0:00:04 > 0:00:09Four centuries ago this year, a book was published which I think
0:00:09 > 0:00:12is the greatest work of English prose ever written.
0:00:15 > 0:00:19The words flow, and the meaning is true to the Greek.
0:00:19 > 0:00:21What more could you ask of a translation?
0:00:21 > 0:00:25Today, I know a lot of people consider it
0:00:25 > 0:00:27old-fashioned, impenetrable,
0:00:27 > 0:00:31from a turbulent but now largely forgotten age.
0:00:31 > 0:00:35Nothing is more political in this period than religion, and the Bible is at the heart of it.
0:00:35 > 0:00:41It has sold billions of copies since it was published in 1611.
0:00:41 > 0:00:46We shall read the word of God as we find it in the second epistle of Paul to the Corinthians...
0:00:46 > 0:00:52But in 2011, many reject it in favour of something more modern.
0:00:53 > 0:00:57Some people call it the Authorised Version of the Bible,
0:00:57 > 0:01:01but it's better known by its nickname...
0:01:01 > 0:01:03the King James Bible.
0:01:06 > 0:01:08My name is Adam Nicolson.
0:01:08 > 0:01:12I was first persuaded to look into the King James Bible when I was
0:01:12 > 0:01:16working as the so-called official historian of the Millennium Dome.
0:01:19 > 0:01:24I hated every moment of this taste of national politics.
0:01:24 > 0:01:31But it gave me surprising insights into the making of this great and powerful book.
0:01:31 > 0:01:3717th century England was a chaotic, violent, often bureaucratic place,
0:01:37 > 0:01:42the most unlikely beginnings for a book that would change the world,
0:01:42 > 0:01:44so how did they make it happen?
0:01:47 > 0:01:51In this programme, I look back to a world of religious pomp and majesty.
0:01:53 > 0:01:58If immense seriousness and linguistic skill,
0:01:58 > 0:02:03fraught with religious and political passions,
0:02:03 > 0:02:08to show how and why it produced the greatest book of all time.
0:02:20 > 0:02:24It's true the King James Bible is an old book.
0:02:24 > 0:02:28At 400 years old, it's from a very different era,
0:02:28 > 0:02:33so how can it still be the best translation around?
0:02:33 > 0:02:37To my mind, its beauty and strength come precisely
0:02:37 > 0:02:40from the extraordinary moment in which it was made.
0:02:43 > 0:02:50In 1603, James, King of Scotland, succeeded to the throne of England as James I.
0:02:51 > 0:02:54PEOPLE CHEER AND POLICE SIRENS WAIL
0:02:57 > 0:03:01He saw this new country as a glittering jewel,
0:03:01 > 0:03:05a peach of a kingdom juicy with promise.
0:03:07 > 0:03:11At its core was the grandeur of Westminster Abbey.
0:03:15 > 0:03:20Here you sense the royalness of God and the godliness of kings.
0:03:22 > 0:03:26James was not just King of England.
0:03:26 > 0:03:28He was also head of the Church of England.
0:03:28 > 0:03:34He once said he had about him "sparkles of the divinity",
0:03:34 > 0:03:38as if the clothes he was wearing were sequined with godliness.
0:03:41 > 0:03:45This is the heart of the Abbey, packed with English Kings,
0:03:45 > 0:03:47and there is no doubt here
0:03:47 > 0:03:51that God and the Crown are intimately bound together.
0:03:51 > 0:03:54This would have been James's dream.
0:03:57 > 0:04:01He saw himself as the summit of a great religious pyramid.
0:04:03 > 0:04:06The bishops were below him and then the priests.
0:04:06 > 0:04:13Together, they upheld his authority in churches up and down the country.
0:04:13 > 0:04:17But all was not well in this royal paradise.
0:04:18 > 0:04:24Not everyone shared James's glorious vision of Church and State.
0:04:25 > 0:04:28For some, it was a living hell.
0:04:29 > 0:04:32And it was out of this turmoil and torment
0:04:32 > 0:04:38that I believe the seeds of a great and lasting Bible would be sown.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46You can still feel some of that tension on the bleak, muddy banks
0:04:46 > 0:04:49of the Humber Estuary.
0:04:49 > 0:04:53It was here in the 17th century that a radical sect attempted to
0:04:53 > 0:04:57flee England on board a coal ship to Holland.
0:05:00 > 0:05:06They were opposed to the established Church and so had set up separate, independent congregations.
0:05:07 > 0:05:11But according to historian Nick Bunker,
0:05:11 > 0:05:12it was a move that could be seen
0:05:12 > 0:05:15as a rejection of royal government itself.
0:05:16 > 0:05:19The authorities were making it quite clear to them
0:05:19 > 0:05:21that if they continued to function
0:05:21 > 0:05:23with their own independent congregations,
0:05:23 > 0:05:27then they could expect possibly prison sentences or even worse,
0:05:27 > 0:05:30so they really had no alternative but to find a place of refuge somewhere else.
0:05:32 > 0:05:36Around 80 women and children were on board a local barge
0:05:36 > 0:05:40waiting to go out to the Dutch ship that would take them to Holland.
0:05:41 > 0:05:46Now, the problem was the tides are treacherous, the wind can change and
0:05:46 > 0:05:49the mudflats go out about half a mile out into the estuary as we are now.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52What happened was that the barge got stuck in the mud, and so
0:05:52 > 0:05:56the women and children on board were forced to stay there overnight.
0:05:56 > 0:06:01At the same time, there were a group of men who had gathered on the seashore.
0:06:01 > 0:06:06The following day, the Dutch craft sent small boats down to the beach where we are now.
0:06:06 > 0:06:09The men were able to get onto the Dutch ship,
0:06:09 > 0:06:13but the women and children in the barge were stuck in the mud and they were arrested.
0:06:18 > 0:06:20So, were they subversives?
0:06:20 > 0:06:23Anti-King, anti-Church?
0:06:23 > 0:06:28No, but they were certainly very unhappy indeed with the official Church of England.
0:06:28 > 0:06:31They said it was unlawful, they said it was anti-Christian.
0:06:31 > 0:06:37They used language that could be regarded as seditious, and by sedition I mean it could
0:06:37 > 0:06:43be regarded as directly challenging the authority of the crown, which, of course, was a capital crime.
0:06:49 > 0:06:55The disaster on the mudflat here dramatised every great question of the age.
0:06:55 > 0:06:56Which mattered more -
0:06:56 > 0:07:00your private soul or a well-governed society?
0:07:00 > 0:07:03Freedom or order?
0:07:03 > 0:07:05Where did the ultimate authority lie?
0:07:05 > 0:07:09Was it with the word of God or with the King?
0:07:14 > 0:07:21This was a religious age, deeply divided about the path to salvation.
0:07:21 > 0:07:27The separatists saw church hierarchy and the splendour James so loved
0:07:27 > 0:07:30as a threat to their immortal souls,
0:07:30 > 0:07:33the road to eternal damnation.
0:07:39 > 0:07:40They were not alone.
0:07:40 > 0:07:46Across the country, thousands of other Protestants, called Puritans,
0:07:46 > 0:07:51also believed the established Church of England to be in direct violation
0:07:51 > 0:07:54of God's word in the Holy Scriptures.
