The Making of the King James Bible

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Anglican church, Bbile Lands Museum, Book of Books, Gordon Campbell, Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Elizabeth the First

The scholarly, initerdenominational audience burst into delighted applause when the distinguished lecturer, Professor Gordon Campbell of Leicester University, said: “As I recently told the bishop, the true purpose of holy matrimony is not the procreation of children but the procreation of grandchildren.”

In his lecture entitled ‘The Making of the King James Bible,’ Professor Campbell  combined erudition with charm and humour, keeping the packed audience spellbound throughout his address. This was given to mark the opening of a stunning exhibition of ‘The Book of Books’ in Jerusalem’s Bible Lands Museum, tracing the history of the Bible and its various texts over more than 2,000 years.

After describing the process of education in English schools in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whereby texts in various classical languages – Latin, Greek, Aramaic, Syriac, and eventually Hebrew, too – were translated back and forth, into both poetry and prose versions, Professor Campbell came to the Bible’s ‘only begetter,’ King James himself.

“Like most good things,” Professor Campbell stated, “the translation of the Bible into English started first in Scotland and was then taken over by the English.” Upon the death of Queen Elizabeth the First, who was childless, her nephew, the son of Queen Mary of Scots (whom Elizabeth had executed), was summoned from Scotland, where he was already reigning, to assume the throne, or, as Professor Campbell put it “to do a bit of moonlighting, as the pay in England was better.”

King James was in fact the person who approved the project of making a new English translation of the Bible, overriding the opposition of the bishops and ensuring that the commentaries which had been included in a previous translation, and which indicated that in some cases disobeying a king was permissible, were omitted. After all, being the monarch, he wasn’t going to accept that idea. And as he was king, his word went.

And so, it seems, since the distinguished linguists who were appointed to translate the sacred texts were accustomed to translating into poetry, and since the texts were intended to be read aloud, as not very many people could read, or even recited by heart, as was the practice at the time, the endeavour resulted in the rolling, sonorous verses which we have come to know as the King James Bible.

In a touching aside, explaining that as any actor knows, it is far easier to learn poetry by heart than prose, Professor Campbell told his audience that when he and his wife were married forty-seven years earlier (“in a trial marriage, intending to review our situation after the first seventy years”) they had adopted what he termed ‘the nicest thing any daughter-in-law ever said to her mother-in-law’ for their marriage vows: “Whither thou goest I shall go, thy people shall be my people,” etc. (More applause from the enraptured audience.)

The Hebrew of those phrases uses repetition and phrasing that is characteristic of Classical Hebrew, while the English consists of a series of expressions that are almost monosyllabic, and create their effect through their idiosyncratic use of the English language. In Genesis, too, the Hebrew verses are often clothed in iambic pentameters that could have been written by Shakespeare (but weren’t), because that was what was considered good style at the time.

On a personal note, I might add that the King James Bible is full of translation errors and inaccuracies, and has been superseded by more modern translations. But none of those embodies the beauty and literary richness of that earlier version.

Professor Campbell concluded his talk by enumerating just a few of the expressions that have entered the English language, becoming idioms, or even clichés, by virtue of their translation in the King James Bible. These include such phrases as ‘bite the dust,’ ‘see eye to eye,’ and many others. Showing a slide of the frontispiece of the first edition of the King James Bible, which appeared in 1611 and shown above, the lecturer pointed out that Moses is on the left-hand side and the figure of Aaron on the right. This was to serve the Anglican bishops’ rebuttal of the Puritan view that no intermediary was needed between man and God. Aaron embodies the priesthood, which the Anglican church regards as its representing.

The exhibition, which displays numerous versions of the Bible in innumerable languages from all over the world and from different periods, will be on display here in Jerusalem for six months before going on to other countries.

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Les fonts dangereuses

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Fractur font, International Herald Tribune, international New York Times, N.S.D.A.P., San Diego Jewish World, The Balancing Game, Time Out of Joint

 

 

 

 I wanted to prepare a suitable version of the advertisement for my book, ‘The Balancing Game’ for inclusion in the website of the San Diego Jewish World, which posts my articles from time to time and whose motto is ‘There is a Jewish Story Everywhere.’ For this purpose I enlisted the help of one of my sons who, among his many talents, is also a designer and a computer whiz.

