The individual today has more choice of English versions of the Bible than at any previous time, most of them translations made last century. An important contributor to this book, the Apostle Paul, liked to talk of plethora — that is, magnanimous overabundance — and some would say that we are spoilt for choice when it comes to Bibles: our cup runneth over, there is a plethora of interpretations.
This year is the 400th anniversary of that most fabled and revered of all English Bibles, the King James Version (1611). The anniversary seems an appropriate time to consider anew what the Bible does and why we need fresh versions.
These questions were on the minds of the 47 scholars brought together to deliver a defining text in the native language of the new United Kingdom. One of the problems was too many Bibles. Catholics, Anglicans of various stripes, and Protestants of every type, had over the previous decades all produced versions, in keeping with the newfound zeal for having Scripture in your own language. The only problem was, which one was best? Which was most accurate? Which one was without ideological influence? Which one reflected reality, and whose reality?
This was not just a matter of personal taste. King James inherited from his godmother Elizabeth a realm divided by religion. Like her, he saw that anything that could bring about national cohesion was certain good. Conflicting opinions about the Word of God were a daily pest, so he commissioned a group of the ablest and most reverend linguists with the task of making an English Bible.
Nowadays we would not want to be seen to be associated with 'a book written by a committee', but the authors of the King James produced something authoritative.
Even better if you were James, it could become authorised, which had the useful outcome of quietening disputes about conflicting meanings in different versions. Except for a couple of violent interruptions, this and only this version was read in churches for over three centuries, with a resultant shaping of English usage that is inestimable: they were the words everyone heard every week of every year.
The Committee included such anonymous luminaries as Richard Bancroft and Lancelot Andrewes. William Shakespeare probably did Psalm 46 unless you think, as some do, that Shakespeare was a committee. Parts of the Catholic Douai Bible are found there. Nor did they put their candle under a bushel.
But interestingly, 90 per cent of the King James was done by someone no longer alive at the time. William Tyndale's earlier translation is the respected main basis, such that there are those who assert that the two greatest writers in English are both Williams.
All the right things will be said in 2011: the King James is the soul of our language, it shares pre-eminence (if that is possible) with the Bard, it is the best version made during the coalescence of the language. But all of this talk will be at odds with the actual purpose for which it was created. While readers exalt it as a 'pearl of great price', there are dangers.
One is to make an idol of the King James, not just if you say the whole text is inerrant but that its very excellence as literature is inerrant. A mistake made by many devotees is a kind of aesthetic fundamentalism, the fervently held belief that only the King James has a claim to be the greatest expression of faith and there has been nothing good like it before or since. Perhaps the simplest way of defining this mistake is that the medium is given priority over the message.
The men (and women?) who worked on the King James would have been dismayed at the idea that their work was read primarily for its lovely poetry and quotable quotes. It may be all rather marvellous, but the whole object is to effect meaning and conversion. Which is why translation keeps on happening, not just because readers want the closest sense of the words, but because of how those words can effect the lived experience of the individual.
Another mistake is to treat the King James as one of those great unread works, shelved between Dostoyevsky's Idiot and Joyce's Ulysses. As a template for the understanding of the evolution of not just religion but society itself, the King James is inimitable. It is a source book, a form of identification, a link to ancient truths. Erasmus and his colleagues in the 16th century agreed that clear translation was decisive for harmony, as well as meaning. While revelation is treated as a way to truth and justice through love, then individuals will want to hear those words in a language they can understand.
No national leader today feels it right and necessary to commission a definitive English Bible, despite the plethora of versions on offer. Finding 47 scholars in one country who could render the Hebrew and Greek into perfect and poetic contemporary English might be seen as quixotic, if it weren't impossible to locate so many experts in one place.
But, while arguments can lead to animosity and even violence over what the sin of Sodom actually is, or what is meant in Corinthians by 'Let your women keep silence in the churches', then engagement with the original texts is crucial. Even just to get close to what the Gospels mean by 'Kingdom of God', as distinct from the Kingdom of James.
Philip Harvey is head of the Carmelite Library of Spirituality in Middle Park, Victoria.