'The Powerhouse of Creative Thought'
David Daniell's study of the Bible in English examines the Holy Book as an
engine of history and art
Interview by Paul O'Donnell
"The Bible in English" is the product of 15 years' work by David Daniell, an
emeritus professor of English at University College, London. Daunting as its
774 pages appear, the book is engagingly opinionated, frank and
informative--as was Dr. Daniell in a recent interview about how translating
the Bible changed more than just religious history.
You say the Bible has been translated into English more than any other
language. Why English?
It's an accident of history in a way. After the Bible was released into
English by William Tyndale, English rapidly became the language of the
world, and there was this rush to get the Bible into English. Tyndale's was
just the first of ten completely different translations or revisions in the
next hundred years.
It's also important to remember that the New Testament, which is in
Greek, goes very well into English--far better than it goes into Latin.
It's partly a question of grammar and syntax, but chiefly it's that Latin
prefers nouns and Greek prefers verbs. A Latin sentence has the weight
on the nouns, and the Greek sentence has the weight on the verbs. In the
first two chapters of Mark's gospel, the verbs are alive and kicking. The
writer knows the power of the Greek verbs. Tyndale understood that,
and understood that English was very appropriate for that effect.
So Bible translation became an English pursuit.
Right, and one has to remember that for 130 years, England had been the
most Catholic country in Europe by far, with an extremely repressive
Catholic government. When the freedom came to read the Bible, the
backlash was violent--people were burned for reading the Bible and
Tyndale was burned for translating it. But also it set up this acute
interest in getting it into an English that everyone could read. And
everyone did read it. It was the great powerhouse of creative thought
in English under Elizabeth.
In fact, you say that Shakespeare's literary feats can be attributed in part
to Tyndale's translation.
Tyndale used an English plain style. This was a terrific release.
Anybody who had something to say could write, and they did. It was
this foundation of great directness that Shakespeare took over. "To be
or not to be" is a very simple sentence and "The rest is silence" is
completely understandable by anybody. Of course, Shakespeare has
on top of that his gigantic imaginative power, which was not Tyndale's
interest. He was writing for accuracy and clarity.
Who was Tyndale's audience?
Everybody. He very famously said to a cleric he was debating, "If God
spare my life many more years, I will cause the boy that driveth the plough
to know more of Scripture than thou doth." The ploughboys did read it, in
little books they carried in their pockets. And so also, in the version that
became the Geneva Bible in 1660, did the highest clerics. Everybody read it.
It's ironic that the translators of these revered texts were not cheered,
but killed for their effort.
Americans find it hard to understand why translating the Bible was such
a heresy. The church had the tightest grip in England than any nation in
the world, from 1408 to the 1530s. It really was a stranglehold, on thought
as well as writing. You weren't to disobey the church and certainly you
weren't to think for yourself.
The clerics of the time feared people would use scripture for their own
ends. Didn't they have a point, though, since that kind of mischiefmaking
happens all the time?
This is very recent in American life. The liberty, the freedom to read
the Bible made America. The freedom to think for yourself is the basis
for democracy.
The King James Version is the bestselling Bible of all time. Why do we hold
the King James in such thrall?
It's a total mystery to me, except that people like something they can
worship like that. The King James was originally a political move. England
was reclaiming world status against France and they wanted to say, "Look,
the Bible was given to the English, and Shakespeare was given to the English
and go away everybody else."
Computers have told us that 80 percent of the New Testament is
Tyndale pure. When the King James interferes, it's usually for the worse.
The King James is at its worst in the parts of the Old Testament Tyndale
didn't reach, in the poetry of the prophets in particular. It's often
rubbish--you oughtn't say so nowadays, but it's incomprehensible.
The goal was to elevate the Bible. If you look at Geneva Bible, which
was England's Bible from 1560 to 1640, the margins are packed with
explanatory notes--Romans has more notes than text. All this was cut
away in the King James. The margins are bare. The people mustn't have
study Bibles. The Bible is something, as the title page says, appointed to
be read in churches. It is to be read by the squire to you lot down there.
It was a hugely political move, and it's attracted to itself the sort
of myths that that sort of politics tends to get. Afterward, England became
a hive of people saying I can do better than that, and even getting
published and doing better than that.
The King James became the popular Bible in the new United States as well.
This is another great mystery to ponder: why the founding fathers in
1776 didn't commission their own Bible. The whole story of what Congress
thought of the Bible in the first few weeks is a rather puzzling one. They
didn't support Robert Aitken, who tried to bring the first mass-produced
Bible [in the King James Version] to the United States. He died bankrupt. It
wasn't until just after WWII that the attempt was made to make an American
translation [the Revised Standard Version]. The first edition was published
in 1952, and it was the first great American Bible, and very successful.
What about the efforts to make the Bible easier to read, like the Good News
Bible or The Message?
I'm very critical of a lot of what they do. The Message is afraid of
upsetting people, which seems to me odd, considering that Christ gave his
life on the cross. At the end of 1 Corinthians 13, Paul's great hymn to
love, Tyndale says, "Then shall I know even as I am known." It says that
love leads to being known, a very profound concept. Peterson has, "It won't
be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright." That's near
criminal. It's not what the Greek says, and the uplift is completely wrong
for Paul. We no longer burn Christians alive, we sell them a New Testament
from which God has been removed.
On the other hand, if a truckdriver throws aside a girlie mag for
The Good News Bible to get something from it, who am I to criticize?
Which translation would you recommend?
I don't think you can beat the original Tyndale. People keep writing to
me to say how modern he is. But if you want a truly modern one, there's also
one that's not very well known in America called the Revised English Bible.
It came out in the late 1980s. It was the first that had Roman Catholics and
Protestants working together on it. Parts of the Old Testament are a bit
dodgy, but the New Testament is extremely good.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/133/story_13302_1.html
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/133/story_13302_2.html
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Art Bulla (Teachings of the One Mighty and Strong, Teaching #19):
... Christianity (I speak of the modern notions of the ignorant of mankind)
which again, I say has absolutely nothing to do with Christ or his
teachings, I say this so radically departed from this orthodox faith that
the King James translators, who were scholars of the first rank, upon
whom rested the Spirit, which brooded over them and otherwise guided
them in their labors, saith the Lord, had to intentionally mistranslate this
passage as well as others to keep the ire of the King from removing their
heads from their bodies because of heresy. And thus the slothful and
ignorant of mankind have passed down the errors that whole generations
have killed the prophets when they stood to declare the truth as in God.