0:07:57 > 0:08:03I've come to the 17th century Langley Chapel in Shropshire with Stephen Tomkins.
0:08:03 > 0:08:06He's chronicled the history of Christianity,
0:08:06 > 0:08:11and this is one of England's best-preserved Puritan churches.
0:08:12 > 0:08:19Well, this place is a perfect illustration, isn't it, of what Puritans wanted from a church?
0:08:19 > 0:08:23The plainness, the stripping away of all Catholicism, the stripping away
0:08:23 > 0:08:28of anything that might distract people from focusing on the word.
0:08:28 > 0:08:32And when you say Puritanism, what does that word really mean?
0:08:32 > 0:08:35Puritans were simply people who were not satisfied
0:08:35 > 0:08:39with how far the Reformation had yet come in England.
0:08:39 > 0:08:42Yes, they had got rid of the vast majority of what they thought of as
0:08:42 > 0:08:46Catholicism, but there would be still last niggling remnants,
0:08:46 > 0:08:47so, for example, the priests
0:08:47 > 0:08:51were still supposed to wear some of the traditional robes for church.
0:08:51 > 0:08:55People were still supposed to kneel to receive communion,
0:08:55 > 0:08:58which Puritans thought was a superstitious Catholic ritual,
0:08:58 > 0:08:59like Confirmation,
0:08:59 > 0:09:03there's no Confirmation in the Bible, so Puritans says that has to go.
0:09:03 > 0:09:07And so you get rid of all that all of those kind of toys,
0:09:07 > 0:09:12all the furniture of religion, and you're left with the Bible.
0:09:12 > 0:09:16That's right, there are no ornaments to distract,
0:09:16 > 0:09:19no stained glass to look at.
0:09:19 > 0:09:23You could hardly call this an altar, it's just more like a family table.
0:09:23 > 0:09:29All the focus is on the word being read from the Bible and then expounded by the preacher.
0:09:29 > 0:09:32And you have to sit on these extraordinarily uncomfortable pews
0:09:32 > 0:09:34with hardly any room to get your bum on it.
0:09:34 > 0:09:41Yeah, there's no concession made at all, is there? You're expecting your congregation to have endurance.
0:09:46 > 0:09:52The religious divisions in society threatened to undermine James's authority as king.
0:09:52 > 0:09:58He desperately needed to find a way to bind the two sides together.
0:09:58 > 0:10:03At the request of the Puritans, he agreed to a conference
0:10:03 > 0:10:07where all the outstanding issues could be discussed.
0:10:07 > 0:10:15Better to keep the moderate Puritans on side than leave them to stir up dissent out of view.
0:10:15 > 0:10:20This is where the idea of the King James Bible would be born.
0:10:27 > 0:10:30"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
0:10:30 > 0:10:34"And the earth was without form, and void
0:10:34 > 0:10:37"and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
0:10:37 > 0:10:41"And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."
0:10:41 > 0:10:48That's the incredible music of the King James Version, but try this, written in 2003.
0:10:48 > 0:10:55First off, nothing. No light, no time, no substance, no matter.
0:10:55 > 0:10:58Second off, God starts it all up and WHAP!
0:10:58 > 0:11:00Stuff everywhere!
0:11:00 > 0:11:04You couldn't really get two things further apart than that.
0:11:16 > 0:11:19Less than a year after his coronation,
0:11:19 > 0:11:22James summoned the rival factions to a conference
0:11:22 > 0:11:28at the extravagantly impressive Hampton Court Palace outside London.
0:11:30 > 0:11:36The moderate Puritan delegates and the bishops knew each other well.
0:11:36 > 0:11:40This was a meeting of rivals, not enemies.
0:11:40 > 0:11:45Still, each side must have hoped for concessions from the King.
0:11:45 > 0:11:48How would he play it?
0:11:48 > 0:11:51I got a taste of James's tactics
0:11:51 > 0:11:54from the chief curator at Hampton Court, Lucy Worsley.
0:11:56 > 0:11:59So this is the setup or something like it
0:11:59 > 0:12:01for the great conference in early 1604?
0:12:01 > 0:12:06Yep, we've got the red velvet chair for King James, we've got benches for the bishops,
0:12:06 > 0:12:11and this lonely humble form here is for the poor, poor Puritans.
0:12:11 > 0:12:13The focus of it all is the throne.
0:12:13 > 0:12:16Yes, so show a little respect, please.
0:12:16 > 0:12:18I know that I have to approach him on my knees.
0:12:18 > 0:12:22Bishops, Puritans, everyone, on their knees with my hands clasped.
0:12:22 > 0:12:26Total submission to royal authority and not looking him in the face.
0:12:26 > 0:12:30- Mm-hm. Very important. - Withdrawal in reverse, don't I?
0:12:30 > 0:12:33Still not looking him in the eye like that.
0:12:33 > 0:12:38- Quite right, and never turn your back on the King and never cross your arms in his presence.- God forbid!
0:12:38 > 0:12:41He has gathered around him a lot of the bishops and deacons of the Church.
0:12:41 > 0:12:46He has a pre-meeting with just the bishops, and the Bishops at first think,
0:12:46 > 0:12:49"This is great, he's saying he likes the Church of England.
0:12:49 > 0:12:50"It's a good thing."
0:12:50 > 0:12:53Then towards the end of his speech, he says, "But you know,
0:12:53 > 0:12:57"if a man has the pox for 40 years, he still needs to be cured,"
0:12:57 > 0:13:00and the bishops go, "Is he saying we've got the pox in our church?"
0:13:00 > 0:13:04Actually he is, he's questioning them and challenging them.
0:13:04 > 0:13:07On the second day, he gets rid of all but two of the bishops
0:13:07 > 0:13:11and has the four Puritans in to sit on this sad little bench there.
0:13:11 > 0:13:16They're described as being like plaintiffs, as if they've done something wrong.
0:13:16 > 0:13:18The King, he gave them a really hard time.
0:13:18 > 0:13:22He fired questions off at them like a machinegun, and he didn't like the answers either.
0:13:22 > 0:13:28So James is being rude to both sides of the Church and making both sides feel uncomfortable.
0:13:28 > 0:13:32Yes, definitely, he's a clever man, he's dividing and ruling,
0:13:32 > 0:13:33he's stirring things up.
0:13:33 > 0:13:37If he doesn't like what somebody says, he'll toss out some really crude insults.
0:13:37 > 0:13:39He'll say, "I give a turd for your argument!"
0:13:45 > 0:13:48It was a very bad tempered meeting.
0:13:48 > 0:13:51James was insulting bishop and Puritan alike.
0:13:51 > 0:13:57But I wonder if this wasn't quite canny, a sort of divide and rule by
0:13:57 > 0:14:03even-handed humiliation and a tactic to keep every card in James's hands.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12James was a seasoned operator.
0:14:12 > 0:14:16He knew that the only real solution was some kind of compromise.
0:14:16 > 0:14:23He wasn't going to countenance anything that threatened the backing of the bishops.
0:14:23 > 0:14:26But he couldn't quite afford to shut out the Puritans, either.
0:14:27 > 0:14:33His intuitive political skills are revealed in the official record of the conference.
0:14:35 > 0:14:40A 17th century copy is held at Trinity College in Cambridge.
