain suggested reforms in the Prayer Book. “He moved his Majesty that there might be a new translation of the Bible, because those which were allowed in the reign of King Henry VIII. and Edward VI. were corrupt, and not answerable to the Truth of the Original,”[38] referring in illustration to the renderings given of Gal. iv. 25,[39] Ps. cv. 28,[40] and Ps. cvi. 30.[41] It is somewhat curious that no direct reference was made to the Bishops’ Bible; the reason, probably, was that this Bible was not one of those which had been “allowed” by royal authority. Of the three mistranslations quoted by Rainolds, the first only is found in the Bishops’ Bible; the other two occur in the Prayer Book Psalter.

The suggestion of Rainolds met with no opposition. The king himself expressed his approval of it, not, however, without an ignorant and disingenuous fling at the Genevan version; and “presently after,” say the translators in their preface, the king “gave order for this translation” to be made. In the course of a few months a scheme for the execution of the work was matured, and in a letter to Dr. Richard Bancroft, then Bishop of London, the king informed him that he had appointed fifty-four learned men to undertake the translation. He even seems to have contemplated the possibility of securing the co-operation of all the biblical scholars of the country; and in a letter to Bancroft, dated July 22, 1604, directed him “to move the bishops to inform themselves of all such learned men within their several dioceses as, having especial skill in the Hebrew and Greek tongues, have taken pains in their private studies of the Scriptures for the clearing of any obscurities, either in the Hebrew or the Greek, or touching any difficulties, or mistakings in the former English translation, which we have now commanded to be thoroughly viewed and amended; and thereupon to write unto them, earnestly charging them, and signifying our pleasure therein, that they send such their observations to Mr. Lively, our Hebrew reader in Cambridge, or to Dr. Harding, our Hebrew reader in Oxford, or to Dr. Andrewes, Dean of Westminster, to be imparted to the rest of their several companies; that so our said intended translation may have the help and furtherance of all our principal learned men within this our kingdom.”[42] Directions to a similar effect were sent also to the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, who was empowered in the king’s name to associate with those already appointed any “fitt men” he might be acquainted with; and we may infer that a corresponding communication was sent to Oxford.

To what extent this comprehensive scheme was carried out we have no means of determining. The names of the fifty-four learned men referred to are not given, and we are consequently left in uncertainty whether those who ultimately engaged in the work[43] were all men included in that list, or whether other scholars, chosen by the universities or recommended by the bishops, formed part of the number.

The rules laid down for the guidance of the translators were as follows:

1. 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.

2. The Names of the Prophets and the Holy Writers, with the other Names of the Text to be retained, as nigh as may be, accordingly as they were vulgarly used.

3. The old Ecclesiastical Words to be kept; viz., the word Church not to be translated Congregation, &c.

4. When a Word hath divers significations, that to be kept which hath been most commonly used by the most of the Ancient Fathers, being agreeable to the Propriety of the Place, and the Analogy of the Faith.

5. The division of the Chapters to be altered, either not at all, or as little as may be, if necessity so require.

6. No Marginal Notes at all to be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek Words, which cannot without some circumlocution, so briefly and fitly be exprest in the Text.

7. Such Quotations of Places to be marginally set down, as shall serve for the fit reference of one Scripture to another.

8. Every particular Man of each Company, to take the same Chapter or Chapters, and having translated or amended them severally by himself, where he thinketh good, all to meet together, confer what they have done, and agree for their parts what shall stand.

9. As any one Company hath despatched any one Book in this manner, they shall send it to the rest, to be considered of seriously and judiciously, for his Majesty is very careful in this point.

10. If any Company, upon the review of the Book so sent, doubt or differ upon any Place, to send them word thereof; Note the place, and withal send the Reasons; to which if they consent not, the difference to be compounded at the General Meeting, which is to be of the chief Persons of each Company at the end of the Work.

11. When any Place of special obscurity is doubted of, Letters to be directed, by Authority, to send to any Learned Man in the Land, for his judgment of such a Place.

12. Letters to be sent from every Bishop, to the rest of his Clergy, admonishing them of this Translation in hand; and to move and charge, as many as being skilful in the Tongues; and having taken pains in that kind, to send his particular Observations to the Company, either at Westminster, Cambridg, or Oxford.

