Jon Sweeney - Verily, Verily: The KJV--400 Years of Influence and Beauty

When I quote the King James Version of the Bible (KJV), I am quoting from the original 1611 edition, but without the old spellings. A landmark of Early Modern English, the KJV nevertheless retained more Middle English spellings than were used to today. Throw that together with old typographic conventions like the interchanging v and u (the character u being used for the v sound inside a word, and the character v being used for the u sound at the beginnings of words), and the original KJV can be downright disorienting. For example, consider this sentence from the narrative of the flood: And behold I, euen I, doe bring a flood of waters vpon the earth. Ever since the 1769 Oxford Standard Edition, modern spelling has been used: And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth. I also use spellings that tend to reflect English usage in the United States, rather than in the United Kingdom. So, for example, in my title to chapter 4, when I quote from the translators preface of the 1611 KJV, I write, Lo, the Humor! rather than, Lo, the Humour!

Since its beginning, the KJV has also italicized a lot of words to indicate that those are implied but not actually present in the original languages. These are called provided words. More about that in chapter 3. I find that such italicizing is no longer necessaryso that has also been discarded here.

Above all, my desire is that Verily, Verily will inspire people to return to the text of the King James Bible. I hope that it leads you to read it againor for the first time.

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.
P SALM 42:1

That instant was I turned into a hart, And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, Eer since pursue me.
S HAKESPEARE , T WELFTH N IGHT , A CT 1, SCENE 1

I ve buried quite a few Bibles in the last decade. At our church in Vermont, Im in charge of the annual book sale. Donations pour in over a six-week period, and I weed through them all, sorting, pricing, and packing them into cartons, where they wait until the fair on the Village Green.

Each year we receive about a dozen Bibles, nearly all of which are the King James Version. They always appear well-worn, with tattered edges on the old leather covers. Often, the leather is so old and dry that it chips like paint on the side of a weathered shed. Looking at these donated Bibles, I imagine that theyve been cleaned out of attics or assisted-care facilities. Many of our grandmothers and grandfathers read KJVs exclusively, marking them and urging us to read them when we were young. They recorded important dates in this marvelous book, also known as The Authorized Version. Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina (1896-1985) put it best when he said:

I think that the greatest book, from a literary as well as from a religious standpoint ever made available to mankind, is the King James Version of the Bible. As soon as my forebears obtained the [KJV], they adopted it as a guide for their religious faith, and they recorded within its covers their marriages, their births, and their deaths. They found something within that old Book which revealed to them the promises of God, and something which made them fear God and nothing else.

I once asked an antique dealer in town where he obtained all of the KJVs in his shop. He said matter-of-factly, Theres a Bible in every house. Bibles were once among the most treasured objects in a family home, but a KJV no longer seems important. At our book fair, I hear things like, Mother kept this by her bedside for as long as I can remember. But we dont need it.

With all the new translations available, old King James Bibles are rarely appreciatedbut they are, nevertheless, essential cultural artifacts. The KJV has something to say about who we are. As recently as the 1990s, President Bill Clinton used the King James Bible given to him by his grandmother for his inaugural oaths. It was open to this verse at the 1993 ceremony:

For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

G ALATIANS 6:8

And at the second inauguration, it was open to this:

And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.

I SAIAH 58:12

In 1989, President George H. W. Bush used onethe Washington Biblefirst used by George Washington at his inauguration in 1789. And in 2009, Barack Obama became the first U.S. president to reuse the Bible on which Abraham Lincoln placed his hand at his inauguration in 1861. Honest Abes was a KJV too!

But today, most of the King James Bibles I come across are battered and ragged, well-used and dusty. At our book fair, no one wants to buy them. I usually cant even give them away.

So I end up burying a lot of Bibles. Thats what youre supposed to do with no-longer-needed holy books. At the end of the fair in late July, I carry the leftovers home and get the tall shovel out of the shed. Using the heel of my right shoe, I thrust its blade deep into the soil and make a hole large enough for a dead pet. In they go.

In fact, each of the three monotheistic faiths practice some form of this. There are a series of underground tunnels in the Chiltan Hills near Quetta, Pakistan, where nearly 100,000 discarded and partial Qurans are carefully packed in bags, buried (which they actually call storing, in a hopeful sort of way), and then watched over by devout Muslims who feel called to the sacred task. The first of these many tunnels was dug in 1992 and measures 130 feet in length, and is about seven feet in circumference.

On a much less impressive scale, someday someone will buy my old house, dig up the rear part of the garden (look to the area closest to the shed, near the remnants of last years tomato plants), and likely scratch their heads at what they find about twenty-two inches down.

For the last two decades, I have attended an Episcopalian church. Episcopalianslike Christians in many other denominations and churchesarent really supposed to read the King James Version anymore. Its almost embarrassing to tell someone that you read the KJV. It can feel like admitting that your favorite television show is still Mutual of Omahas Wild Kingdom. If it were to be spied on a table during a dinner party, a guest might assume that the attic had recently been cleaned.

But I grew up with King James languageI breathed it like air. I memorized long passages that remain with me. As a kid, I rarely said anything worth repeating, but when I did, my mother would remark to my father, Out of the mouth of babes (Psalm 8:2). Today, I can no more unhinge some of these phrases and verses from my psyche than I can go back in time and undo the mistakes that I made in high school.

My Baptist grandfathersof the old school, both of thembelieved, for doctrinal reasons, that nothing should replace the KJV. They thought it represented a pure moment in the history of human connection to God. Both preachers, they had fat, black KJV study Bibles, which they shook in their hands while they preached from behind their pulpits. Alister McGrath, one of todays finest historians, says, It can be argued that, until the end of the First World War, the King James Bible was seen, not simply as the most important English translation of the Bible, but as one of the finest literary works in the English language.