0:14:40 > 0:14:45I looked at it with one of Hampton Court's curators, Brett Doleman.
0:14:45 > 0:14:50I think throughout this you will see that James is keen on discussion, but
0:14:50 > 0:14:56he's also keen that we don't get into the area where we are talking about reform of the Church hierarchies.
0:14:56 > 0:15:01He very much sees the bishops, who extreme Puritans want to get rid of,
0:15:01 > 0:15:04as being, part of the cement
0:15:04 > 0:15:07for his own royal authority, his supremacy over the Church.
0:15:07 > 0:15:12It's here in this book that we see him saying on two occasions, "No bishop, no king,"
0:15:12 > 0:15:17which means that for him there shouldn't be any real reforms, certainly not for the sake of reform.
0:15:17 > 0:15:23And how does the new translation of the Bible emerge from this complex political landscape?
0:15:23 > 0:15:25What is it that a Bible will do for him?
0:15:25 > 0:15:28Well, quite late on in the second day,
0:15:28 > 0:15:31one of the Puritans suggests that there might be a new translation of
0:15:31 > 0:15:34the Bible, because those which were allowed
0:15:34 > 0:15:37in the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, he says, were corrupt
0:15:37 > 0:15:40and not answerable to the truth of the original.
0:15:40 > 0:15:42James leaps on this idea,
0:15:42 > 0:15:44and that's the genesis for the Authorised Version
0:15:44 > 0:15:48right there in this account of the Hampton Court Conference.
0:15:48 > 0:15:51So all that's needed is a King's Bible for a King's Church?
0:15:51 > 0:15:57Yes, and James understands that a new authorised version of the Bible will add to his own supremacy
0:15:57 > 0:16:01and back up his view of what the Church of England should be.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07James wanted England to be a peaceful and balanced society
0:16:07 > 0:16:12and saw a new translation of the Bible as a key ingredient of that.
0:16:12 > 0:16:18But there was already a string of English Bibles, so why wouldn't any of them be good enough for the King?
0:16:26 > 0:16:30Cambridge University Library is home to some of the oldest editions
0:16:30 > 0:16:36of the English Bible, Bibles that pre-date the King James version.
0:16:38 > 0:16:45Including the grandfather of all English Bibles by the great Protestant martyr William Tyndale.
0:16:45 > 0:16:47He was a genius.
0:16:47 > 0:16:52We owe many of the all-time great phrases in English to his translation -
0:16:52 > 0:16:55"eat, drink and be merry", "rise and shine",
0:16:55 > 0:16:58"salt of the earth", "bald as a coot".
0:16:59 > 0:17:05But as Lori Anne Ferrell, a specialist on the translations, explained, James had problems
0:17:05 > 0:17:08with the seditious tone of many of Tyndale's words.
0:17:08 > 0:17:10Well, we can look here,
0:17:10 > 0:17:15I think theologically we can see a swipe at the Church.
0:17:15 > 0:17:19A rather large and very important swipe at the Church in Matthew 16:18,
0:17:19 > 0:17:21where Jesus is said to have said,
0:17:21 > 0:17:23"You are Peter and on this rock, I will build my church,"
0:17:23 > 0:17:27that very famous line always used to uphold the power of the papacy.
0:17:27 > 0:17:32Here, Tyndale has it translated this,
0:17:32 > 0:17:37"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my congregation."
0:17:37 > 0:17:42It sounds almost absurd, you can't really build a congregation, can you?
0:17:42 > 0:17:45I mean, that is so...propagandist.
0:17:45 > 0:17:50What it could be saying, simply, is the Pope does not make the Church,
0:17:50 > 0:17:53nor do the priests, it's the congregation.
0:17:53 > 0:17:57But you can assume that James reading that would throw up his hands.
0:17:57 > 0:18:00Well, he famously said, "No bishop, no king."
0:18:00 > 0:18:04I think he likes... all kings like the structure of the institutional Church.
0:18:06 > 0:18:10'Any assault on Church structure - and as head of that Church,
0:18:10 > 0:18:13'on the King's authority - was clearly unacceptable.'
0:18:15 > 0:18:20'There was an alternative Bible James could have considered.'
0:18:20 > 0:18:24Now, here we have the 1560s Geneva Bible.
0:18:24 > 0:18:31'It had been translated by English Protestant refugees in Geneva, one of the centres of the Reformation.'
0:18:31 > 0:18:33Look how worn out it is. Look, it's already...
0:18:33 > 0:18:40'But the problem was that this Bible contained equally treasonable annotations.'
0:18:40 > 0:18:46What he probably doesn't like is the characterisation, especially in the Old Testament, of kings as tyrants.
0:18:46 > 0:18:53For example, the story of Herod, one of the notes to Matthew 2:20 says,
0:18:53 > 0:18:59"God hath infinite means to preserve them from the rage of tyrants."
0:18:59 > 0:19:02Not the rage of Herod, the rage of tyrants.
0:19:02 > 0:19:06And James would have felt that he was lumped together in that, would he?
0:19:06 > 0:19:11There's a king club, I think, or there's a way of thinking about yourself as a king
0:19:11 > 0:19:14that transcends being lumped with bad kings.
0:19:15 > 0:19:19James wasn't the first monarch to baulk at this sort of language.
0:19:19 > 0:19:2535 years earlier, Elizabeth I ordered a translation designed to buttress the crown.
0:19:25 > 0:19:30This is the Elizabethan Bishops' Bible. My god!
0:19:30 > 0:19:34It weighs as much as a bishop! It's the size of an Elizabethan bishop.
0:19:34 > 0:19:39- Tell me about that.- Well, to begin with, it weighs more than I do,
0:19:39 > 0:19:44and look what we have here, a spectacularly young Elizabeth.
0:19:44 > 0:19:48This is state proclamation and the word of God completely fused.
0:19:48 > 0:19:50What's wrong with the Bishops' Bible?
0:19:50 > 0:19:53Well, it was just bad!
0:19:53 > 0:19:55Even churches didn't purchase it.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58There's a lot of bad translating.
0:19:58 > 0:20:01There's some real clunkers in here.
0:20:01 > 0:20:05Here's an example, it's Ecclesiastes 11:1.
0:20:05 > 0:20:06Why don't you read it?
0:20:06 > 0:20:09This is actually a very famous biblical verse,
0:20:09 > 0:20:12but it sounds completely incomprehensible in this version.
0:20:12 > 0:20:19"Lay thy bread upon wet faces and so shalt thou find it after many days".
0:20:19 > 0:20:25Well, I think it does try to translate "Cast thy bread upon the waters", which is meant to mean
0:20:25 > 0:20:26"give to the poor",
0:20:26 > 0:20:29because it will return to you in some good form later.
0:20:29 > 0:20:34Right, unfortunately on their face. It seems to me that there's an issue
0:20:34 > 0:20:40here with the translation of the notion of surfaces, but "Lay thy bread upon wet faces" does not sing.
0:20:40 > 0:20:42It does, and it's not memorable.
0:20:42 > 0:20:44Well, it's for the wrong reasons!
0:20:48 > 0:20:52The Bishop's Bible had one thing going for it...
0:20:52 > 0:20:54its politics were closest to James's.
0:20:54 > 0:20:58Trouble is, no-one was reading it.
