How does it happen that [words] are ‘words,’ that is, that they have a general meaning? In his first apperception, a sensuously equipped being finds himself in a surging sea of stimuli, and finally he begins, as we say, to know something. Clearly we do not mean that he was previously blind. Rather, when we say ‘to know’ [erkennen] we mean ‘to recognize’ [wiedererkennen], that is, to pick something out [herauserkennen] of the stream of images flowing past as being identical. – Hans-Georg Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, 14

If a man boasts in the Lord, there are three reasons why he cannot at the same time boast also in his own wisdom, the human wisdom of the world,

1. Since he boasts in this other, the real wisdom of God, he has no more room for his own, human wisdom.
2. By this wisdom in which he may now glory human wisdom is for him unmasked as unwisdom, as utter and contemptible folly in his eyes.
3. He cannot wish to withdraw from his solidarity with divine wisdom even in regard to its supposed folly and the judgment to which it must be content to submit in this world. – Barth, K

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[St John’s Gospel 3. 16-21, in the King James Version
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.]
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My text is six verses from the Gospel you have just heard, the gospel according to St John, chapter 3, verses 16 to 21. It is, however, in a translation two hundred and twenty-seven years earlier than the King James Version whose 400th anniversary we celebrate today – that of John Wycliffe, translating into the English of 1384:

16 For God louede so the world, that he yaf his `oon bigetun sone, that ech man that bileueth in him perische not, but haue euerlastynge lijf. 17 For God sente not his sone in to the world, that he iuge the world, but that the world be saued bi him.
18 He that bileueth in hym, is not demed; but he that bileueth not, is now demed, for he bileueth not in the name of the `oon bigetun sone of God. 19 And this is the dom, for liyt cam in to the world, and men loueden more derknessis than liyt; for her werkes weren yuele.
20 For ech man that doith yuele, hatith the liyt; and he cometh not to the liyt, that hise werkis be not repreued. 21 But he that doith treuthe, cometh to the liyt, that hise werkis be schewid, that thei ben don in God.

What is clear is that this version won’t do for a modern audience, whether in 1611 or today.

But what is also clear is that in words and structure this is very much what we are used to in a traditional translation of the Bible.

For the four hundredth anniversary of the so-called ‘Authorized Version’, we have had a veritable outpouring on television, radio and in the press: some of it illuminating as to the processes of the forty-seven translators in six committees that worked on the King James translation, two committees each in Oxford, Cambridge and Westminster. But we have also had paeans of praise, straight from ‘Silly-Boys Hall’, for that same version as being, with the contemporary plays of William Shakespeare, a twin-cornerstone of some fundamental British decency of character that developed over the next four hundred years – an inheritance from a highpoint of English culture that we are in danger of neglecting at our peril. (Indeed, we have been told on British television that the heritage was so twinned that Shakespeare was vastly influenced by the King James Bible – and this despite all his major plays being written before the publication of the new version in 1611.)

Shakespeare was indeed much influenced by the Bible – but in the Geneva version done by Protestant exiles in 1560, about fifty years before the King James translation. It was the most popular version in Shakespeare’s day and for forty-four years after his death, till the restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660. It is true that the humanity and insights of Shakespeare have greatly affected human relations, not just in Britain but world-wide. But so has the gospel of Christ and the Old and New Testaments of the Bible – and that influence has little to do with whatever translation was used. If the old translators sought striking expression, that was because they had first been struck by their Hebrew and Greek originals. And in the case of the Bible, it has been the sense not the expression, the message not the medium, that mattered.

To use the anniversary of the King James Bible to drag back our youth for their good to an archaic English version on the ground of its supposedly unique quality is to betray the principles of translation that made that version excellent and which might serve as a model for our own work.

First, the King James translators knew that the time must come inevitably when changes in the language would give any translation a false quaintness and a dangerous obscurity. Re-translation was a necessity. Seventy-one years earlier, Thomas Cranmer in his preface to the second edition of the Great Bible [1540] had observed that re-translation into current English was the ancient custom of the Church:

For it is not much above one hundred years ago, since scripture hath not been accustomed to be read in the vulgar tongue within this realm. And many hundred years before that, it was translated and read in the Saxons’ tongue, which at that time was our mother tongue, whereof there remain yet divers copies found lately in old abbeys, of such antique manner of writing and speaking, that few men now be able to read and understand them. And when this language waxed old and out of common usage, because folk should not lack the fruit of reading, it was again translated into the newer language, whereof yet also many copies remain and be daily found.