 “Oh, no!” he exclaimed when I showed him the SDJW site on my computer, “not Fractur font. That’s what the Nazis used!”

 It seemed to me that the editor had chosen a perfectly respectable, possibly quaint, gothic font for the paper’s logo. Furthermore, it is the font used by the august, now defunct, ‘International Herald Tribune,’ as well as by its successor, ‘The International New York Times.’ The effect it had on me was to call to mind ancient texts and artistic calligraphy, but obviously my son’s association was very different.

 Just to be on the safe side, I decided to try to verify what my son claimed. I remembered that tucked away somewhere in one of the three large files of documents, letters and other material that my late father had brought with him out of Nazi Germany in 1938 were a couple of posters put up by the Nazi party and presumably taken down by Dad clandestinely.

 Luckily, years before, when I had first opened those venerable files and inspected their contents I decided to index them. My father had put everything in alphabetical and chronological order, but I had removed the yellowing pages from their rusting ring-binders and, keeping their order, placed them in three plastic box-files.

 All I had to do was look at the index page at the front of each box file, and within minutes I had found what I was looking for. Sure enough, right at the end of the last of the files, the one containing material from between 1932 and 1934, were two folded-up posters, evidently dating from 1932, both screaming exhortations to the German public to vote for the National-Socialist Party (N.S.D.A.P.), and of course the lettering used was the Fractur font that my son had immediately identified. At first sight, the text seemed fairly innocuous.

 In 8 months

2 million workers have lost their jobs and are starving!

Get rid of the class struggle and its parties!

Smite Bolshevism!

Defeat provincialism!

One Reich

Will restore order and cleanliness!

One nation–

One Reich–

One leader!

That is what will be achieved under Hitler’s leadership!

Hitler will

Set the country to rights and restore its honour!

Germany’s honour is your honour!

Germany’s fate is also your fate!

Vote Yes!

For Hitler and the N.S.D.A.P.

We all know what happened next. However, it seems a shame that this elegant and artistic font should arouse such ugly associations. Such, it would seem, is the power of print and visual association.

The sight of the posters seemed to stun my son. For someone born and brought up in Israel, for whom the Holocaust and the tragedy of the Jews of Europe is something he has learned about from history books or possibly heard about from survivors, to see and touch such tangible evidence from that terrible time was a moving experience.

The posters were printed on poor-quality paper, and are beginning to deteriorate. They are large, measuring 32 inches by 23, and are hence too big to go into my photocopier.

Just for the record, however, I have included the text of that poster in my forthcoming novel, ‘Time Out of Joint: the Fate of a Family,’ which deals, inter alia, with the political currents which swept through Europe in the first half of the twentieth century.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Butter, margarine, oil

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A.A.Milne, canola oil, cholesterol, hardening of the arteries, olive oil, The King's Breakfast

 

  

Time was when butter was almost a staple in every British household up and down the land. Then came the Second World War and rationing, so that butter was a severely restricted commodity. It may have been this situation that inspired A.A.Milne to write his poem ‘The King’s Breakfast,’ in which the King asked the Queen, and the Queen asked the Dairymaid: “Could we have some butter for the Royal slice of bread?”

 The long and short of the poem is that the King finally got some butter to put on his bread after declining to be fobbed off with marmalade. All’s well that ends well, perhaps, but what about his cholesterol level?

 A few decades ago cholesterol was discovered, or rather invented, since when humankind has been advised to desist from consuming butter, and to go for other foodstuffs. Margarine was touted as a suitable alternative for many years, despite its less than exciting taste and marketers’ claims that it tasted ‘more like butter than butter itself.’ But now margarine is out of favour and we are all told by the health experts to go back to basic butter. Does this mean that nobody cares about our cholesterol level any more?

 The same process happened with oil. First one kind of oil, then another was deemed unhealthy because they promote the propagation of nasty radicals in our bloodstream, ultimately causing hardening of the arteries, congestion in blood vessels and other horrible things. There was only one oil that gained universally approval – canola oil (apart from olive oil, which apparently has beneficial properties).

 So we stocked up on canola oil, baked with it, cooked and fried with it, and generally felt that we were doing right by our families.

 But lo and behold! Now canola oil is denigrated, demoted and disparaged. It, too, causes nasty radicals to be fruitful and multiply, and is no longer recommended. So what is a person to do?

