 |
| The Hampton Court Conference |
The biggest impact that King
James had on the Church of England—and perhaps even of English culture way
beyond the Established Church—is the edition of the Bible which he commissioned
and which was first printed in 1611 and which is popularly known as “The King
James.”
This was not the first
English language bible. Bits and
fragments of the Scriptures had been put into the various vernaculars of
Anglo-Saxon England as far back as Bishop Aldhelm (d. 709) and the Veneable
Bede (d.735). Alfred the Great, King of
Wessex (d. 899) had portions of the Pentateuch, including the Ten Commandments
put in Old English. He also had about
fifty of the psalms translated from the Latin Vulgate. England’s Protoprotestant, John Wycliffe,
produced an English translation of the Vulgate in the late
fourteenth-century. It is slavishly
faithful to the Latin text even when, much like Pope Benedict’s current Missal,
the borrowed syntax makes the English unintelligible. Because it was translated from the Vulgate
and not the original languages (Hebrew and Greek), later Protestant authors
such as Tyndale and Coverdale ignored Wycliffe’s work, but Catholic translators
preparing the Rheims Douai translation (1582) however borrowed considerably
from it.
The English reformer and Protestant
martyr, William Tyndale, published an English version of the New Testament in
1525-26 and the Pentateuch in 1530. When
Tyndale died in 1536—execution by strangling at the hands of the (Catholic)
Emperor’s executioner to whom he had been betrayed by agents of Henry VIII who,
though he broke from Rome, had no use for Protestants—the work was not yet
complete. Tyndale’s translation betrayed
several strong Protestant biases. For
example the Greek εκκλεσια was translated as “congregation” rather than “Church” to de-emphasize
the scriptural roots of the Church as institution. Similarly the word πρεσβγτερ (presbyter from which we get the English word “priest”)
became “senior,” and the phrases “to do penance” became “repent.”
Myles Coverdale was authorized by Henry VIII (after
the break with Rome) to produce an English language bible. This book was published in 1538 and is often
called “The Great Bible.” Coverdale drew
heavily on Tyndale’s work, but avoided the problematic vocabulary choices that
did not fit Henry’s Catholic (though not Roman) biases. While in exile in
Geneva under Queen Mary (Bloody Mary) Coverdale collaborated on a more
Protestant translation in English, the Geneva Bible. This is the translation used by John Knox,
William Shakespeare, John Bunyan and John Donne and it served the Church of
England well for over fifty years. It
would continue to be used by the Puritan party—because of its Calvinist bias in
translation—and would be the first English language bible brought to America first
to Jamestown and later to Massachusetts Bay on the Mayflower.
The Geneva Bible pleased the Puritans, but the
High-Church party was not overly happy with its Reformed bias and neither was
King James. Remember James did not like
the Puritan approach to the Church as James saw the link between episcopacy and
kingship: “No Bishops, no King.” Within
six months of his coronation, James summoned
a conference at Hampton Court where it was agreed that a new translation, freed
of the Puritan bias against “The Church” and its bishops, be prepared.
This decision marks a very important development
in the Church of England. In Elizabeth’s
day Calvinism and the Puritan faction within the Church of England that held
rigidly to Puritan doctrines were allowed pretty free rein in determining the
direction of the Church of England. A
“High-Church” party, more minded towards both Armenianism and a more
Sacramental worship had smoldered beneath the surface of the Church of England but
could not make much progress in balancing the rabidly Protestant direction of
the Puritan controlled Church. (Armenianism taught the doctrine of free will
as opposed to Calvinism’s double pre-destination by which a person had been
determined by God from all eternity either to salvation in heaven or damnation
in hell.) Elizabeth was no Calvinist but
to achieve her political goals she needed the support of the House of Commons
in which the Puritan faction long held power.
James set on a different course than Elizabeth’s religion-by-political-convenience. Under James the Crown would take the
theological lead. This policy would, in
the long run, be disastrous but we will get to that story in time.
At James’ invitation, forty-seven scholars—all
but one, clergy—divided into six committees (two each for the Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge and one for Westminster) divided up the work. The committees included members of both the
Puritan and the High Church parties, though the King made his wish clear that
the Bible not be slanted towards the Presbyterian/Puritan ecclesiology. The scholars were commissioned to work from
the ancient languages (Hebrew for the Old Testament, Greek for the New and for
the Apocrypha), though they drew on existing English Translations (Tyndale,
Coverdale, the Bishop’s Bible, and even the Rheims-Douai) for guidance. In 1611 they finished their work and printed
their Bible.
The King James has served well not only the
Church of England or the Anglican Communion, but most Protestant denominations. Only the mid-twentieth century did other
translations become popular among Protestant groups and even today there are
various religious groups that will not accept any other translation as the
revealed Word of God. But in the King
James were planted the seeds of a religious division that would eventually bring
down the monarchy and tear England—and its Church—apart.
