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The "Inconvenient Tale" of the Original King James Bible
Handsonapologetics ^
| Gary Michuta
Posted on 03/17/2012 7:26:45 AM PDT by GonzoII
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King James I at the Hampton Court Conference "Dr. Reynolds...insisted boldly on various points ; but when he came to the demand for the disuse of the apocrypha in the church service James could bear it no longer. He called for a Bible, read a chapter out of Ecclesiasticus, and expounded it according to his own views ; then turning to the lords of his council, he said, " What trow ye makes these men so angry with Ecclesiasticus ? By my soul, I think Ecclesiasticus was a bishop, or they would never use him so." (John Cassell’s Illustrated History of England, text by William Howitt, (W. Kent & Co.:London), 1859, vol. 3p. 15)
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In 1604, the Church of England commissioned a new English translation of the Scripture, which later became known as the King JamesVersion. According to it dedication to the king, the hope was that this new version would “counteract the barbs” of Catholics and a foil to the “self-conceited” Protestants “who run their own ways, and give liking unto nothing but what is framed by themselves, and hammered on their anvil…” [Preface and dedication to the King, 1611 King James Bible], namely religious dissenters like the Baptists and others. Ironically, the Church of England had moved to other translations and the King James Bible (K.J.V.) had become, at least for a time, the translation for those groups that would have been considered dissenters. Today, the New International Version has become the best selling translation among Protestants, but the King James is still widely used and revered by non-Catholics.
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Bible translations are interesting in that they can provide a snapshot of the beliefs of their translators at that time. The Latin Vulgate, for example, can show us how certain words were understood in the fourth century when it was translated by St. Jerome. The King James Bible is no exception. When one compares the original 1611 edition with subsequent editions, one can discern some very important changes in viewpoints. If you own a King James Bible, the first and biggest change you will notice is that the original 1611 edition contained several extra books in an appendix between the Old and New Testaments labeled “The books of the Apocrypha.” The appendix includes several books, which are found in the Catholic Old Testament such as the books of Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, 1st and 2nd Maccabees and others. |
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Table of Contents KJV 1611 |
Some may be tempted to dismiss the omission of these books from the King James Bible as superfluous “add on” to the translation and that its omission really does not change anything important about the King James Bible. On the contrary, the so-called "Apocrypha” formed an integral part of the text, so much so that the Protestant scholar E. G. Goodspeed once wrote: “[W]hatever may be our personal opinions of the Apocrypha, it is a historical fact that they formed an integral part of the King James Version, and any Bible claiming to represent that version should either include the Apocrypha, or state that it is omitting them. Otherwise a false impression is created.” [Story of the Apocrypha (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939, p. 7] If you pick up a modern copy of the King James Version and open to the title page, chances are you’ll not see any mention of the deliberate omission of these books (e.g. “The King James Version without the Apocrypha”). After all, who would want to put a negative statement about a product on the title page? However, perhaps to avoid false advertising, publishers do notify you that books are missing by cleverly stating the contents in a positive fashion like “The King James Version Containing the Old and New Testaments.” If you didn’t know that the Apocrypha was omitted, you’d probably assume that complete King James Bible since most modern Protestant Bibles contain only the Old and New Testaments anyway. Hence, as Goodspeed warns “a false impression is created.” The Cross-references The King James “Apocrypha” had a much more integral roll in its early editions than simply being an appendix unconnected to the two Testaments. Instead, the 1611 King James Bible included (like the Geneva Bible) cross-references from the Old and New Testaments to the so-called “Apocrypha.” Like modern cross-references, these were meant to refer the reader back to the text cited in order to provide further light on what had just been read. There were 11 cross-references in the New Testament and 102 Old Testament that referred Protestant readers back to the “Apocrypha.” The New Testament cross-references were:
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Mat 6:7 |
Sirach 7:14 |
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Mat 27:43 |
Wisdom 2:15-16 |
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Luke 6:31 |
Tobit 4:15 |
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Luke 14:13 |
Tobit 4:7 |
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John 10:22 |
1 Maccabees 4:59 |
