The King James Bible

Kirsten Florida Pfau

 King James
Charles
Stuart
The crowning achievement of
King James Charles Stuart
was his commissioning the
translation of the Authorized
King James Version of the
Bible. The King appointed the
world's best scholars to the
work and throughout the
translation paid careful
attention to ensure that the
translation was completed.
 The original title-
page or cover of the
King James Bible

It states that it was appointed

to be read in churches
throughout the kingdom,
and in this way its influence
on the population, and on
the language at large, was to
be far-reaching.
1611 – the Authorized King James Bible was
published.
1603 – King James was presented with the
‘Millenary Petition’, in which 750 reformers from
within the church of England requested a new
translation of the Bible.
54 university scholars carried out a preliminary
translation for the bible. They were divided into 6
companies or groups each working on a separate
section of the Bible.
It took 4 years to translate the bible and 9 more
months to make the final revision. The first
printed edition appeared 2 years later.
 Guidelines for Translating
Use the Bishop’s bible but were permitted to
consult Tyndale and other earlier versions.
Preserve recognized chapter divisions and proper
names, and to avoid lengthy marginal notes.
Translation by each member of the group should
be approved by other members and each company
must send its material to the others for final
agreement.
●♦ö The project was successful because of the intellectual
quality and personal enthusiasm of the panel members
 A Conservative Style
Its style is more conservative than that found in
Shakespeare.
The translator’s aim was not to make a new
translation, ‘but to make a good one better, or out of
many good ones, one principal good one’. They aimed
for a dignified, not a popular style, and often opted for
older forms of the language, when modern alternatives
were available.
The bible only contains about 8,000 different words
which is less than half of the Shakespearean total.
Similarly, the bible looks at its grammar and preserves many
forms and constructions which were falling out of use like:
Irregular verbs: ●Archaic forms:

In the bible English today

Brethen
Digged Dug
Kine
Gat and gotten Got
Bare
Twain Bore
Spake Spoke
Clave Cleft
Holpen Helped
Wist Knew
The third person singular of the present tense of verbs
is always –(e)th

Use of DO with negatives and in questions is missing:

 They knew him not  they did not know him
(the DO became standard by about 1700)

Word order:
 Follow thou me
 Speak ye unto
 Cakes unleavened
 Things eternal
His is used for its:
 If the salt has lost his savour, wherewith shall it be
salted.
Second person plural pronouns were changing:
 Ye – subject form
 You – object or after a preposition

Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. Therefore I say unto

you…

●♦ö but in the end of the 16th,YOU was being used for
YE and YE disappeared in the late 17th century.
An – used before many nouns beginning with h- in a
stressed syllable
An hundred,
an helpe,
an harlot

●♦ö This begun by Wycliff and can still be found in the late 29th
century.

Different usees of several prepositions:

 Of – the zeal of (for)
 - thine house, tempted of (by)
 - Satan, went forth of (from) the Arke
 In – in (at) a good old age
 - taken to (as a ) wife
 - like as (like, as) the sand of the sea
Sample text from the
King James Bible
The first extract 1611
Luke 15.29-32
And he answering said to his father, Loe, these, many yeeres doe I serue thee,
neither transgressed I at any time thy commandement, and yet thou neuer
gauest mee a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: But as soone as
this thy sonne was come, which hath deuored thy liuing with herlots, thou
hast art euer with me, and all that I haue is thine. It was meete that we
should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is aliue
againe: and was lost, and is found.
Genesis 27.10-22
And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the
sun set: and he took of the stones of that place, and put then for his pillows,
and lay down in that place to sleep.
And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set upon the earth, and the top of it
reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending
on it.
And behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of
Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to
thee will I give it, and to thy seed:
And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth; and thou shalt spread abroad
to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee,
and in thy seed, shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
Biblical Idiom that is used today:
My brother’s keeper (Gen.4)
A good old age (Gen.15)
Eye for eye (Exod.21)
To spy out the land (Num.13)
The apple of his eye (Deut.32)
The people arose as one man (Judg.20)
A man after his own heart (1 Sam.13)
A still small voice (1 Kgs.19)
The root of the matter (Job.19)
The signs of the times (Matt.16)
Thorn in the flesh (2 Cor. 12)
Money is the root of all evil (1 Tim.6)
The patience of Job (James.5)
FIN