13. The Directors in each Company to be the Deans of Westminster and Chester for that place; and the King’s Professors in the Hebrew or Greek in either University.

14. These Translations to be used, when they agree better with the Text than the Bishops’ Bible; viz., Tindall’s, Matthew’s, Coverdale’s, Whitchurch’s,[44] Geneva.

15. Besides the said Directors before mentioned, three or four of the most Ancient and Grave Divines, in either of the Universities not employed in Translating, to be assigned by the Vice-Chancellor upon conference with the rest of the Heads, to be Overseers of the Translations as well Hebrew as Greek, for the better observation of the 4th rule above specified.[45]Besides these rules, some others of a more definite nature seem to have been adopted by the translators themselves. At the Synod of Dort, held in the years 1618 and 1619, the question of preparing a new Dutch translation came under consideration, and for the guidance of its deliberations upon this point the English Delegates[46] were requested to give an account of the procedure observed in the translation recently made in England. In a matter of such grave importance the Delegates felt that they ought not to give any off-hand statement, and accordingly, after careful consideration, prepared a written account, which was presented to the Synod on its seventh Session, November 20th, 1618. In this account eight rules are given, the first three of which embody the substance of the first, sixth, and seventh of the rules given above. The others direct:

That where the Hebrew or Greek admits of a twofold rendering, one is to be given in the text, and the other noted in the margin; and in like manner where an important various reading is found in approved authorities.

That in the translation of the books of Tobit and Judith, where the text of the old Latin Vulgate greatly differs from that of the Greek, the latter text should be followed.

That all words introduced for the purpose of completing the sense are to be distinguished by a difference of type.

That new tables of contents should be prefixed to each book, and new summaries to each chapter.

And lastly, that a complete list of Genealogies[47] and a description of the Holy Land should be added to the work.[48]

From various causes, which cannot now be discovered, a period of three years elapsed before the revisers commenced their labours. One reason may have been that no provision was made for meeting the necessary costs of the undertaking. With a cheap liberality the king directed Bancroft to write to the bishops, asking them, as benefices became vacant, to give him the opportunity of bestowing them upon the translators as a reward for their service; and as to current expenses, the king, while professing with much effusiveness his readiness to bear them, cleverly evaded the responsibility by stating that some of “my lords, as things now go, did hold it inconvenient.”[49]

The revision was completed, as the revisers themselves tell us, in “twice seven times seventy-two days and more;” that is to say, in about two years and three-quarters; and if to this be added the nine months spent in a final revision and preparation for the press, we have then only a period of three years and a half. The new Bible was published in 1611; the work, therefore, could not have been commenced before 1607.

Although the men who engaged in this important undertaking are called “translators,” their work was essentially that of revision. This is clearly shown both by the rules laid down for their guidance, and by the statement of the translators themselves, who say in their preface, “Truly, good Christian reader, wee never thought from the beginning that wee should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one,” “but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principall good one, not justly to bee excepted against; that hath beene our indeavour, that our marke.”[50]

Further, this revision was a more extensive and thorough revision than any which had been heretofore undertaken. In former revisions, either the work had been done by the solitary labours of one or two, or when a fair number of competent men were engaged in it no sufficient provision had been made for combined action, and but few opportunities had been given for mutual conference. In this revision a larger number of scholars were engaged than upon any former, and the arrangements were such as secured that upon no part of the Bible should the labour of fewer than seven persons be expended. The revisers were divided into six companies, two of which met at Westminster, two at Cambridge, and two at Oxford. The books of the Old Testament, from Genesis to 2 Kings inclusive, were assigned to the first Westminster company, consisting of ten members; from 1 Chronicles to Song of Solomon, to the first Cambridge company, consisting of eight members; and from Isaiah to Malachi, to the first Oxford company, consisting of seven members. The Apocryphal books were assigned to the second Cambridge company, which also consisted of seven members. Of the books of the New Testament, the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Apocalypse were given to the second Oxford company, in which as many as ten members were at different times associated; the Epistles were entrusted to the seven scholars forming the second Westminster company.[51]

The portions assigned to each company were not again subdivided amongst its members; but, in accordance with the eighth rule, “every particular man of each company” translated and amended by himself each successive portion, and the company met from time to time to confer upon what they had done, and to agree upon what should stand.[52] Of the mode of procedure followed at the meetings of the several companies, we have no other information than the brief statement given by Selden in his Table Talk—that “one read the translation, the rest holding in their hands some Bible, either of the learned tongues, or French, Spanish, Italian, &c. If they found any fault they spoke; if not, he read on.”