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Rom 9:21 |
Wisdom 15:7 |
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Rom 11:34 |
Wisdom 9:13 |
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2 Cor 9:7 |
Sirach 35:9 |
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Heb 1:3 |
Wisdom 7:26 |
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Heb 11:35 |
2 Maccabees 7:7 |
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1611 KJV Heb. 11:35 - 2 Mac. 7:7 |
1611 KJV Matt. 27:43 - Wisdom 2:15-16 |
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1611 KJV Heb. 11:3 - Ws. 7:26 |
1611 KJV Luke 14:13 - Tobit 4:7 |
Like the early editions of the Geneva Bible, the editors of the Authorized Version believe that the non-Catholic readers should aware of what the “Apocrypha” had to say in regards to these passage. While some are mere correspondences of thought, others point to an awareness or even a dependence upon the “Apocrypha” by inspired New Testament writers. I detail these important passages in Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger: The Untold Story of the Lost Books of the Protestant Bible (Grotto Press, 2007). In addition to the eleven cross-references in the New Testament, the 1611 King James also sported 102 cross-reference in the Old Testament as well bringing to total up to 113 cross-references to and from the Apocrypha overall. No wonder Goodspeed could say that the "Apocrypha" was an integral part of the King James Bible! The King James Bible was not the only early Protestant Bible to contain the “Apocrypha” with cross-references. As we have seen in a previous article (Pilgrims’ Regress: The Geneva Bible and the “Apocrypha”), the "Apocrypha" also played an integral role in other Protestant Bibles as well. As I mentioned earlier, translations serve as historical snapshots of the beliefs of the translators and readers. The very presence of these cross-references shows that the translators believed that the "Apocrypha" was at work within the New Testament writings and that Protestant Bible readers would benefit from reading and studying the New and Old Testaments in light of these books. Sadly, today this noble heritage has been lost. Now You Read Them, Now You Don’t… Those who viewed the "Apocrypha" as somehow being the last vestige of "popery" pressed for the Apocrypha appendix and its cross-references to be removed altogether from the Bible. In 1615, George Abbott, the Archbishop of Canterbury, went so far as to employ the power of law to censure any publisher who did not produce the Bible in its entirety (i.e. including the "Apocrypha") as prescribed by the Thirty-nine Articles. However, anti-Catholic hatred and the obvious financial advantages of printing smaller Protestant Bibles began to win out against the traditionalists who wanted the Bible in the form that was given in all previous Protestant translations up until that point (in the form of Luther's Bible - with the Apocrypha between the Old and New Testaments). The "Apocrypha" remained in the King James Bible through the 1626, 1629, 1630, and the 1633 editions. By 1632, public opinion began to decidedly turn against the "bigger" Protestant Bibles. Of the 227 printings of the Bible between 1632 and 1826, about 40% of Protestant Bibles contained the "Apocrypha." The Apocrypha Controversy of the early 1800's enabled English Bible Societies to flood the bible-buying market with Apocrypha-less Protestant Bibles and in 1885 the "Apocrypha" was officially removed with the advent of the Revised Standard Version, which replaced the King James Version. It is hard to pin point the exact date where the King James Bible no longer contained the "Apocrypha." It is clear that later editions of the KJV removed the "Apocrypha" appendix, but they continued to include cross-references to the "Apocrypha" until they too (like the Geneva Bible) were removed as well. Why were they removed? Was it do to over-crowded margins? The Anglican scholar William H. Daubney points out the obvious: “These objectionable omissions [of the cross-references] were made after the custom arose of publishing Bibles without the Apocrypha. These apparently profess to be what they are not, entire copies of the Authorized Version … Plainly, the references to the Apocrypha told an inconvenient tale of the use which the Church intended should be made of it; so, either from dissenting influence without, or from prejudice within the Church, these references disappeared from the margin.” [The Use of the Apocrypha In the Christian Church (London: C. J. Clay and Sons, 1900), 17] What was the inconvenient tale these cross-references told? They showed that the so-called Apocrypha actually plays a much greater role that most modern Protestants are willing to admit. Moreover, the cross-references showed that the church believed that knowledge of the so-called "Apocrypha" and their use in the New Testament benefited Christians who wished to understand the Bible. Sadly today, many Protestants use the King James Bible have been handed on to them in an unaltered and uncompromised form. The reality is that its contents had undergone several substantial changes beginning with Martin Luther's gathering together the Deuterocanon and placing it in an "Apocrypha" appendix and later when that appendix (and its cross-references) were removed altogether from Protestant Bibles.