 Have you tried baking biscuits (cookies to those of you in the US) with olive oil? Or any oil instead of butter or margarine? It just doesn’t work. My daughter-in-law, who is an expert on matters concerning health and the culinary arts, has strictly forbidden me to bake anything ever again with margarine. That only leaves butter, the taste of which, as it happens, is anathema to certain members of my household who shall remain nameless.

 So when I baked the delicious tehina biscuits that I love and which are considerably less unhealthy than many of the other things I like to have with my morning coffee I used oil instead of butter.

 Big mistake.

 What I got were crumbs. Lots and lots of crumbs. Whenever I tried to pick up what resembled a biscuit on the baking tray, it crumbled away in my hand.

 The French wouldn’t dream of baking anything with margarine or oil. Butter abounds in the contents of whatever is sold in their patisseries. I don’t recall hearing that French people are any less healthy than anyone else in the world.

 What I’d like to know is what’s going to be banned next by the health food gurus.

 Meanwhile, it’s back to butter for me, and to hell with the consequences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crowning Glory?

 

 

Because as a child I was blessed (cursed?) with an unruly mop of thick, dark curls, every now and again my mother would take me to the local hairdresser to have my hair ‘thinned.’ I still remember the pain and indignity of the experience. Without saying a word, the lady in question would grab and pull my hair, jerking my head in the process, in order to gain access to the part she was about to cull. At times, in order to avoid these visits, I would take the big scissors out of my mother’s sewing box and chop off bits of hair myself. Naturally, the next time I was taken to the hairdresser she would accuse of me of the capital crime of cutting my own hair, which of course I denied.

Somehow I managed to grow up and on the whole to master my hair. Or perhaps it became more malleable with age. For a time I kept it long, but after my children arrived on the scene it seemed more sensible and practical to cut it short. Thus, for many years I had cropped hair, and found the arrangement very convenient. I still visited a hairdresser from time to time, but when you’re an adult you have more say with regard to what the hairdresser may or may not do.

Or do you?

About a year ago, as a major family celebration was coming up, I decided to let my hair grow a little longer. I had been going to the same hairdresser for several years. She was a friendly, amiable lady who would chatter constantly – either to me or to someone else, occasionally even on the phone – while she attended to my hair. This was irritating, but I decided that her convenient location, low price and professional expertise offset the disadvantage.

When my hair was beginning to grow longer I needed the colour to be attended to, and so I made an appointment and went to her ‘salon’ (an annex to her house).

“I’ll just tidy you up at the back,” she said before embarking on the colouring process, and proceeded to wield her scissors.

Snip, snip, she went, and before I knew what was happening my hair was cut short again. Once the bit at the back had been cut she had to bring the rest of the hair into line with it. Perhaps my hair was not quite as short as in the previous months, but it was definitely shorter than it had been when I stepped inside the hairdresser’s emporium.

I went home in a state of shock. How had it happened that my efforts to let my hair grow had all come to naught in the twinkling of a pair of scissors?

By coincidence, a friend had been telling me about her hairdresser, praising his kind and caring nature and ability to wonders with any and every head of hair. His salon was a bit further away, but still not too far from my home to make it difficult to reach.

I decided to give him a try.

The next time I needed the colour attended to I went to him and he did a good job. I told him I was letting my hair grow, and he merely straightened my fringe, and refrained from cutting anything else. At the family celebration many people complimented me on my new hairstyle, and I felt that I had made the right decision.

And so I transferred my coiffeurial loyalty to Zalman (not his real name), and have continued trusting my hair to his hands ever since.

Yesterday I needed the colour attended to again. My hair had been cut short, at my instigation, for the summer, and was just beginning to get back to the length I like.

“I’ll just tidy you up at the back,” he said before embarking on the colouring process, and proceeded to wield his scissors.

Snip, snip, he went, and before I knew what was happening my hair was cut short again. Once the bit at the back had been cut he had to bring the rest of the hair into line with it. Perhaps my hair was not quite as short as in the previous months, but it was definitely shorter than it had been when I stepped inside the hairdresser’s emporium.

Once again, I went home in a state of shock.

Déjà vu all over again!

Note to self: Next time you go to the hairdresser, no matter who, where or when, be on your guard, and don’t accept any offer to ‘just tidy you up at the back.’