KJV ENGLISH
LECTURE 12
TOPICAL
THE MAJESTY OF THE KING JAMES VERSION
Alexander McCall Smith (Novelist)
Those of us brought up in an age when churchgoing was rather more common than it is today will understand the length and depth of our debt to the poetry contained in the King James Bible. Even those who can no longer accept biblical claims – or indeed the relevance of the Bible in the modern world – can appreciate the beauty of the language used, its cadences and its gorgeous, resonant strength. Compared with the language of modern translations, it is vivid, echoing and magisterial. Children exposed to the language of the King James Bible will appreciate the sense of theatre, the sense of awe that suffuses virtually every sentence.
(Cleland Boyd McAfee’s The Greatest English Classic: A Study of the King James Version ofthe Bible and Its Influence on Life and Literature (1912))
“The first and most notable fact regarding the influence of the Bible on English literature is the remarkable extent of that influence. It is literally everywhere. If every Bible in any considerable city were destroyed, the Book could be restored in all its essential parts from the quotations on the shelves of the city public library. There are works, covering almost all the great literary writers, devoted especially to showing how much the Bible has influenced them. “The literary effect of the King James version at first was less than its social effect; but in that very fact lies a striking literary influence. For a long time it formed virtually the whole literature which was readily accessible to ordinary Englishmen.
(“Majestic Legacy” by Dr. Phil Stringer)
The influence of the King James Bible can be traced in many areas. Its legacy is unmatched in Western Civilization. According to Vanderbilt University Press, the King James Bible is the best-selling book of all times.According to historian Adam Nicholson, more than five billion copies of the King James Bible have been sold over the last 399 years. According to Nelson publishers, the King James Bible is the most frequently quoted document in existence. Donald L. Brake calls the KJB the “most famous and influential Bible in English history.” The Story of English, (a history of the English language), goes even farther, calling the KJB “Probably the single-most influential book ever published in the English language.” This reference makes every other English Bible translation seem minor in significance.
Adam Nicholson describes the KJB “as the richest, most passionate (and most bought) of all works of English prose. It is full of grandeur and a vivid heart-gripping immediacy.”As the King James Bible approaches its anniversary, there is increasing focus of its incredible impact. In 2011, it will have been the dominant English Bible translation for four hundred years. Hundreds of English Bible translations have been offered to replace it. It outlasts them all. The KJB is used all over the world and its influence is felt everywhere. Christopher Anderson writes that the KJB “is the only version in existence on which the sun never sets.”
Every American president, except one (Franklin Pierce) has taken his oath of office with his hand on the King James Bible. Arthur Cleveland Coxe stated, “The Holy Scriptures, as translated in the reign of King James the First, are the noblest heritage of the Anglo-Saxon race.”
The 1995 edition of Compton’s Encyclopedia calls the KJB “the most influential book in the history of English civilization.”