The Geneva and the King James Bibles: Legacies of Reading Practices

• Published in: Bunyan studies no. 15; p. 11
• Main Author: Molekamp, Femke
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newcastle Upon Tyne Northumbria University, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences 01.01.2011
• Subjects: British & Irish literature; Bunyan, John (1628-1688); English literature
• ISSN: 0954-0970

The King James Bible (hereafter KJB) has been described as 'the most celebrated book in the English-speaking world', and 'the most important book in the English language', a remarkably enduring and influential 'triumph' of biblical translation.1 The 'Newe Translation' (as the KJB advertised itself) of 1611 was not so very innovatory a production, however, either in terms of translation or of the reading practices which the organisation of the text, and its surrounding paratexts, encouraged. First published in 1560, by the early seventeenth century the Geneva Bible had already profoundly altered the reading of the scriptures in Britain, through its affordability, accessibility and its reputation for accuracy of translation. Roman quartos from 1587 onwards use Laurence Tomson's revised translation of the New Testament, and from 1 599 they have the addition of Franciscus Junius' s extensive anti-papist notes to Revelation, replacing the original notes.11 The black letter editions did not incorporate Tomson's revised New Testament, or Junius' s notes. [...]we can observe that the reader of the Geneva roman quarto was being offered the latest in continental biblical scholarship, while the black letter reader was being carefully educated in the basics of bible-reading and theology. In the Geneva Bible prefatory address 'To the Christian Reader', the translators explain that, regarding Hebrew names, many of the Ebrewe names be altered from the old text, and restored to the true writing and first original, whereof they have their signification, yet in the usual names little is changed for feare of troubling the simple readers.14 The KJB argues for a similar helping hand to the simple reader, but manages in the process to blame both Puritan and Papist vocabulary for having confusing effects: we have on the one side avoided the scrupulosity of the Puritanes, who leave the olde Ecclesiasticall words, and betake them to other, as when they put washing for Baptisme, and Congregation in stead of Church: as also on the other side we have shunned the obscuritie of the Papists, in their Azimes, Tunike, Rational Holocausts, Prapuce, Pasche, and a number of such like, whereof their late Translation is full, and that of purpose to darken the sense, that since they must needs translate the Bible, yet by the language thereof, it may bee kept from being understood.