The King James Version: Translating the World's Most Popular Book.

blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are those that mourn for they shall be comforted blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth these words from the King James Version of the Holy Bible have inspired generations of Christians many historians consider the Holy Bible to be the most read book in history author James Chapman did a survey of the most read books of the last 50 years and determined that the Holy Bible is by far the leader having sold some 3.9 billion copies by comparison the number two book in that period the quotations of Chairman Mao tse-tung have sold just 820 million copies third was the Harry Potter series about 400 million copies this isn't a religious missive it is a review of the translation of the most read and one of the most influential books in history the interpretation and translation of the Holy Bible has impacted history and culture for nearly 2,000 years and the history of English translation of the Bible deserves to be remembered according to biblical scholars the people who would have experienced the Ministry of Jesus live in a relatively small geographical area from Jerusalem in the south to Galilee in the north a distance of several days walk Jesus would have spoken Aramaic which was the indigenous language of the area and Queenie Greek the international language of business and education at the time as a practicing Jew he also would have known enough Hebrew to read and teach in the synagogue but the words of the books central character did not start to be written down until thirty years after his reported death however once they got goin many different Gospels or good news stories in Greek were produced by a variety of authors around the Mediterranean we rarely know who these authors were few of them identify themselves in the text the names we have for the New Testament Gospels today are conjectured by later Christians yet these early authors were the original translators of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth passed down to them as oral tradition they wrote in Koine Greek for a Greek audience whereas Jesus would probably have preached in Aramaic like the names of these early authors we'll never know what translation choices they had to make and how those choices affected the text we have today the Gospels of the New Testament Matthew Mark Luke and John were placed in the order of their theological importance as determined by early Christian leaders but Mark actually had to be the first to be written chronologically scholars were able to determine that because Matthew and Luke incorporate so much of the Gospel of Mark word-for-word that they must have had a copy of his text when writing theirs mark was probably written before 70 AD as he doesn't tell us about the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in that year whereas the other gospel authors must have been written afterwards they are aware of this momentous event for Jews and Christians of the time these Gospels were copied and shared between Christian communities as were the letters of prominent Christian teachers like Paul very few of these earliest manuscripts have survived to our time handful of second century fragments from various New Testament authors have been found at some of them relatively recently like the old campfire game of telephone each new letter offered new opportunities to introduce errors or a new material that wasn't in the original most people at the time couldn't read and so these letters would have been read to them at gatherings and early church officials became concerned about the growing number the authenticity and the theology of this corpus they sought to control or at least to guide what early Christians heard Marcion of Sinop was the first to try to address this problem in the middle of the 2nd century but his selection of canonical or official text was not widely accepted by other authorities Irenaeus of Lyon origin and Eusebius who are among the most influential authorities in deciding which manuscripts would be included in early Bibles the earliest complete copies that we have of the New Testament today are the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus both which date back to the 4th century the Codex Sinaiticus or book of the Sinai was written in Greek at the monastery of st. Catherine in the shadow of Mount Sinai the text contains all of the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments which are accepted by most Christians today scriptures that were considered heretical like the Gospel of Thomas were left out many of these heretical texts have been found in recent times in ancient trash heaps are buried in the desert the Codex back Honus or the book of the vatican was written in greek as well but no one is sure exactly where overtime latin replaced greek in western european bibles while Eastern Churches continued to use Greek although we know Latin translations existed long before this time the first complete Latin Bible we still have today was produced at the monastery of where month in djaro in northern England the codex amia teenis named after its current location in Tuscany is a large beautifully illustrated work that is seven inches thick and weighs in at over 75 pounds when the age of this book was recognized it was used to highlight mistakes introduced in later Latin translations medieval church authorities frowned upon those who sought to translate the Bible from the official Latin texts responding to what the Roman Church saw as heretics Pope Innocent the third banned translations of the Bible in 1199 but translations were occurring in any case the venerable bead and isn't that cool appellation translated the Gospel of John into Old English in the seven 30s this is the first known translation into English albeit not a version of English most modern English speakers would understand King Alfred the Great of England also commissioned translations of some parts of the Bible into sects in English he saw this as a way to instruct his Nobles in correct morals and government the first serious attempt to translate the entire Bible into English was made in the late 14th century under the direction of John Wycliffe a professor at Oxford University Wycliffe had the Bible translated directly from the official Latin this translation was quite literal which made it somewhat ironic that he was later accused of being a heretic and his Bible banned by church and English authorities apparently his crime was to make the wisdom of the Bible more accessible to the