0:20:59 > 0:21:06James realised there was no choice but to order a new translation, one that people would read,
0:21:06 > 0:21:13that underlined his divine authority, but did not alienate the people who were his subjects.
0:21:13 > 0:21:18But how to reconcile these conflicting needs?
0:21:21 > 0:21:27The library also houses a document which reveals how James went about it.
0:21:27 > 0:21:31It's a stringent set of rules drawn up for the new translation.
0:21:33 > 0:21:35The commission for the new Bible
0:21:35 > 0:21:39was the only concession given to the Puritans at Hampton Court.
0:21:39 > 0:21:41They lost on every other issue.
0:21:41 > 0:21:44And what I see in the rules is attempts to control
0:21:44 > 0:21:49the particular points that were close to the hearts of Puritans.
0:21:49 > 0:21:52There are several that are relevant to this.
0:21:52 > 0:21:59The first of the rules is that the ordinary Bible read in churches, commonly called the Bishop's Bible,
0:21:59 > 0:22:05is to be followed, and as little altered as the truth of the original will permit.
0:22:05 > 0:22:11No marginal notes at all to be affixed but only for the explanation
0:22:11 > 0:22:13of Hebrew or Greek words.
0:22:13 > 0:22:17And the old Ecclesiastical words to be kept,
0:22:17 > 0:22:20and the examples that given.
0:22:20 > 0:22:22are "church" instead of "congregation".
0:22:22 > 0:22:27Another that is used is "baptise" instead of "wash".
0:22:27 > 0:22:29So there's a conscious choice there.
0:22:29 > 0:22:33And what is that choice? What does it represent?
0:22:33 > 0:22:38The Greek "baptiso" simply means to plunge something into water,
0:22:38 > 0:22:41so "wash" would be one way of rendering that,
0:22:41 > 0:22:45whereas "baptise" has a kind of liturgical association,
0:22:45 > 0:22:48and the Puritans didn't like that,
0:22:48 > 0:22:51and the same is true, the word behind church, "ecclesia",
0:22:51 > 0:22:56it simply means a gathering of like-minded people,
0:22:56 > 0:22:58so they wanted that translated "congregation",
0:22:58 > 0:23:03because the word "church" was so tied up with the existing establishment,
0:23:03 > 0:23:06with bishops and all that, that they wanted nothing to do with it.
0:23:06 > 0:23:13So Bishop's Bible, no Puritan words, no Puritan marginal notes.
0:23:13 > 0:23:16Do you think the Puritans were sold a dummy here?
0:23:16 > 0:23:21In a sense they were, in that they were brought in believing that this was their great chance.
0:23:21 > 0:23:25And in the end, well not in the end, in the beginning,
0:23:25 > 0:23:29the rules effectively strangled their ambitions.
0:23:30 > 0:23:34These early decisions about translating individual words
0:23:34 > 0:23:38would dictate the future beliefs of the Church of England.
0:23:38 > 0:23:40It would remain ceremonial...
0:23:40 > 0:23:42sacramental...
0:23:42 > 0:23:47hierarchical, very different from the Puritan model.
0:23:47 > 0:23:51So why did the Puritans not simply walk away?
0:23:51 > 0:23:58Well, don't forget, the new translation was still their idea.
0:23:58 > 0:24:01And they did leave their mark, as we shall see.
0:24:01 > 0:24:04But what's fascinating is the idea
0:24:04 > 0:24:09of a set of rules for what is meant to be, after all, God's own words.
0:24:11 > 0:24:15There's no hint in these rules of any divine inspiration
0:24:15 > 0:24:18or any thought of God coming down and somehow telling the translators
0:24:18 > 0:24:21what to do, nor even any suggestion
0:24:21 > 0:24:26of prayerfulness of people needing to be in the right frame of mind.
0:24:26 > 0:24:32These are the exact instructions of royal officials to be followed to the letter.
0:24:38 > 0:24:41All that was left now was to choose who would follow these rules.
0:24:49 > 0:24:54Surprisingly, James's plan was to appoint not one translator
0:24:54 > 0:24:58but an entire army of them!
0:24:58 > 0:25:02A committee no less, of more than 50 translators.
0:25:02 > 0:25:05A pint of Doom Bar, please.
0:25:06 > 0:25:09'Today, the idea that a committee is the best way
0:25:09 > 0:25:14'to produce a masterpiece sounds more like a recipe for disaster.'
0:25:18 > 0:25:23In 1999, I was given the job of writing the history of the Millennium Dome.
0:25:23 > 0:25:28It was meant to be the great single expression of British national consciousness.
0:25:28 > 0:25:35It turned out to be a second-rate mixture of funfair, trade show and
0:25:35 > 0:25:40propaganda for the already rather tarnished idea of Cool Britannia.
0:25:43 > 0:25:45It was one of the worst years of my life,
0:25:45 > 0:25:48full of competing egos and manoeuvring politicians,
0:25:48 > 0:25:52and every one of them trying to get what they wanted out of the Dome.
0:25:52 > 0:25:58And that was not entirely unlike James's great project for a new Bible.
0:25:58 > 0:26:02He, too, wanted it to be a grand political statement,
0:26:02 > 0:26:04and a centrepiece of national life,
0:26:04 > 0:26:09and all driven along by some powerful and passionate people.
0:26:11 > 0:26:17Of course the new Bible was to be about God rather than about the world.
0:26:17 > 0:26:21But how did the King James Bible avoid the same fate?
0:26:23 > 0:26:29How did it steer clear of the muddle, the mediocrity and the speciousness of the Dome?
0:26:29 > 0:26:33How did the Jacobeans get it so right?
0:26:39 > 0:26:42Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples knew not
0:26:42 > 0:26:45that it was Jesus, and he said unto them,
0:26:45 > 0:26:50"Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find".
0:26:50 > 0:26:54Now that's a moment from the King James version, full of the sense
0:26:54 > 0:27:00of the miraculous, of the disciples meeting Jesus after the crucifixion.
0:27:00 > 0:27:04Now this is what some 20th century translators made of the same moment.
0:27:04 > 0:27:10"There stood Jesus on the beach, but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.
0:27:10 > 0:27:16He said "Shoot the net to starboard and you'll make a catch".
0:27:16 > 0:27:21For me, about as much atmosphere as a 1930s bathing party!
0:27:36 > 0:27:41There's no getting away from the levels of bureaucracy involved in the translation process.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44Around 50 translators were to be appointed
0:27:44 > 0:27:50to work in six separate sub-committees, or companies, as they were called.
0:27:54 > 0:27:58If the word company conjures up ideas of shareholders,
0:27:58 > 0:28:02targets, reporting systems, that's entirely right.
0:28:02 > 0:28:04In James's time, the model would have been
0:28:04 > 0:28:09the joint stock trading companies, the Levant or East India Company,
0:28:09 > 0:28:15set up to share risk and establish broad-based businesses in the new foreign markets.
0:28:15 > 0:28:18That pooling of many resources,
0:28:18 > 0:28:25in pursuit of a single enterprise, was exactly what James had in mind.
0:28:28 > 0:28:34But when did a committee ever produce a good idea, let alone a masterpiece?
0:28:37 > 0:28:39OK, I think we're ready to get started this afternoon.
0:28:39 > 0:28:44Today, most Biblical translations are still done by committee.
