And some of those roots are very solidly Catholic:


The controversy: I love the King James, and also the Rheims New Testament, which is probably the largest single contributing translation for the King James N.T.


Yet there is an impolitic fact of history, as I call it -- one which we evangelicals have been slow to admit. The King James Version, which we might well claim as "our" version of the Bible, hardly began at the evalngelical or 'low-church' wing of Protestant Christianity. In fact, quite the reverse is true. The KJV, successor to the Bishops' Bible, was the officially sanctioned translation of the liturical and episcopal authoritarian wing of Anglo-Christianity. It represented, in fact, a repudiation of the more intense and warmly evangelical aspects of the puritan or low-church wing of English believers.

It's ironic, so much of that period of time was colored by political hostilities. Spain, all through the preceding millennium, almost, had been the dominant cultural and intellectual center for Europe. Those days when much of Europe was mired in illiteracy and poverty, the tiny islands of light and relative prosperity were basically monasteries. Of course Jewish communities, isolated as they were, also set an example of work and literacy and their own peculiar interest in washing and cleanliness.


Spain was at that time much the beneficiary of the learning and culture of Jews and Moors, while at the same time harshly rejecting each for its 'miscreance.'


When Christians gained control, they inherited the wealth (and took inspiration from the culture), but proceeded to stamp out the pluralism that had probably contributed so much to Andalusian flourishing. (The religious right these days should consider and be warned.)


The Church was grateful for the blessing that came their way thanks to Columbus (a devout believing Christian), but when forced to decide between upstart England (and its shop-keeping middle class values), and venerable Espana, they chose Espana. Billions upon billions in Gold from Spanish lands had been pouring into Europe, into the Church, and western civilization owes a measure of gratitude to the Aztecs and Mayans and Incans .....


Queen Elizabeth, who very much embodied the shop-keeping and middle class values of England, was decreed anathema by the Church. The English were enjoined, (called upon), to rise up and overthrow her illegitimate sovereignty. She was decreed outside the protection of the Church, decreed NOT a Christian, and the Pope solemnly pronounced doom upon her, and upon England if it did not over throw her.


Even the world's super-power at the time, Spain, was sent to try to remedy things. In 1588, the Armada circled England, but the engagement turned out to be unfavorable to Spain, to southern Europe, to the continent of Europe still faithful to the Church of Rome.


Elizabeth's death brought James of Scotland to the throne. Both his parents were, to their deaths, loyal to the Church of Rome. It is said James earnestly wished to effect a reconciliation. Alas, no sooner had he assumed the throne of England, than secret agents of Spain attempted to assassinate him. (Remember remember, the 5th of November.) So much for a Reconciliation.


But James cordially hated, detested the low-church, bible-thumping Puritans. He knew the Bible rather well himself, we are told, and his reaction to Puritan moralizing and fanatacizing was one that bordered on horror and disgust. He felt they misinterpreted scripture atrociously, that they (like the disciples) knew not what spirit they were of, that they were often guilty of pharisaical arrogance and blindness.


He quietly instructed the translators to stick to the old theological usages. In other words, the reliable Latinity of the Vulgate. Thus, the Rheims New Testament sounds so very much like its daughter translation, the King James. And the Puritans hated both.


James Stuart (Stewart) was almost wedded to one particular Biblical fetish of his own, the authoritarian sanction (ordained by the Holy Spirit) of God's Anointed. As the world has liberalized and modernized, we tend to scorn or mistrust that ideal -- the divine right of kings.


Because Puritanism, in surely the majority of its variant forms, dissented from James establishment view of Authority, their relations with Throne and Altar became strained, to say the least. The English Civil War was the ultimate consequence of this political tension, but in the meantime, refugees from the conflict poured into "Virginia" -- as the English claims in America were called, in honor of Elizabeth I.


In colonial New England they largely did not use the King James Bible, considered subversive because of its high church (liturgical) origins. In the southern colonies they were conversely leery of the Puritan "Geneva Bible" which seemed to have an anti-authoritarian, anti-liturgical, anti-monarchical spin to it. So for several generations, Boston and New England retained their favored Geneva Version, while to the south, Virginia etc freely used the King James Bible.

ut unum sint       Let us pray to the Holy Ghost for Catholic and       Protestant Christians: that they take their stand not on schools of thought       but on the Gospel of Christ, that they may have no desire to "win" in discussion, that truth and love be wholly identified in them, that they should strive not to perpetuate differences       but to resolve them, that their hearts' desire should be not the drawing of       frontiers but the finding of common ground. [from the book "That the World May Believe"]       Sheed & Ward, Inc., 1963       Imprimatur       Rottenburgi, die 15 Decembris 1962       Vicarius Generalis Dr. Knaupp UT UNUM SINT John xvii. 20-21 Father K�ng

site created by
Bob Shepherd

to email me