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GUNPOWDER, SPITTLE & PARCHMENT:

The curious origins of the greatest English Bible

1. SPITTLE:
King James and his Bible

The murder of David Rizzio, 9 March 1566

The bodies of Henry, Lord Darnley, and his servant, found strangled in an orchard beside his house, which had just been blown up, on the night 10 February, 1567.

James VI and I, Daemonologie (1597)

Elizabeth I, Queen of England and Ireland 1557-1603

A still from Roland Emmerichs idiot film Anonymous (2011)

A still from Roland Emmerichs appalling film Anonymous (2011)

Coronation of James at Westminster Abbey, 1603

Danil Mijtens King James I of England and VI of Scotland (1621)

George Villiers, created first Duke of Buckingham, assassinated 1627

An obscene manuscript poem by Thophile de Viau addressed to the duc de Boukinquan (Buckingham); composed around 1611 MS. Fr. 15220 B.N. (fol. 50v)

2. GUNPOWDER:
The explosive nature of

translating the Bible

A mediaeval manuscript of the Vulgate Bible

Gutenbergs printed Vulgate Bible of 1454

The Louvain printing of the Vulgate Bible of 1583

William Tyndale,

executed 1536

Tyndales New Testament (1525)

Coverdales Bible 1535

The Great Bible 1539

VIVAT REX!

GOD SAVE THE KING!

The Bishops Bible 1568

The Bishops Bible 1568

The Geneva Bible, 1560, 1576

Ephesians i3-4

headers, defining the subject

interpolated essays

the actual text marginal commentary, setting out Calvinist doctrine

Douai-Rheims Bible 1582

A crash-test dummy mock-up of the House of Lords in The Gunpowder Plot: Exploding The Legend (ITV, 2005).

A crash-test dummy mock-up of King James opening parliament in The Gunpowder Plot: Exploding The Legend (ITV, 2005).

The peers of the realm seconds before the blast

3. PARCHMENT:
The creation of a new Bible

Hampton Court

The Hampton Court conference, 1604

Psalm xci5
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night

(King James Bible)

Psalm xci5
Thou shall not nede to be afrayed for eny bugges by night.

The Coverdale Bible (popularly known as the Bug Bible)

Jeremiah viii22
Is there no balm in Gilead?

(King James Bible)

Jeremiah viii22
Is there no tryacle in Gilead?

The Great Bible (henceforth known as the Treacle Bible)

Genesis iii7
they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

(King James Bible)

Genesis iii7
they sowed figge-tree leaves together, and made themselves breeches.

The Geneva Bible (generally known as the Breeches Bible)

Lancelot Andrewes, general editor of the King James Bible, Bishop of Chichester and then Ely

Richard Bancroft,
Archbishop of Canterbury (died 1610)

George Abbot,
Archbishop of Canterbury after 1610

The translators present their work to King James

The King James Bible 1611

A title-page that avoids looking like mere royalist government propanda

(showing the Twelve Apostles, rather than the English monarch!)

no doctrinal commentary,

no doctrinal commentary

just a few marginal notes to explain Greek and Hebrew terms;

elegantly printed,

elegantly printed

with modest, uncontroversial headnotes.

The there was, alas, a nasty Preface, dedicating the whole Bible :

and continuing:

Its unpleasantly aggressive toward Roman Catholics and Puritans:

But what does that matter? We can skip the fawning Dedication to King James;
we can forget what King James himself was like.

The King James Bible will always be the greatest English Bible
not because it was a fresh translation (it wasnt; 70% of the KJB New Testament is simply Tyndale),

but because it was the final perfection of nine decades of development in English Bible translation.

The first decade of King James reign saw the mature perfection of the English language.

It was the age of Shakespeares

final plays, for instance.

The political background of the King James Bible is sordid. King James himself is an obscene figure.

And his revised translation did not fulfil his political goals.

For although its literary excellence drove all competitors from the market; although it soon became the English Bible. although Papists and Puritans embraced it the Roman Catholics were never reconciled to the Church of England.

And, as for the Puritans, they rebelled against King James son, the saintly Charles Stuart,

defeated him, and martyred him.

The English dynasty King James founded was overthrown, its place eventually usurped by princes from Germany.

But the English Bible King James sponsored has never been overthrown, nor had its place usurped.

The glory of King James Bible has outlasted the disgraces and scandals of his reign the gunpowder and the spittle. In the end no one could resist it. It has dominated English literature and the English language ever since 1611, unaltered

except for printers errors! beginning with the so-called Printers Bible of 1612, its second year of publication:

Psalm cxix161 Princes have persecuted me without a cause

was misprinted as

Psalm cxix161 Printers have persecuted me without a cause

(Printers Bible of 1612)

Exodus xx14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.

(King James Bible)

Exodus xx14 Thou shalt commit adultery.

(The Adulterous Bible of 1631; printers fined 300; only 11 copies survive)

John viii11 Go and sin no more

(King James Bible)

John viii11 Go and sin on more

(Sin On Bible of 1716)

Psalm xiv1 the fool hath said in his heart there is no God

(King James Bible)

Psalm xiv1 the fool hath said in his heart there is a God

(The Fools Bible of 1763; printers fined 3000; all copies ordered destroyed)

Marko Antun Domniani[ (or de Dominis) Archbishop of Split 1602, Dean of Windsor 1618; died a prisoner of the Inquisition in Rome 1624

St Georges Chapel, Windsor

Title-page, 1611

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