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TOPICS: Catholic; Charismatic Christian; Evangelical Christian; History; Mainline Protestant; Orthodox Christian; Theology
KEYWORDS: apocrypha; av; bible; deuterocanonicals; kingjamesbible; kjv; scripture
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To: Salvation
With all due respect, Sal, that doesn’t in any way address my question.
41
posted on
03/17/2012 9:51:13 AM PDT
by
SuzyQue
To: Mr Rogers
"“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” - 2 Tim 3" I think it disingenuous for this verse to be spoken out of its scriptural and historical context in support of either the exclusivity of Scripture as the means of revelation or as a validation for the revision of Canon.
First, there was no single Jewish canon in the first century. Second, the largest Jewish populations lived outside of Palestine in lands in which the lingua franca was Greek. This included the Galilee, Syria and Greece. This population, the audience for much of St. Paul's writings, in fact used the Septuagint which contain the deuterocanonicals. They are referred to the Deutero or second canon because they come after the Pentateuch.
Remember, there were many other faux messiahs and prophets all claiming to be the one, none of which were ressurected. These included Simon of Peraea, Athronges, Menahem ben Judah, Simon bar Kokhba and even the Roman Emperor Vespasian. Paul's direction to adhere to Scripture, limited to the existing Old Testament, and not works in progress or yet unwritten, were the authentication of Jesus and His Gospel message Paul was teaching. Jesus was predicted over 450 times in Old Testament Scripture and this was a proof of His authenticity.
Lastly, the single biggest Protestant objection to the inclusion of the Deuterocanonicals in the Canon was an absence of a Hebrew language copy. This was proved wrong with the discovery of the Essenian manuscripts in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
42
posted on
03/17/2012 9:51:17 AM PDT
by
Natural Law
(If you love the Catholic Church raise your hands, if not raise your standards.)
To: P.O.E.
“wouldn’t they be at least important from a scholarly perspective?”
Yes, I think they would have been. At a minimum, it helps to understand the context and background.
43
posted on
03/17/2012 9:52:11 AM PDT
by
SuzyQue
To: Mr Rogers
"Remember - the reason the Council of Trent addressed the canon was because no previous Council had done so authoritatively." That too is not true. The 4th century Councils of Rome and Carthage and the Synod of Hippo all affirmed the the present Catholic Canon. Trent was a definitive defense of the present Canon in response to the errors of the Reformation.
44
posted on
03/17/2012 9:57:40 AM PDT
by
Natural Law
(If you love the Catholic Church raise your hands, if not raise your standards.)
To: GonzoII
The KJV is awesome, but can be a bit tedious to decipher - I use the NIV despite its “faults”.
45
posted on
03/17/2012 10:13:32 AM PDT
by
trebb
("If a man will not work, he should not eat" From 2 Thes 3)
To: trebb
"The KJV is awesome,..."While have difficulties with some of its translations I do give it credit for its beauty and style.
46
posted on
03/17/2012 10:18:12 AM PDT
by
Natural Law
(If you love the Catholic Church raise your hands, if not raise your standards.)
To: Natural Law
1 - I quoted it to show that scripture - ALL SCRIPTURE - is good for teaching, and correcting. Thus a writing that is good for general reading, but that is NOT acceptable for doctrine, is NOT scripture. It just doesn’t meet the test.
2 - There WAS dispute about the canon among Jews, with the main division being those who argued for just the Pentateuch, and those including all of what we now call the Old Testament.
