When King James VI of Scotland came south to sit on the throne of his cousin Elizabeth as James I of England, one of his first acts was to commission a new translation of the Bible for authorised use in the Church of England.
The translation committee began work in 1604. Translated from the original languages, the new version was eventually printed and published in 1611 – four hundred years ago - and become famous as the ‘Authorised Version’ and the ‘King James Version’. It would enjoy almost three and half centuries of unrivalled pre-eminence as the Bible of English-speaking peoples everywhere.
We should remember that King James I was not so much a great spiritual leader of his people as he was an astute politician. The Bible in the hands of the people was potentially dangerous. His predecessor Henry VIII had recognised how dangerous it was, which was why he had his henchman hunt down the great translator William Tyndale (d. 1536) to his hideaway in Belgium, and then had him burnt at the stake. Tyndale is reported by the martyrologist John Foxe to have once said to a learned clergyman: ‘if God spares my life, ere many years, I will cause the boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost!’
Dangerous? Certainly it was. For one thing, the Bible told of lines of tyrannous and villainous kings and invited its readers to think about the possibility of tyrannicide and revolution. But it was more than this. The Bible is the source of knowledge of God, by the Holy Spirit. And this is a public claim not merely a private opinion. By placing both King and church in their different callings as accountable to the Word of God as the highest authority, Tyndale introduced a potentially unsettling element into the equation. It was now possible for the ordinary citizen to question the behaviour of the King (or Queen) on the basis of the plain teaching of Scripture.
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Related article: How the mighty has fallen: The King James Bible turns 400
Historical note: William Tyndale was garrotted, strangled, and then burned at the stake.
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