common people or as he said it helped with Christian men to study the gospel in that tongue in which they know best Christ's sentence however his Bible was indeed taken up by church and social reformers an association which didn't help his case the church was able to confront and control the Wycliffe Bible but the next major translation effort would change the history of the Western Christian Church down to the present day Martin Luther like Wycliffe was also a professor he saw the Roman Church is corrupted in a need of reform the Roman Church sought to suppress Luther's reform initiatives and had placed him under official ban retiring to Wartburg Castle in Germany loser translated the Bible into German and like Wycliffe Luther went back to the original Greek texts as the basis of his work Luther and his Bible sparked a religious Reformation broke up the Roman Church and led to the formation of Protestant churches while it isn't in the direct lineage of today's English Bibles it was Martin Luther's translation that sparked the first translation of the Bible into modern English Henry the eighth famously broke ties with the Catholic Church and became the supreme head of the Church of England in 1534 in 1536 he authorised Thomas Cromwell his keeper of the Privy seal to create a Bible in English Cromwell kept Matthew Coverdale and a publisher named Richard Grafton to complete the work prior to this Bible other English Bibles have been printed illegally including a version by William Tyndale upon which the Kings new Bible was based the vision for the new Bible was not just an English translation to make it accessible to the everyday people it was also a statement of Henry the eighth's political power and new authority as head of the church separated from Rome it was a large book 11 inches wide by 16 and 1/2 inches long and because of its size was called the great Bible the demands for this new Bible required fancy paper and color printing which Cromwell had difficulty finding in England so the first pages of the great Bible were actually created in Paris but the authorities in Rome learned about this new printing and seized whatever materials and printers they could discover who were involved in the process everything that could be recovered was smuggled back to England and the great Bible was finally completed in April 15:39 there were six additional editions created and an estimated 9,000 copies printed by 1541 by royal decree every church in England was required to have a copy of the great Bible set up in some convenient place within the church that ye have care of it was incredibly popular so much so that Henry had to issue a proclamation to forbid the reading of the great Bible during church services because worshippers were reading the English Bible rather than listening to sermons though it wasn't an English translation of the Bible an additional point of historical interest is Henry these sweeping religious changes that have been credited with the survival of the Welsh language in the 1560s Elizabeth the first Henry's daughter threw in Belen our churches in Wales to have a Welsh version of the Bible next to an English Bible as well as a Book of Common Prayer it was a move to gather allies to the Protestant church to stand against the Catholic powers gathering in Europe prior to that time the Welsh language had fallen out of favor with the ruling authorities in Wales courts church services and the political leaders were required to conduct their business in English in addition to its role in preserving a language the Welsh Bible was noted for being the first translation of the Bible to a non-state language during the Reformation despite the massive popularity the great Bible only a few years after its publication Henry had Parliament pass an act which decreed no manner of persons after the first of October should take upon them to read openly to others in any Church or open assembly when in any of the King's Dominion's the Bible or any part of the scripture in English unless he is so appointed thereunto by the King on pain of suffering 100 months imprisonment as seen with the Welsh Bible this act would essentially be reversed by his children under the reign of Queen Elizabeth some of the more popular biblical additions were the bishops Bible and the Geneva Bible which were written by Protestants sheltering in Geneva because of the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary neither of these received royal approval then Elizabeth successor James the first commissioned around 50 scholars to write an English Bible because the versions in existence were criticised for their inaccuracies and potential deviations from the Latin editions they utilize existing versions of the English Bible such as the one by William Tyndale and commentary by Hebrew scholars to create their new edition the Bible commissioned by King James was published in 1611 two versions of the Bible exist the difference in the tubing mistake in the first printing that used the article he instead of XI in part of chapter 3 verse 15 of the Book of Ruth thus the early King James Bibles have been called the he and she editions other mistakes were made in later printings some more egregious than others about 20 years after its publication a version of the King James Bible was printed without the word not in the ten commandments of thou shalt not commit adultery the Edition was called the wicked Bible when the printer was fined for the mistake in the modern era the Holy Bible has gone through numerous translations and versions the Revised Standard Version and the New International Version and the New Revised Standard Version many of these use the discipline of textual criticism and provide substantial markup to help the modern reader or understand ancient meanings technology today allows us to translate the Bible more quickly than ever before and some scholars predict that we will have a Bible translated into every language in existence by 2072 the Christian scholars continue to face challenges as we look to new versions of the Bible going forward for example should new versions include gender inclusive language or is it more important that they reflect the culture of the ancient authors it is clear that one of the most influential books in history will continue to raise challenges well into the future [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 374,848

Keywords: history, the history guy, history guy, bible, holy bible, king james version, religious history

Id: up-R0rFz0bA

Length: 12min 14sec (734 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 06 2020