But secondly, the King James translators understood (as we do not) that novelty, originality, individualism are a dangerous temptation. Not for them the folly of the New English Bible and the Jerusalem Bible in the last century of trying to ‘make all things new’, expressing ancient truth in our own idiom, and deliberately avoiding the wording of older versions. The old translators would have been astonished. Why alter what had been put in such memorable form by a predecessor? Why not steal what was good? – Except that notions of ownership didn’t come much into the heads of seventeenth century translators.

So it is that Wycliffe’s Bible doesn’t seem much different to versions centuries later. The translators of the King James Bible were under royal instruction not to attempt anything new but to revise the Bishops’ Bible of 1568, published forty-three years earlier. As they summed up their brief in their ‘Preface of the Translators to the Reader’, they ‘never thought from the beginning that we should need to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one . . . but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one . . .’

Hence, in the King James version of the six verses of my text, all 144 words are identical to those of the Bishops’ Bible, forty-three years earlier, with one word (‘howe’) omitted as redundant, ‘euyll doeth’ reversed to ‘doeth evil’, and ‘yt his deedes may be knowen’ turned to the rather more ponderous ‘that his deeds may be made manifest’, after the example of the Geneva Bible of 1560 (which generally offers the King James translators a more elevated diction). Where Wycliffe (1395) and Coverdale (1535) had talked of good deeds being ‘done in God’, from Tyndale (1534), the Matthew Bible (1537), the Great Bible (1539 and 1540), the Geneva Bible (1560), the Bishop’s Bible (1568), right through to the King James Version of 1611, it was generally felt more fitting that your good deeds should be ‘wrought’ in God.

If we look back seventy-seven years from the King James’ Version to the Tyndale New Testament (which was the first version in almost modern English), out of the 144 words of the King James version 122 words are exactly as Tyndale wrote them, in the same place, in the same word-order and in the same grammatical and syntactical structure – with all that means for borrowed effects of sound, rhythm and balance.

To put it mildly – no one strove for novelty. Forty-seven no doubt cantankerous scholars subjected their egos to the task of producing the best possible version, keeping in touch with their Hebrew and Greek originals, surveying the great and by now extensive tradition of past translation, all ‘diligently compared’ with earlier English versions (as their title-page attested). They then had their decisions re-considered by their peers and finally overseen by the Great Committee that from January 1609 for two years went through all that the six smaller committees had done. It was a work of corporate genius, of the Church militant together with the Church in glory, if it was a work of genius at all.

But that is not our idea of how genius works. The solitary individual, unappreciated in his lonely garret, is the one we think capable of great art. That, however, is not how the Holy Spirit works. In the first Sunday after Pentecost, it is well to remember that the Spirit came in a ‘rushing wind’ and ‘tongues of fire’ to a committee of the Apostles. The Jerusalem Council when deciding what to do about the Gentiles hit on what seemed ‘good to the Holy Spirit and to us’ – and that was in a committee. The great ecumenical Councils of the Church that defined the essence of Christian faith were grand committees. But those committees saw the Church as entrusted with ‘the faith once delivered to the saints’, and themselves as the guardians of a tradition. If we want the scriptures once again to strike the British consciousness with the sword of the Spirit, we must learn from the corporate humility of the makers of the King James Bible, who in their translation appreciated and stole from the past, but tailored it to fit a present and a future need.

May the six committees and the forty-seven translators of the King James Version be reverenced for what they did. As the Orthodox would put it, ‘May their memory be eternal’, in the keeping of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

When he saw Jesus the mad, homeless, cave-dwelling Gerasene ran to him and worshiped him (Mark 5.6).

Crazy Bill: The Gerasene Demoniac Revisited – a poem by Tim Melton

I was only eight years old, when I first heard The Voices
Seductive whispers in the night,
Painted horror blinded light
Perversion led to dark delight
When I was just a boy of eight, and I first heard The Voices

When I was nine, from kindred past, The Voices offered power
And so I made an invitation
Through wretched smoke and incantation
My Soul became their habitation
Then foul they nightly haunted me, and offered me their power

When I was only ten years old, my thoughts began to bleed
I boiled the cat in wicked craft
I stabbed my sister and killed a calf
I slowly rent my soul in half
When I was just a boy of ten and my mind began to bleed

My name back then was William when I lived among the sane
But then my neighbors – dressed and clean
With swords in hand – poised and lean
Dubbed me “Crazy Bill” – then mean
They never called me Will again, when I went insane

In fear my neighbors bound me shouting, “Death to Crazy Bill!”
In judgment there they mocked and jeered
The children spat and parents leered
In anger there my soul was seared
As I was blamed for all their fears – “Death to Crazy Bill!”

