Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Predecessors
- 2 Drafting the King James Bible
- 3 ‘I was a translator’
- 4 Working on the King James Bible
- 5 1611: the first edition
- 6 Printing, editing and the development of a standard text
- 7 Reputation and future
- Select bibliography
- Index
- References
7 - Reputation and future
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Predecessors
- 2 Drafting the King James Bible
- 3 ‘I was a translator’
- 4 Working on the King James Bible
- 5 1611: the first edition
- 6 Printing, editing and the development of a standard text
- 7 Reputation and future
- Select bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
REPUTATION
Hugh Broughton's infamous first review of the KJB was all about its failure of scholarship, that is, its failure to adopt Broughton's view of chronological relationships: ‘the late Bible,’ he begins, addressing a courtier, ‘was sent me to censure, which bred in me a sadness that will grieve me while I breathe. It is so ill done. Tell his Majesty that I had rather be rent in pieces with wild horses than any such translation by my consent should be urged upon poor churches.’ Criticism of the KJB's scholarship has gone on ever since, but no one was as intransigent as Broughton. The earliest reported comment on its language comes from a man famous for his knowledge of Hebrew and translations, John Selden. After averring that the KJB (together with the Bishops' Bible) ‘is the best translation in the world and renders the sense of the original best’, he turns to its style:
There is no book so translated as the Bible for the purpose. If I translate a French book into English, I turn it into English phrase and not into French English. ‘Il fait froid’: I say 'tis cold, not it makes cold, but the Bible is rather translated into English words than into English phrase. The Hebraisms are kept and the phrase of that language is kept: as for example, ‘he uncovered her shame’, which is well enough so long as scholars have to do with it, but when it comes among the common people, Lord what gear [mockery] do they make of it!
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The King James BibleA Short History from Tyndale to Today, pp. 185 - 200Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011