The Bible is the single most influential book in the history of mankind, and no where is this more true than with the King James Bible and the English language. I had a chance to go see an original King James Version (KJV) Bible at the exhibit at the Harold B. Lee Library, an experience I won't soon forget. When I first came to BYU and heard about the exhibit, I kind of took it for granted. I didn't really realize what an opportunity this was, having a 400 year old and older sacred texts within a 5 minute walk, until I took the time to go to the exhibit and look at everything. Here's what I found:
- I mentioned this in a comment on Rachel's post, but I thought it was really cool how as time went on and newer and newer printings of the Bible came out, the text became easier to read. In earlier printings, the font was more ornate and similar to handwriting, but by the time the KJV was printed, the type was easier to read and more efficient. I think Dr. Burton mentioned in class that as new media of sharing knowledge come along, they will always borrow from the last one in terms of form and style.
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Bishop's Bible from 1591. It's kind of hard to tell, but the font is the Ye Olde English type of blocky lettering. If you look at the picture of the King James Bible below, printed in the early 1600s, the font is more times new roman looking and easier to read. |
-One of the signs in the exhibit noted the influence of the KJV on English literature, basically saying along with Shakespeare it is the foundation of modern English literature. It gave some examples of books that draw heavily from the KJV, including The Grapes of Wrath and Moby Dick. It mentioned that although there are hundreds of different interpretations of the Bible in English to choose from today, for centuries the KJV was the standard and it's prose and diction style inspired many writers for many years. This is an outcome of having printed knowledge: it is easy to share and can potentially reach and inspire many more people than written knowledge.
-I wondered why the King James Bible became so popular and influential as opposed to one of the other translations, like the Geneva one. It turns out that the Geneva Bible (translated by Protestants in Scotland; included many Calvinist ideas and terms) was considered the "Puritan Bible" and the King James was considered the "Royalist Bible". When the British Monarchy was reinstituted in the mid-17th century, the Geneva Bible was seen as "seditious", while the KJV was seen as a "symbol of religious and political unity."
-Looking at the KJV Bible at the exhibit, I noticed in included the Apocrypha and I wondered why this changed. According to this site, despite questionable authenticity and credibility, the Apocrypha wasn't removed from Protestant Bibles until the 1880s. Apparently King James himself threatened anyone who printed a Bible without the Apocrypha with death.
This was a great experience for me. It really got me thinking about a lot of things and just how much work went into the translation and production of the King James Bible. Without it, not only would some of our interpretations of the Bible's teachings be different, but English Literature as a whole would be affected by the lack of a King James Bible. There aren't many books you can say that about.
I read the Walter J. Ong article after I posted this, and although I mentioned how a new medium will borrow from the old, I didn't really realize to what extent written knowledge borrowed from oral knowledge and how oral traditions even pervaded into printed knowledge. I thought it was interesting how he said print is what finally caused the transition between an audible intake of knowledge to a visible intake of knowledge.
ReplyDeleteYea, it's interesting that now we're the ones that have to find a quiet place to read, instead of reading out loud, all together. I think listening to a book-on-tape is a really different experience than reading the text to yourself. I read out loud to my family as we were driving cross-country this summer, this book that I really love, and I could really tell how the feeling of the book changed for because I had to put a voice to the characters, emphasize certain words and phrases, foreshadow things.
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