0:28:44 > 0:28:47There's three main Hebrew words to be considered.
0:28:47 > 0:28:52"Eved" is the most general, broad term that's typically rendered servant and sometimes slave.
0:28:52 > 0:28:56And for women who are in servitude, typically "Shifrah" and "Ama".
0:28:56 > 0:28:59All right thank you now...
0:29:00 > 0:29:04More surprising is that it seems many great literary works
0:29:04 > 0:29:07in Jacobean England were also done in this way.
0:29:07 > 0:29:11What we have been discovering in the world of Shakespeare scholarship,
0:29:11 > 0:29:14for example, is that Shakespeare is not a scholarly genius,
0:29:14 > 0:29:16but he's often collaborative.
0:29:16 > 0:29:23People work to deadlines and teams are the creatures that achieve deadlines.
0:29:23 > 0:29:26So just as in the theatres, a play was required a month from now,
0:29:26 > 0:29:30and it's a case of "you write out Act One and I'll do Act Two,"
0:29:30 > 0:29:37so the same kind of collaborative thinking goes quite naturally into the making of the King James Bible.
0:29:37 > 0:29:44There is an impulse to find a presiding genius who is behind the translation and there isn't one.
0:29:44 > 0:29:46The committees did it.
0:29:54 > 0:29:57So who exactly were the translators?
0:29:57 > 0:30:00And were they in it for the love of scripture?
0:30:02 > 0:30:06The translators represented a full cross-section of Jacobean England,
0:30:06 > 0:30:12or at least the part of it where court, politics, church and scholarship all met.
0:30:12 > 0:30:14But they were a pretty motley crew.
0:30:14 > 0:30:21Chief among the translators was a bishop and establishment man, Lancelot Andrews.
0:30:21 > 0:30:26He was a brilliant linguist, remembered also for his ruthless pursuit of Puritan radicals.
0:30:26 > 0:30:29Oh, yes, and he blew £3,000
0:30:29 > 0:30:35on an extravagant party for his benefactor, the King.
0:30:35 > 0:30:39There were some cynical court politicians among them,
0:30:39 > 0:30:44like Henry Savile, who made a huge fortune for himself milking colleges in Oxford and at Eton.
0:30:44 > 0:30:51Or James Montague, Editor of the Kings Collected Works, and an obsequious, flattering man.
0:30:53 > 0:30:59There were adventurers, like John Layfield, who'd been on a wild buccaneering trip to the Caribbean
0:30:59 > 0:31:04where he fought the Spanish, and may well have been the first Englishman to have eaten a pineapple.
0:31:04 > 0:31:11There were fierce preachers like George Abbot, who once arrested an entire church full of students
0:31:11 > 0:31:14because they hadn't taken their hats off when he came in.
0:31:14 > 0:31:17And there was a drunk, Richard Dutch Thompson,
0:31:17 > 0:31:21who it was said never went to bed one night sober,
0:31:21 > 0:31:24and was translating the fabulously obscene epigrams
0:31:24 > 0:31:29of the Latin poet, Martial, while doing Exodus in the daytime.
0:31:34 > 0:31:38For me, one of the reasons the King James Bible is so great,
0:31:38 > 0:31:42is that its translators were not genial, cloistered clergymen in
0:31:42 > 0:31:48their grey V-necks, they were fully engaged with the whole width and depth of their world.
0:31:48 > 0:31:55And perhaps that is why the King James Bible is so good, because its translators were not.
0:32:00 > 0:32:06But it was important that another sort of translator was also involved.
0:32:06 > 0:32:11Puritans needed to be central to the process, because with them onboard,
0:32:11 > 0:32:15no Puritan could claim that this was not his Bible.
0:32:16 > 0:32:23Sam Ward taught here at Sydney Sussex College in Cambridge.
0:32:23 > 0:32:28He was a very different type of translator but an equally complex character.
0:32:28 > 0:32:33We're lucky that his crabbed, personal diary has survived.
0:32:33 > 0:32:37It reveals the very troubled mind of a Puritan.
0:32:37 > 0:32:41The problems could be major or minor.
0:32:41 > 0:32:43Among the minor problems he felt he faced in his
0:32:43 > 0:32:48own life and being Godly, was his over indulgence in eating.
0:32:48 > 0:32:53There's a rather marvellous entry where he talks about,
0:32:53 > 0:32:57"Also my intemperance in eating too many plums."
0:32:57 > 0:33:00- And sometimes it got rather worse than that?- It could get worse.
0:33:00 > 0:33:06There are a few references to what he calls often adulterous dreams.
0:33:06 > 0:33:12And there's one particular entry when he refers to, "Oh, the grievous sins in T College,"
0:33:12 > 0:33:14which was Trinity College,
0:33:14 > 0:33:21"In which a woman was carried from chamber to chamber in the night-time."
0:33:21 > 0:33:27And then he goes on, and this is very personal of course, "My adulterous dream that night!"
0:33:27 > 0:33:31It's fascinating, isn't it, because it's like a form of moral rigor,
0:33:31 > 0:33:38not allowing the sloppiness of one's life to go by unseen, but to make everything known.
0:33:38 > 0:33:40Yes, there's a bringing to the surface.
0:33:40 > 0:33:45One might almost refer to psychoanalysis, in which everything has to be brought up.
0:33:45 > 0:33:50If you start here, then you're going to be acutely interested in
0:33:50 > 0:33:56absolute clarity of understanding in making sure you really know what you're dealing with, that in fact,
0:33:56 > 0:34:01you couldn't think of a better training for a translator than this?
0:34:01 > 0:34:04Yes, and it begins at the level of the extremely personal.
0:34:04 > 0:34:10By attending so precisely, almost like a detective, to every moment,
0:34:10 > 0:34:13you are probably getting as close
0:34:13 > 0:34:19as a human being can to some notion of the holy and the true.
0:34:24 > 0:34:27For me, the essence of the King James Bible lies precisely
0:34:27 > 0:34:31in the coming together of these two mentalities,
0:34:31 > 0:34:36the enriched, supremely well-stocked mind of people like Lancelot Andrews,
0:34:36 > 0:34:44and the clarifying rigorous light of Puritanism, the fusing of the two wings of the Church of England.
0:34:46 > 0:34:51Considered like this, it would have been inconceivable that the project
0:34:51 > 0:34:55should have been put in the hands of any one individual.
0:34:55 > 0:35:01The only mind that could have produced the King James Bible was the mind of England itself.
0:35:03 > 0:35:07So what exactly did it achieve?
0:35:07 > 0:35:09Why is the King James Bible so great?
0:35:13 > 0:35:18"Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said,
0:35:18 > 0:35:25'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word'"
0:35:25 > 0:35:29A famous verse of the King James version,
0:35:29 > 0:35:36full of its simplicity and dignity, and compare that to this rather wordy 18th century version.
0:35:36 > 0:35:41"Oh, God, thy promise to me is amply fulfilled.
0:35:41 > 0:35:46"I now quit the post of human life with satisfaction and joy."
0:35:54 > 0:35:58There are many reasons why the King James translation is so good,
0:35:58 > 0:36:02but I believe one of them is undoubtedly James himself.
0:36:04 > 0:36:08The traditional view of James is of a lustful, extravagant,
0:36:08 > 0:36:13weak Scotsman, addicted to the divine and absolute right of kings.