Jesus ended that discussion for his followers when he said, “34 Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, 35 so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.”
and, “44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
“Lastly, the single biggest Protestant objection to the inclusion of the Deuterocanonicals in the Canon was an absence of a Hebrew language copy.”
Not hardly. The objection is the same one Jerome made - that the Jews did not accept the Apocrypha as scripture. Jesus and the Apostles frequently cited the Old Testament for authority. They did not do so from the Apocrypha.
THAT is the main objection by Protestants, and it falls squarely in line with the teaching of the churches for 1500 years. The Council of Trent, in reaction to the Reformation, upped the ante on the Apocrypha - and then screwed up its listing, so that the term Deuterocanonical had to be invented in 1566.
47
posted on
03/17/2012 10:22:28 AM PDT
by
Mr Rogers
("they found themselves made strangers in their own country")
To: Natural Law
If “the 4th century Councils of Rome and Carthage and the Synod of Hippo” were authoritative, then Trent would not have needed to take up the subject. Local councils were not binding. The Council of Trent was.
48
posted on
03/17/2012 10:25:19 AM PDT
by
Mr Rogers
("they found themselves made strangers in their own country")
To: Mr Rogers
"that the Jews did not accept the Apocrypha as scripture."Be careful with your facts. "Some" Jews did not accept the Deuterocanonicals, most did. There were at least 5 "Jewish" Canons in the first century.
You can't ascribe an error in this to the Latin Church or even to St. Jerome. The Slavonic, the Syriac, Old Armenian, Old Georgian and Coptic versions of the Old Testament include the Deuterocanonicals. Further, the Early Church Fathers all reference them frequently.
49
posted on
03/17/2012 10:44:07 AM PDT
by
Natural Law
(If you love the Catholic Church raise your hands, if not raise your standards.)
To: Mr Rogers
"...were authoritative, then Trent would not have needed to take up the subject." Church history is an area that I have a fair amount of knowledge of. The Council of Trent was the 19th Ecumenical Council of the Church. It wasn't a single session or a single topic deal. It took place over a 12 year period.
Trent was hardly the first Ecumenical Council to address the Canon. The main purpose of the Council was to rebut and condemn the principles and doctrines of Protestantism and to clarify and reaffirm the doctrines of the Catholic Church on all disputed points. I think it accomplished this quite well.
50
posted on
03/17/2012 10:53:37 AM PDT
by
Natural Law
(If you love the Catholic Church raise your hands, if not raise your standards.)
To: GourmetDan
Thanks, I’ll do some reading.
51
posted on
03/17/2012 11:02:28 AM PDT
by
SuzyQue
To: Natural Law
“”Some” Jews did not accept the Deuterocanonicals, most did.”
Jerome says you are wrong. The Jews say you are wrong. And Jesus made it clear what HE accepted - and he did not use the Apocrypha as scripture. I’ll go with the practice of Jesus...
“Trent was hardly the first Ecumenical Council to address the Canon.”
It was the first Ecumenical Council to determine the Canon. That is why it did so. If it had been addressed, once for all, earlier, then Trent would not have needed to do so. Indeed, Cardinal Cajetan would not have written the Pope as he did, if there had been binding direction before Trent.
Then Trent screwed up. The list it gave wasn’t complete. So three books of the Vulgate were moved:
“The Clementine differed from the manuscripts on which it was ultimately based in that it grouped the various prefaces of St. Jerome together at the beginning, and it removed 3 and 4 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasses from the Old Testament and placed them as Apocrypha into an appendix following the New Testament.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgata#Clementine_Vulgate
Thus the Apocrypha became the Deuterocanon - because there had to be a way to reconcile the infallible list of Trent with the Old Vulgate that Trent also said was correct.
52
posted on
03/17/2012 11:25:53 AM PDT
by
Mr Rogers
("they found themselves made strangers in their own country")
To: Ruy Dias de Bivar
Only means “nothing objectionable” and “let it be printed”. Does not signify agreement.