One interesting and touching picture of the translators at work, which however seems to have escaped the notice[53] of all writers upon the history of the English Bible, is given us by Dr. Daniel Featley in his account of the Life and Death of John Rainolds, and which is probably the substance, if not the very words, of the oration delivered by him at the funeral of the latter, when, on account of the large number of mourners, “the Chapell being not capable of the fourth part of the Funerall troupe,” a desk was set up in the quadrangle of Corpus Christi College, and a brief history of Rainolds’ life, “with the manner of his death,” was thence delivered to the assembled company. Dr. Rainolds was one of the Oxford scholars to whom the difficult task was assigned of revising the prophetical books of the Old Testament; and Featley tells us that “for his great skill in the originall Languages,” the other members of the company, “Doctor Smith, afterward Bishop of Gloster; Doctor Harding, President of Magdalens; Doctor Kilbie, Rector of Lincolne Colledge; Dr. Bret, and others, imployed in that worke by his Majesty, had recourse” to him “once a weeke, and in his Lodgings perfected their Notes; and though in the midst of this Worke, the gout first tooke him, and after a consumption, of which he dyed; yet in a great part of his sicknesse the meeting held at his Lodging, and he lying on his Pallet, assisted them, and in a manner in the very translation of the booke of life, was translated to a better life.”[54] Rainolds died May 21st, 1607.

In the discharge of their responsible task the translators made use of all the aids accessible to them for the perfecting of their work. Not only did they bring to it a large amount of Hebrew and Greek scholarship, and the results of their personal study of the original Scriptures, they were careful to avail themselves also of the investigations of others who had laboured in the same field. Translations and commentaries in the Chaldee, Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, and Dutch languages were laid under contribution. “Neither,” they add, “did we disdaine to revise that which wee had done, and to bring back to the anvill that which wee had hammered; but having and using as great helpes as were needfull, and fearing no reproch for slownesse, nor coveting praise for expedition, wee have at length, through the good hand of the Lord upon us, brought the worke to that passe that you see.”

When the several companies had completed their labours there was needed some general supervision of the work before it finally issued from the press. There is no evidence that the six companies ever met in one body (though possibly the two companies in each of the three centres may have had some communication with each other); but having spent almost three years upon the revision, “at the end whereof,” says the writer of the life of John Bois,[55] “the whole work being finished, and three copies of the whole Bible sent from Cambridge, Oxford, and Westminster to London, a new choice was to be made of six in all, two out of every company,[56] to review the whole work, and extract one copy out of all these to be committed to the press, for the dispatch of which business Mr. Downes and Mr. Bois were sent for up to London, where,[57] meeting their four fellow-labourers, they went daily to Stationers’ Hall, and in three-quarters of a year fulfilled their task, all which time they had from the Company of Stationers thirty shillings[58] each per week duly paid them, though they had nothing before but the self-rewarding, ingenious industry.”[59] “Last of all Bilson, Bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Miles Smith, again reviewed the whole work, and prefixed arguments to the several books.”

And thus at length, as Thomas Fuller quaintly puts it, “after long expectation, and great desire, the new translation of the Bible (most beautifully printed) by a select and competent number of Divines appointed for the purpose, not being too many, lest one should trouble another, and yet many, lest in any things might haply escape them. Who, neither coveting praise for expedition, nor fearing reproach for slackness (seeing in a business of moment none deserve blame for convenient slowness), had expended almost three years in a work, not only examining the channels by the fountain, translations with the original, which was absolutely necessary, but also comparing channels with channels, which was abundantly useful.” “These, with Jacob, rolled away the stone from the mouth of the Well of Life, so that now Rachel’s weak women may freely come, both to drink themselves, and to water the flocks of their families at the same.”[60]