0:36:17 > 0:36:20But he had great virtues, too,
0:36:20 > 0:36:24particularly in his early years on the English throne.
0:36:27 > 0:36:29James was a very clever man.
0:36:29 > 0:36:32He's the only person ever to have sat on the English throne
0:36:32 > 0:36:36who had his works collected in a single handsome volume.
0:36:36 > 0:36:40And that's him up there giving them to the University of Oxford.
0:36:40 > 0:36:44Intellectual, highly articulate, obsessed with language.
0:36:44 > 0:36:49This rare coming together of wordiness and monarchy created
0:36:49 > 0:36:54the perfect conditions for a great and kingly translation of the Bible.
0:36:58 > 0:37:01There's no doubt this Bible was a political project.
0:37:01 > 0:37:04But it was much more than that.
0:37:04 > 0:37:08James encouraged rigorous scholarship.
0:37:08 > 0:37:11This is the library at Merton College, Oxford,
0:37:11 > 0:37:15where one of the translators, Henry Savile, worked.
0:37:15 > 0:37:16What I'm struck by
0:37:16 > 0:37:22is the thoroughness of these 17th century scholars.
0:37:22 > 0:37:27Now this, I think, is a grammar of Hebrew?
0:37:27 > 0:37:29What you've done for me, very helpfully actually,
0:37:29 > 0:37:31is set this book down the wrong way.
0:37:31 > 0:37:34Even in the period it was called the left-hand book
0:37:34 > 0:37:37because you need to turn it that way, and work for us,
0:37:37 > 0:37:43as it were, from back to front and from right to left when reading what
0:37:43 > 0:37:49is, in this case, a grammar of the Syriac or Chaldean Semitic language.
0:37:49 > 0:37:53It's a grammar that would simply help scholars like Savile
0:37:53 > 0:37:57and the other translators understand those early Hebrew witnesses.
0:37:57 > 0:37:59How good were they at it?
0:37:59 > 0:38:03I mean, how good was Savile's scholarship, say?
0:38:03 > 0:38:04Can one see anything?
0:38:04 > 0:38:08This, in fact, is a very good example of some of the best evidence
0:38:08 > 0:38:11we have that Savile actually knew what he was reading,
0:38:11 > 0:38:13because you can see him making Hebrew,
0:38:13 > 0:38:17or Chaldea to be strict about it, annotations in the margin.
0:38:17 > 0:38:20So that really does show us that many of these men were,
0:38:20 > 0:38:26for the standards of their day, very much up to speed with Oriental languages, as they called them.
0:38:26 > 0:38:32I don't think I've ever seen any evidence that is clearer than this of how careful they were.
0:38:32 > 0:38:34It is not a casual political project this.
0:38:34 > 0:38:38This is a deeply scholarly enterprise.
0:38:38 > 0:38:43Absolutely, and it's the common denominator that actually helps to create the umbrella
0:38:43 > 0:38:48under which James assembled a rather diverse group of people in terms of Church politics.
0:38:52 > 0:38:58There was a very good reason why the translators should be obsessed by precision.
0:38:58 > 0:39:06Their task was to transmit into English what they considered to be divinely inspired, the Word of God.
0:39:06 > 0:39:09And you couldn't be cavalier with that.
0:39:09 > 0:39:15Total fidelity to the original, total transmission to the people.
0:39:15 > 0:39:18That was the mountain they were faced with.
0:39:21 > 0:39:25Nearly all the documents recording their discussions have disappeared.
0:39:25 > 0:39:30But in the 20th century, a special copy of the Bishop's Bible,
0:39:30 > 0:39:36the principle text used by the translators, was found in the Bodleian Library in Oxford,
0:39:36 > 0:39:39where it had been lurking, unnoticed, for centuries.
0:39:39 > 0:39:46It contained notes made as they worked on improving the meaning of specific passages.
0:39:46 > 0:39:49I looked at a famous verse from the Book of Luke,
0:39:49 > 0:39:53which tells the story of Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.
0:39:53 > 0:39:59The original text, the printed text, says, "Elizabeth's time came
0:39:59 > 0:40:03"that she should be delivered and she brought forth a son."
0:40:03 > 0:40:07And what do they do to it? How do they enrich that?
0:40:07 > 0:40:11Well, whereas "Elizabeth's" is the first word in the Bishop's Bible,
0:40:11 > 0:40:13the word "now" is placed in the margin,
0:40:13 > 0:40:17so it becomes "Now Elizabeth's time came."
0:40:21 > 0:40:23And where does "now" come from?
0:40:23 > 0:40:29Well, it's one of those words that exists in Greek that means that the action is moving on.
0:40:29 > 0:40:33Normally it's not translated because English isn't a language
0:40:33 > 0:40:37in which you have to keep saying "and next and next and after that."
0:40:37 > 0:40:42But if by saying "now" we do get this sort of sudden surge of vitality?
0:40:42 > 0:40:45Absolutely, and that that meaning is rooted in the Greek text.
0:40:45 > 0:40:49It's both more faithful and it gives the sense of drama
0:40:49 > 0:40:52that you articulate in the way you read the phrase.
0:40:52 > 0:40:58So now we have "a time came" crossed out and he's replaced it with two things then.
0:40:58 > 0:41:03Yes, now the first time, it's replaced with "was fulfilled."
0:41:06 > 0:41:09- And what was wrong with that? - Well, nothing was wrong with it.
0:41:09 > 0:41:15Much is right with it, in that the Greek word 'pletho', as in plethora,
0:41:15 > 0:41:18means filled, so it's an improvement
0:41:18 > 0:41:23on the original text in terms of faithfulness to the Greek.
0:41:23 > 0:41:25But they've rejected "was fulfilled"
0:41:25 > 0:41:29and replaced it with "full time came"?
0:41:29 > 0:41:34It's a wonderful phrase, and that notion of full time is a phrase
0:41:34 > 0:41:39invented by these translators, and is actually a literal translation,
0:41:39 > 0:41:42because the Greek says "full time".
0:41:42 > 0:41:49But its also very brilliant metaphorical thing, that it's the time of her fullness, her pregnancy,
0:41:49 > 0:41:53and the time of her fulfilment as the mother of John the Baptist.
0:41:53 > 0:41:57There is a kind of, you know, multiplicity packed in there,
0:41:57 > 0:42:01but without any strain, there's no straining of the language.
0:42:01 > 0:42:04Absolutely, so the words flow, which is what you need when you're
0:42:04 > 0:42:09reading it aloud, and the density of meaning is true to the Greek.
0:42:09 > 0:42:12What more could you ask of a translation?
0:42:22 > 0:42:29Nothing is more important in the 17th century world than getting the words of the Bible right.
0:42:29 > 0:42:34And the translators address that partly through the seriousness of their scholarship and partly
0:42:34 > 0:42:41through the absolute clarity of the language they use, something vital for the Puritan wing of the church.
0:42:41 > 0:42:48But for me, there's a third element, the thing that makes the Bible sing in these translators' hands,
0:42:48 > 0:42:55and that is the close and vivid attention they pay to the way the words sound.
0:42:58 > 0:43:05It's possible to see first-hand just how much importance they placed on this aspect of the translation.