To: GonzoII
54
posted on
03/17/2012 11:46:58 AM PDT
by
Salvation
("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
To: Mr Rogers
"Jerome says you are wrong. The Jews say you are wrong. And Jesus made it clear what HE accepted - and he did not use the Apocrypha as scripture." St. Jerome was not infallible, that is reserved collectively to the Episcopacy (Magisterium) and the Pope.
Jerome did not say the Deuterocanonicals were not Scripture, he only said that the rabbinical Jews of Jerusalem said they were not. In fact, St. Jerome wound up strenuously defended the Deuterocanonicals as inspired Scripture, writing in Against Rufinus 11:33 [A.D. 402]; "What sin have I committed if I followed the judgment of the churches? But he who brings charges against me for relating the objections that the Hebrews are wont to raise against the story of Susanna, the Son of the Three Children, and the story of Bel and the Dragon, which are not found in the Hebrew volume (ie. canon), proves that he is just a foolish sycophant. For I wasn't relating my own personal views, but rather the remarks that they [the Jews] are wont to make against us" The overwhelming majority of those that comprised the early Magisterium, the Church Fathers and other early Christian bishops regarded the deuterocanonical books as having exactly the same inspired, scriptural status as the other Old Testament books that Protestantism accepts. A few examples of this acceptance can be found in the Didache, The Epistle of Barnabas, the Council of Rome, the Council of Hippo, the Third Council of Carthage, the African Code, the Apostolic Constitutions, and the writings of Pope St. Clement I (Epistle to the Corinthians), St. Polycarp of Smyrna, St. Hippolytus, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, St. Cyprian of Carthage, Pope St. Damasus I, St. Augustine, and Pope St. Innocent I.
Since you are dealing with translations of translations of translations you cannot establish that the passages from the Deuterocanonicals that are thematically the same as the Gospels did not arise as quotes. Jesus actually paraphrased much of his references to the Old Testament that you accept.
Over the 12 years and 25 sessions the Council made many decrees on nearly every aspect of Catholicism, reaffirming dogma and doctrine challenged by the Reformation and rebutting the heresies. How many of these have you studied to conclude that a pronouncement was issued ex nihilo (from nothing) to fill a gap in Catholic teaching? I would also like to know where you studied them and in what language.
55
posted on
03/17/2012 11:59:40 AM PDT
by
Natural Law
(If you love the Catholic Church raise your hands, if not raise your standards.)
To: Mr Rogers
I have heard that one of the reasons the Jews didn't accept the apocrypha was because of Maccabees.
Apparently, the Jews could not accept those books as inspired because they put forth the Maccabee kingship as divinely anointed. But the Maccabees were not of the Davidic line so this conflicted with the rest of the OT. Do you know anything about this or can you verify?
You make interesting points about Jerome, the Council of Trent, etc. Thanks.
To: Natural Law
Over the 12 years and 25 sessions the Council made many decrees on nearly every aspect of Catholicism, reaffirming dogma and doctrine challenged by the Reformation and rebutting the heresies. Quite correct. As an armchair quarterback, I'd simply compare each heresy of Protestantism to the teachings of Simon Magus and go from there.
57
posted on
03/17/2012 2:01:45 PM PDT
by
MarkBsnr
(I would not believe in the Gospel, if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.)
To: MarkBsnr
"As an armchair quarterback, I'd simply compare each heresy of Protestantism to the teachings of Simon Magus and go from there." Mark, you are not suppose to pass the Vatican cheat codes unencrypted in an unsecured forum.
58
posted on
03/17/2012 2:22:18 PM PDT
by
Natural Law
(If you love the Catholic Church raise your hands, if not raise your standards.)
To: what's up
"I have heard that one of the reasons the Jews...."Your error here is that you are referring to the Jews as though they were one single cohesive group. That is like saying that Anglicans, or Pentecostals speak for all Christians.
59
posted on
03/17/2012 2:35:16 PM PDT
by
Natural Law
(If you love the Catholic Church raise your hands, if not raise your standards.)
To: Natural Law
I believe the Jews in general reject the idea that the Apocrypha is inspired.
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