In screams my neighbors called my name – “Reproach of God and Man”
“Father Cursed” “Mother Hated”
“Mistake of Nature” “Love Abated”
These titles on my soul instated,
The Voices spoke their name for me – “Legion of the Damned”

Cast in iron chains of hate, my neighbors tied me down
With whips they ripped me open wide
‘Til something deep within me died
Then Evil Voices from inside
Rose and broke the chains and cried, “You cannot hold me down!”

My Voices told me , “You have no place that you can call your own”
“No roof to hide you from the storm”
“No hearth of flame to keep you warm”
“No walls protecting you from harm”
Thus they led me to the tombs and said, “This is your home!”

I could not tell my voice from theirs, this Legion in the tombs
They cursed in shouts I could not quell
The more I fought, the more I fell
‘Til I heard naught but cries from hell
Mine or theirs, I could not tell, running wild among the tombs.

My flesh became corrupt and foul as Legion racked my frame
With matted hair and withered limbs
With rotted teeth and eyes red-rimmed
With bones like brittle sun-dried stems
My flesh became a house condemned on a street without a name

So I lived bare and naked as I starved inside the graves
My food – the roots and pods of swine
My drink – the dregs of bitter wine
My dress – the dust of dead mankind
Thus, stripped of all God called ‘Divine’, I stood astride my grave

In nightmares then, from time on end, in the crypt beside the sea
The months and years bled into one
My hope was spent, my story spun
For though I lived, my life was done
Beneath a moon that blocked the Son, this nightmare raged in me

Then, one midnight – rude and harsh – a Grace fell on the tombs
A Storm of fury blew and dashed
As Thunder clapped and Lightning flashed
As Rain and Waves both leapt and lashed
A Violent Grace, first swelled then crashed, and silence filled the tombs

When morning broke the Son arose – His heat burned in my soul
Legion cried out desperately
They cursed the heavens and the sea
Their talons clutched and scratched in me
And though they tried to turn and flee
They could but scream, “Oh God, ‘tis He!” That morn the Son arose

Then Glory – like a blood red sea – blew in from the storm
He did not fear demonic night
But looked at me with Blinding Light
He walked a Cross with Sad Delight
This Glory from the Crimson Sea, stepped into my storm

Legion slammed me to the ground with a vengeance fueled by flames
But Gentle Hands caught all my tears
And Humble Eyes calmed all my fears
Then a Voice of Healing called me near
And asked me what I longed to hear – “Son, what is your name?”

“We are Legion!” squealed the voices, as fear choked back their roar
Then Glory raised His hands divine
With Power to loose and Strength to bind
He cast my Legion into swine
And drowned them in the Crimson Sea – I’ve heard them nevermore

Then Glory led me to that sea and plunged me ‘neathe the flood
He bathed me in His perfect glory
That freed my soul from fear and worry
With just one word, He changed my story
For there I heard my Father’s name, beneath a Sea of Blood

A dream-like Revelation rose and flooded through my soul
A knowledge opened up my eyes
A truth that rinsed away my lies
A loosening of hell’s dreadful ties
I felt this Revelation rise and overwash my soul

Next thing I remember, I was clothed and in right my mind
My food – The Word of Blessedness
My drink – The Wine of Holiness
My dress – His Royal Righteousness
So adorned in all His Kingly best, He called my name – “Divine”

Then neighbors came up from my home – the ones who’d chained me down
Their hearts were daggers poised to fight
Their eyes were seeing but devoid of sight
Their souls were shrouded in darkest night
So they cursed the Blessed Light, shouting, “Demon, leave our town!”

Glory turned and smiled at me and said He must away
There were others across the sea
Others blind who longed to see
Chained yet yearning to be free
Yes, there were others, just like me, and so He could not stay

“Glory!” I cried upon my knees. “Let me go with you from this place”
“I cannot live without your Words
Your Voice is strength that binds and girds
For the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard
Was when you called my name aloud – it was my saving Grace”

“William”, Glory said to me. “Be ye not afraid”
“My Love within you will increase
My Voice in you, will never cease
For I will speak, and give you peace
For ‘lo I’m with you always William, ‘til the ending of the age”

“Now William, Blessed William, stay among your kith and kin
Remind them what your God can do
Tell them I make all things new
Describe for them what I did for you
And then invite them to know me too – to believe and enter in

Then William, proclaim among your brothers, for this is Your Father’s Will
That you are William – lost but found
William freed – who once was bound
Sing, Blessed William, sing all throughout your town
And trust that you will ever be,
Yes know that you will always be, your Loving Father’s Will

Tim Melton
May, 2008

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

William Butler Yeats (1865)

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. “But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father” (John 6:63-65).

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out (John 6:37)

Why do some NOT have the good sense to believe the gospel?

He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God" (John 8:47).

…but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. (John 10:26)

Article | First Things.