0:43:05 > 0:43:11A copy of some notes taken during the final revision stage has survived.
0:43:11 > 0:43:14It's held by Corpus Christi College in Oxford.
0:43:18 > 0:43:21This is the President's lodgings in the college,
0:43:21 > 0:43:27and it's one of the few rooms in England where we know for sure that the translation actually happened.
0:43:27 > 0:43:29One of the committees met here.
0:43:29 > 0:43:32Now the Bible that they were planning to make here was something
0:43:32 > 0:43:35that had to be read in church every Sunday,
0:43:35 > 0:43:38something which would reach the people through their ears.
0:43:38 > 0:43:42The ear is the key organ in this whole story.
0:43:42 > 0:43:47And so when it came to that final revising committee, the way in which
0:43:47 > 0:43:52the editors worked was that someone would read out the suggestion,
0:43:52 > 0:43:55and others sitting around would listen to it,
0:43:55 > 0:43:59and if it didn't work for the ear, then it didn't work for them.
0:43:59 > 0:44:06And there is one particular moment in these notes, made by one of the scholars,
0:44:06 > 0:44:11which sings out to me, there's a word in there which absolutely radiates.
0:44:11 > 0:44:16Something that reveals a central quality of the King James Bible.
0:44:16 > 0:44:19The verse they're working on says,
0:44:19 > 0:44:23"Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever."
0:44:23 > 0:44:25But one of the scholars objects,
0:44:25 > 0:44:28and he says it should say,
0:44:28 > 0:44:33"Yesterday and today, the same, and forever."
0:44:33 > 0:44:36A slight tinkering with the word order, no more than that,
0:44:36 > 0:44:39but the interesting thing is his justification for it,
0:44:39 > 0:44:41and he's talking in Latin
0:44:41 > 0:44:45because that's how scholars spoke to each other then, and he says,
0:44:45 > 0:44:47"Si hoc modo verba collocentur..."
0:44:47 > 0:44:50"If the words are arranged in this way..."
0:44:50 > 0:44:53and then he goes into a mixture of Greek and Latin,
0:44:53 > 0:44:56HE SPEAKS LATIN AND GREEK
0:44:56 > 0:45:00"..the sentence will be more majestic."
0:45:00 > 0:45:02Majestic.
0:45:02 > 0:45:06It's the only time that word appears in the notes,
0:45:06 > 0:45:10but it is a central quality of what these men were about.
0:45:11 > 0:45:17As well as scholarly rigor, and all that Puritan clarity,
0:45:17 > 0:45:20they also need this kingly grandeur,
0:45:20 > 0:45:26a royal music, a greatness overarching the whole translation.
0:45:32 > 0:45:36For me, this sense of majesty is one of the reasons
0:45:36 > 0:45:40for the lasting appeal of the King James Bible.
0:45:40 > 0:45:48The language is dense with a kind of verbal sumptuousness which flows effortlessly from the translators.
0:45:48 > 0:45:53And I think that's in large part down to the period in which they lived.
0:45:58 > 0:46:01This is Hatfield House in Hertfordshire.
0:46:01 > 0:46:06It was completed in the same year the Bible was published, 1611,
0:46:06 > 0:46:10for James's Secretary of State, Robert Cecil.
0:46:12 > 0:46:17Its furnishings are rich and lavish, just like the King James Bible.
0:46:17 > 0:46:21But they are illuminated by the pure, clear light of the windows,
0:46:21 > 0:46:26a fusion of old and new, which is typical of the age.
0:46:27 > 0:46:32The Great Hall is a very, very ancient type of interior.
0:46:32 > 0:46:37In the early 17th century, it's more than 1,000 years old in grand English domestic buildings,
0:46:37 > 0:46:42but it's covered with this thick cosmetic cream of highly fashionable ornament.
0:46:42 > 0:46:46So you have here these two elements of the Jacobean world,
0:46:46 > 0:46:50the antique and the antic, it's classical, juxtaposed to each other.
0:46:50 > 0:46:53So what is it? If you look at one of these screens, what do you get?
0:46:53 > 0:47:00I mean, when I look at it I get huge substance, fatness,
0:47:00 > 0:47:03a great, dense bit of stuff.
0:47:03 > 0:47:05Yes, exactly. It's covered in ornament.
0:47:05 > 0:47:10It's a huge piece of furniture rising up nearly 40 feet in the air,
0:47:10 > 0:47:13and covered in fine, decorative ornament.
0:47:13 > 0:47:15Well, it's not exactly fine.
0:47:15 > 0:47:18It looks absolutely chunky to me.
0:47:18 > 0:47:22It's not 18th-century, Chippendale-y delicacy, is it?
0:47:22 > 0:47:27It's socking, great, bearded hermaphrodites.
0:47:27 > 0:47:29It's a very medieval kind of classicism
0:47:29 > 0:47:34in the sense that it's taking classical forms and ornamenting them as fantasy.
0:47:34 > 0:47:39This is delighting, basically, in the opulence of, the possibilities of ornament,
0:47:39 > 0:47:43covering every surface in carving, making everything as fussy as possible.
0:47:43 > 0:47:50Are they engaging with all this medievalism because they think that, somehow, value is in the old?
0:47:50 > 0:47:54They do see value in the old. It's a very interesting question.
0:47:54 > 0:47:57We see value in novelty and we pursue it.
0:47:57 > 0:48:02They love novelty too, but they saw novelty as being tempered by the past
0:48:02 > 0:48:06and they often reinvented the past and created novelty through that reinvention.
0:48:11 > 0:48:16The language of Hatfield IS the language of the King James Bible
0:48:16 > 0:48:22and nowhere is that sensibility better displayed than in the first edition of the finished work.
0:48:24 > 0:48:29It's incredibly exciting for me to see this, I've never seen it before.
0:48:29 > 0:48:31It's an amazingly rich thing.
0:48:31 > 0:48:35I don't think I've ever seen such a rich 17th-century binding as this,
0:48:35 > 0:48:40covered all over in this gold filigree with Cecil's arms there.
0:48:40 > 0:48:46No title on the spine at all, just more of that decoration.
0:48:46 > 0:48:48This is THE book.
0:48:48 > 0:48:50Its sheer size and ornament
0:48:50 > 0:48:52shows that this is a really important object.
0:48:52 > 0:48:55Even in the way it's produced,
0:48:55 > 0:49:02you can see this love of antiquity. This Gothic typeface is saying,
0:49:02 > 0:49:04"I am rooting myself in the authority of the past."
0:49:04 > 0:49:07It's a little bit like the Great Hall.
0:49:07 > 0:49:09You have the Great Hall as this antique element,
0:49:09 > 0:49:13the essential element of a great house being reproduced,
0:49:13 > 0:49:14but covered in other decoration
0:49:14 > 0:49:17and made to look up-to-date in other ways.
0:49:17 > 0:49:21Now, if we turn to particular passages,
0:49:21 > 0:49:25I think you can see how some of these qualities come through
0:49:25 > 0:49:27in the way they translated
0:49:27 > 0:49:29the text itself.
0:49:31 > 0:49:34Now, this is a famous verse.
0:49:34 > 0:49:37When Tyndale translated that passage, he wrote,
0:49:37 > 0:49:41"Now we see in a glass, even in a dark speaking,
0:49:41 > 0:49:45"but then shall we see face to face."
