bibleinenglish

JULY 28, 2001

When a Demystified Bible Became Anathema to Orthodoxy

By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN

There is a moment in Victor Hugo's famous novel about the Parisian hunchback when the archdeacon of
Notre Dame speaks to the King of France. He gestures from a printed book open on his desk toward
the arches of the great cathedral. "Alas," he says, "this will kill that. The book will kill the building." The
15th- century priest was predicting that the printing press would shake the foundations of his church, that
portable texts and popularized messages would undermine the authority of orthodox religion, stimulating
dissent and encouraging independence. Hugo's novel is partly an account of the archdeacon's perverse
attempts to retain his fading powers.

"Wide as the Waters," Benson Bobrick's subtle and surprising chronicle of biblical translation, doesn't
mention Hugo's churchman, but it confirms his prophecy. One 16th-century English bishop even
proclaimed, "Either we must root out printing or printing will root out us."

But it wasn't primarily printing that threatened the church. In one of the great ironies of religious history,
the very text that led to the creation of the church — the Bible — helped undermine the church, at least
when it was translated into the vernacular, particularly English. This might seem strange; we still take for
granted the religious authority of the English Bible. In contemporary American public schools, it has even
become suspect as a subject for study, so associated is it in secular minds with religious doctrine.

Yet Mr. Bobrick, a historian who has written books about everything from subways to the reign of Ivan the
Terrible, draws on the work of earlier scholars to show that English translations of the Bible were once
considered villainous and blasphemous. Over the course of nearly three centuries, they inspired
excommunications, tortures, beheadings and burnings. In 1394, the first English translation was banned
and burned. In 1408, anyone who possessed it could be tried for heresy. Sir Thomas More, in 1532, said
the author of another distinguished translation of the Bible had discharged a "filthy foam of blasphemies
out of his brutish beastly mouth." Henry VIII, waffling and zigzagging on the issue, still burned translations
smuggled into England from Europe in bales of dry goods.

One reason for this opposition was that — as one biblical preface from 1540 put it — the English Bible
was meant to be read by "all manner of persons," by "men, women; young, old; learned, unlearned; rich,
poor." The translations were literally turning the Bible into a vulgar text — vulgar in the old Latin sense,
alluding to the common people.

But the church's opposition was not due just to fear that its claims to the ancient text would be disrupted.
The church was also, Mr. Bobrick suggests, opposed to the widespread authority the Bible would start to
take on. The clergy believed that the church — infallible and eternal — was the source of all religious
doctrine. The Scriptures were considered much less important. When a 16th-century bishop questioned
311 priests, deacons and archdeacons, he found that 168 couldn't recite the 10 commandments, 31 didn't
even know their source, and 40 couldn't recite the Lord's Prayer.

Mr. Bobrick, I think, exaggerates this ignorance, but his main preoccupation is with the battle itself. The
translators anticipated and fed the Lutheran Reformation, arguing that the Scripture should take precedence
over the church. John Wycliffe, a philosopher who sponsored the first English translation in 1382,
asserted that if there were "a hundred popes" and if "all the friars turned to cardinals," they would still
have no more authority than Scripture itself.

The stakes were high. More than a half-dozen translations led to alliances and schisms, riots and burnings
and the trashing of English monasteries and libraries. Despite this bloody history, King James I
commissioned yet another translation in 1605 that was meant take into account varied theological
concerns. He gathered 54 of the most prodigious linguists and scholars in England, divided them into six
groups, assigned to each a different set of texts and appointed a team of overseers. After six years there
emerged one of the most profound literary and religious achievements in the English language and the only
significant work of art produced by committee. Mr. Bobrick points out that the King James Bible, along
with its predecessors, helped create a nation, bound by a shared set of words and meanings.

We are still heirs to that language. It inspired the cadences and vocabulary of centuries of literature and
poetry; even great political documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address
fell under its sway. Wycliffe's 14th-century biblical translation created phrases like "held his peace" and
"gave up the ghost." William Tyndale's 1525 translation created words like "Passover" and "scapegoat"
and may have coined the word "beautiful." Miles Coverdale's 1535 translation provided "the eleventh
hour" and "tender mercies." And the King James edition digested them all and formed new varieties of
poetic expression. "God is my shepherd, therefore I can lose nothing," read one 16th-century translation;
the King James version replaced it with "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want."

Mr. Bobrick is intoxicated with his subject. And it is difficult, despite some reservations, not to be swept
along. He points out that by the end of the 16th century the dissemination of the Bible helped make the
English population "the most literate in Europe." And he suggests that these translations "sanctioned the
right and capacity of people to think for themselves." He proposes that they may have even led to the
creation of modern democracy. With this conclusion, Mr. Bobrick creates a sequel to the archdeacon's
words. Instead of "This will kill that," he seems to say: "This will give birth to something else."

WIDE AS THE WATERS The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired By Benson
Bobrick Simon & Schuster. 379 pages. $26.