0:49:45 > 0:49:48Well, it's very difficult to know what that means.
0:49:48 > 0:49:53But when the King James people took it up, they wrote,
0:49:53 > 0:49:59"For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face."
0:49:59 > 0:50:05Much simpler, much grander, much more godly, in fact.
0:50:05 > 0:50:07It's beautifully clear language, isn't it?
0:50:07 > 0:50:13It's clear but it also has this slow, majestic music running through it.
0:50:13 > 0:50:19And I think something of the things that we see in this house are kind of displayed grandeur,
0:50:19 > 0:50:24an absolutely overt majestic quality to the spaces.
0:50:24 > 0:50:27That's in that language, too.
0:50:27 > 0:50:31It's a very nice idea, that somehow the house expresses the same ideals,
0:50:31 > 0:50:34celebrating its royalty, regality, power.
0:50:34 > 0:50:41And also at the heart of it, the link of the church and state to the godliness that this Bible expresses.
0:50:47 > 0:50:51In tracing the story of how the King James Bible was made,
0:50:51 > 0:50:54I have discovered many of the reasons why it became such a success.
0:50:56 > 0:50:59The precision and rigour of its scholarship...
0:51:01 > 0:51:05..the richness and depth of meaning in its words...
0:51:05 > 0:51:10the sheer music it brings to the listener's ear.
0:51:11 > 0:51:16But these achievements alone do not explain why, for over four centuries,
0:51:16 > 0:51:23English speakers have continued to choose this translation above all others.
0:51:23 > 0:51:29What is it about this version that has such a long-lasting appeal?
0:51:37 > 0:51:43Conveying the mystery of the divine is the greatest of all challenges to language of any kind.
0:51:43 > 0:51:53The unfathomable nature of God, and of the ultimate facts of existence, are, by definition, unreachable.
0:51:53 > 0:51:58So when life deals its heaviest blows, where do you turn?
0:52:00 > 0:52:08Not long ago, I was talking to a fisherman whose son had died here, off the coast of the Outer Hebrides.
0:52:08 > 0:52:10He was just 24.
0:52:13 > 0:52:20His father told me to read Psalm 77, saying, in effect, that I would find there
0:52:20 > 0:52:26everything he could ever think or feel about what had happened.
0:52:26 > 0:52:29"Will the Lord cast off forever?
0:52:29 > 0:52:31"And will He be favourable no more?
0:52:31 > 0:52:34"Is his mercy clean gone forever?
0:52:34 > 0:52:37"Doth his promise fail forever more?
0:52:37 > 0:52:38"Thy way is in the sea
0:52:38 > 0:52:44"and thy path is in the great waters and thy footsteps are not known."
0:52:51 > 0:52:57These words aren't about consolation, or the muffling of experience by religion.
0:52:57 > 0:53:05They're a statement of the cruelty of life and the unknowable purpose of God's universe.
0:53:07 > 0:53:13There is something miraculous about this, a poem written in the Near East in the Bronze Age,
0:53:13 > 0:53:19translated in England 400 years ago, still embodying some of the deepest
0:53:19 > 0:53:23and most powerful meanings that human beings can summon.
0:53:31 > 0:53:37But did the 17th-century world recognise this as a masterpiece?
0:53:37 > 0:53:42And more importantly for James, did it secure his ultimate ambition -
0:53:42 > 0:53:45to be king at the heart of one, united country?
0:54:00 > 0:54:06There must have been high hopes for the King James Bible when it was finally published in 1611,
0:54:06 > 0:54:10but it turned out to be a spectacular failure.
0:54:12 > 0:54:16The actual printing of the Bible was something of a disaster.
0:54:16 > 0:54:23Numerous inaccuracies crept into the text at this stage.
0:54:23 > 0:54:26This is a page from an edition published in 1631,
0:54:26 > 0:54:28which was called the Wicked Bible,
0:54:28 > 0:54:33because the printer left out rather a crucial word from the seventh commandment,
0:54:33 > 0:54:37and it now reads, "Thou shalt commit adultery."
0:54:43 > 0:54:48More significant was the Bible's total failure to achieve James's ambition
0:54:48 > 0:54:53of uniting the two sides of England's religious divide.
0:54:53 > 0:54:5930 years after it was published, the country descended into outright civil war.
0:55:01 > 0:55:03Puritan and parliamentarian
0:55:03 > 0:55:07against bishop and king.
0:55:09 > 0:55:13James's son, Charles I, was beheaded.
0:55:13 > 0:55:18England became a republic with no place for a royal Bible.
0:55:18 > 0:55:22It was left gathering dust.
0:55:26 > 0:55:30So the question is, why did its fortunes change?
0:55:30 > 0:55:35Today, in most Anglican churches, such as St Margaret's,
0:55:35 > 0:55:40the parish church of the Houses of Parliament, you will find the King James Bible.
0:55:41 > 0:55:46At the end of the Civil War and with the restoration of the monarchy, everything changed.
0:55:49 > 0:55:55The King James Bible became revered as something from before that age of violence and trauma.
0:55:55 > 0:56:03It stood for monarchy and continuity, a symbol of a kingdom that had always been God's country.
0:56:05 > 0:56:09It was this that finally allowed it to unite everyone,
0:56:09 > 0:56:14from radical Protestant to those in love with ceremony.
0:56:16 > 0:56:19It set the basis for today's Church of England.
0:56:19 > 0:56:25What's more, it entered the consciousness of the nation.
0:56:25 > 0:56:30Week after week, decade after decade, for century after century,
0:56:30 > 0:56:34this book was read in church, at school, at home.
0:56:36 > 0:56:42Its down to earth vocabulary fed our love of the real and concrete.
0:56:42 > 0:56:46The way in which it was written meant its listeners
0:56:46 > 0:56:50were always at home with the grand and the visionary.
0:56:54 > 0:56:58For me, the ability to keep both feet firmly on the ground
0:56:58 > 0:57:05while aspiring for something beyond ourselves represents the best of us as a nation.
0:57:05 > 0:57:10And I would say that long exposure to the language of the King James Bible
0:57:10 > 0:57:14is responsible for much of that.
0:57:16 > 0:57:18But what of James himself?
0:57:18 > 0:57:21What would he have made of his great legacy?
0:57:24 > 0:57:30For a King who thought of himself as sparkling with divinity, this is a pretty modest little plaque.
0:57:30 > 0:57:33But maybe James could console himself with the idea
0:57:33 > 0:57:37that the Bible he commissioned is his real and lasting monument.
0:57:40 > 0:57:44It became the most important book in the English speaking world.
0:57:44 > 0:57:49Perhaps the greatest book ever written in English.
0:58:04 > 0:58:08I'm no churchgoer, but I'm not an atheist either.
0:58:08 > 0:58:15I'm drawn just as much to all the richness of ceremony as to the holiness of the plain and simple.
0:58:15 > 0:58:19But with this Bible, there's no need to choose between them.
0:58:19 > 0:58:25Both are absorbed in it, and that is why its words are still alive,
0:58:25 > 0:58:29why they're still a vehicle for meaning when little else can be.
0:58:29 > 0:58:35And for me, that is the miracle of the King James Bible.
0:58:49 > 0:58:52Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:56 > 0:59:00E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk