The Majesty Argument for the King James Version

Dr. Donald L. Brake, Sr. wrote "A Monarch's Majestic Translation: The Kings James Bible: The Remarkable Relevance of a Seventeenth-Century Book to the Twenty-First Century."  Dr. Brake may not consider himself a King James advocate (see from 44:45 for a few minutes in this interview), but -- in various forms -- the idea that the King James Version is particularly majestic shows up in a variety of pro-KJV arguments.

Some examples:

"In 1906, Ira Maurice Price, writing in The Ancestry of Our English Bible wrote: 'For almost three centuries the Authorized, or King James, Version has been the Bible of the English-speaking world. Its simple, majestic Anglo-Saxon tongue, its clear, sparkling style, its directness and force of utterance have made it the model in language, style, and dignity of some of the choicest writers of the last two centuries.'" - Phil Stringer, "Majestic Legacy" (archived version)

"While the AV retains some of the prose of Elizabethan English which gives it the majestic feel that Ward claims to enjoy, it is not purely Elizabethan if Shakespeare is our guide – it’s closer to modern English actually." - Young, Textless, and Reformed (source)

It's hard to disagree with the idea that the King James has a majestic or even poetic in its sound.  The question that is rarely asked, however, is why the text of the King James version has that sound to it.

The primary reasons are linguistic. 

The King James has a vocabulary that has a different word usage frequency from our standard vocabulary today.   This should be obvious to anyone who has read the King James.  According to one King James focused website, "There are 788,258 words in the King James Bible." (source). The same source provides a ranked list of high-frequency words, in descending order of frequency.  The top eight words ("and", "the", "of", "that", "to", "in", "he", and "for") are also similarly high frequency words in English today (based on this source, which cites the Google Web Trillion Word Corpus).  Nevertheless, even within the top 50 most commonly used words in the KJV, we see some less familiar words:

unto (9th in the KJV, 6392nd in the list based on Google)

Lord (11th in the KJV, 1732nd in the list)

shall (13th in the KJV, 387th in the list)

thou (24th in the KJV, 5515th in the list)

God (28th in the KJV, 691st in the list)

thy (33rd in the KJV, 6168th in the list)

thee (39th in the KJV, 6945th in the list)

ye (40th in the KJV, 6195th in the list)

It's not surprising that words like "God" and "Lord" are much more frequent than usual, because of the subject matter of the book.  However, the lower rank of "shall" and the much lower ranks of "unto", "thou", "thy", and "ye" most likely reflect the fact that the English language (in use) has changed.  

And, of course, these are just the most frequently used.

This and one or two other difference are illustrated by the following verse:

Joshua 2:4 And the woman took the two men, and hid them, and said thus, There came men unto me, but I wist not whence they [were]:

The much lower frequency words here are "wist" (which is low enough frequency to trip a spell check) and "unto" (as noted above) but the words "whence" and "thus" are also less frequently used in contemporary English (particularly, "whence").

In addition, the phrase "said thus" is not a standard way of writing (or speaking) in English today.  We would simply say, "the woman hid them and said "[whatever it is she said]." The "thus" is unnecessary for us, and sounds extraneous.  Some people may see this extraneous word as providing a flourish of color or accent, but that's in the eye (or ear) of the beholder.

Likewise, saying "whence they were," is an unusual way of expressing the statement today.  We more often use, "from where" instead of "whence".  A more contemporary rendering might be "where they were from" (although ending in a preposition is somewhat informal).

Another violation of the way we write (and speak) English today is putting the "not" after "wist" rather than before it and after a helping verb.  Today, we would not say "I knew not where they were from," we would say, "I did not know where they were from." 

These violations of our expectations are (collectively) one of the things that make reading the King James a quasi-poetic experience.  All the -eths and -ests and so on have a old-timey ring to them.  The vocabulary often includes words we don't read or hear as much in everyday conversation.  These make the King James interesting from a linguistic standpoint.  They give it some of its poetic character.

Obviously, some poetry is identifiable by its rhyme and meter, but poetry is also associated (at least in the mind of many English speakers) with creative syntax and a varied vocabulary.  Partly this is the result of attempting to meet rhyming and metrical constraints in traditional English poetry, but also partly because violations of expectations are interesting to the mind: that's one of the reason that the punchline is so enjoyable in a joke.

In the interview mentioned above, Dr. Brake argues that there is a "dignity and a majestic part" of the KJV that "motivates worship".  My concerns about this are at least two-fold:

First, the King James Version was an update for fidelity to the originals of the Bishops' Bible, which was a revision ultimately of the Tyndale/Matthew Bible.  When Tyndale translated, we have no good reason to suppose that the goal of the translation was to make the Bible sound "worship-y" or "high church" or the like.  Similarly, the King James translators seemed to place an emphasis on avoiding fancy words in favor of use plain words.  Moreover, the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament, while sometimes containing subjects that are hard subjects to understand (or words that are hard to understand now), seem to have been written in the common languages of the times.

Second, using language that sounds more like Shakespeare and less like the newspaper may give the Bible the audio equivalent of the smell of incense and the sound of church bells, but it is an easily imitated experience.  Moreover, false religions take advantage of this to promote falsehood.  For example, Marmaduke Pickthall's translation of the Koran (The Meaning of the Glorious Koran) and Joseph Smith's Book of Mormon both employ similar English.  If people associate the King James sound with their Bibles, when they start reading Pickthall's or Smith's works, they may think it has the ring of truth, rather than just the ring of old syntax and vocabulary.

None of this is to suggest that the Bible ought to be translated into the least formal possible English or that it ought to be translated into the latest slang terms to grace the digital tongues of today's youth.  Instead, the point is that the majesty argument is misleading (if people are confusing what is merely Anglic for what is Angelic) and has two edges.

Finally, some of the "majesty" has a trade-off against intelligibility.  It's harder to understand something that's written in an unfamiliar way, and there is more potential for confusion when words are used differently in the Bible than in ordinary speech.  Could someone jazz up a contemporary translation to make it sound more grandiose?  Of course!  Would that be a wise idea? That should, at least, be a question before prioritizing the perceived grandeur of old fashioned syntactical forms and yesteryear's vocabulary.

Jan Krans on Beza's Emendation of Revelation 16:5

Dr. Jan Krans, who has provided the definitive treatment of conjectural emendation by Erasmus and  Beza, provided an article on conjectural emendation as it relates to Revelation in the Editio Critica Maior of Revelation (VI/3.1, pp. 419-20).  In this article, Dr. Krans addresses Beza and Revelation 16:5.  The following is my own English translation of Krans' German original (the translation has not been approved in any way by Dr. Krans, and I have omitted the two footnotes for this section of the text):

A fairly famous case that I did not mention in my 2006 doctoral thesis is Revelation 16:5. Here, in his third edition (1582), Beza replaced ὁ ὅσιος with ὁ ἐσόμενος, even in his Greek text and in his translation, not just in his Annotations. At the time, I thought that the reading ὁ ἐσόμενος was not a conjecture, because Beza himself said that he knew of an old manuscript with this reading. But now I know that in all probability such a manuscript does not exist and never has existed. As we will see, it is quite possible that Beza deceived himself as well as everyone else. Let us first take a closer look at Beza's remark:

"And he will be, καὶ ὁ ἐσόμενος. Usually καὶ ὁ ὅσιος is read, but the article is contrary to all rules of language and shows that the reading is corrupt. The Vulgate, whether it reads the article or not, has by no means a more correct "Sanctus" ("holy"), ὅσιος, whereby the particle καί is wrongly omitted, although it is necessary to connect δίκαιος and ὅσιος. But as we said above on Rev. 1:4, John was accustomed to add a third element in all other places where he extended the name of Jehovah, namely ὁ ἐρχόμενος. Why then would he have omitted this in this place? Therefore I cannot doubt that the original reading is the one which I have restored on the basis of an ancient and reliable manuscript, namely ὁ ἐσόμενος. Here is not ὁ ἐρχόμενος, as in the four places above (1:4, 1:8, 4:8 and 11:17), probably for the reason that there it is Christ as the coming judge, while in this vision is presented as already sitting on the judge's seat and delivering legal orders. "

Beza here presents several arguments to change the reading. It is clear, however, that this is different from earlier passages, such as in Revelation 1:4. The reason for his conjecture is thus given: the author of the Apocalypse seems to be inconsistent, because otherwise the expression ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν is always ended by ὁ ἐρχόμενος. This pattern is restored by Beza, and at the same time changed, for the sake of context, for his conjecture here has ἐσόμενος instead of this ἐρχόμενος, because Christ in the previous passages (Rev 1:4,8; 4:8; 11:17) was the coming judge, but now already sits on the judgment seat.

But what about the "old and reliable manuscript" to which Beza refers? I do not claim to have solved the riddle, but I will make a suggestion for a possible sequence of events. It is fortunate that the hand copy of his second edition from 1565, which Beza used during the preparation of the third edition (1582), has survived. There are only a few entries in the Apocalypse, but here in Revelation 16:5 Beza has underlined ὁ ὅσιος and written in the margin ὁ ἐσόμενος, i.e. his conjecture, but nothing more. A similar entry can be found in Revelation 1:4, where he has underlined τοῦ and noted in the margin "In vetusto c[odice] legatur θεοῦ", "In an old manuscript it says θεοῦ." The difference is that here it is already explicitly a manuscript was mentioned, although Beza, in characteristic fashion, does not care which manuscript is meant. What I now suspect - also a kind of conjecture - is the following: In Revelation 16:5, Beza added ὁ ἐσόμενος early on, not from a manuscript, perhaps not even as a conjecture, but as the reading he would have expected, according to the pattern described above. Later, let us say when preparing the third edition for printing itself, i.e. around 1582, he simply forgot where this ὁ ἐσόμενος came from, and, following the example of Revelation 1:4, assumed that it was the same "old and [now because he liked the reading] reliable manuscript". This alone can explain why Beza referred to a manuscript that in all probability never existed. 

Had Beza known that ὁ ἐσόμενος was actually nothing more than his own guess (or exegetical remark), he would probably never have included the reading in his text. There is a certain irony to the whole story. Be that as it may, one can see here again the expectation of coherence and its devastating effect. The case is well known because it plays a role in the ongoing discussion on the Internet about the King James Version and the Textus Receptus (comparable to that about Erasmus and the conclusion of the Apocalypse). "O Beza, why did you do that?" asks one person. A question to which, in my opinion, there is only one answer: so that future generations can be left with a clear, all too clear example of the historical contingency of the Textus Receptus.

I tend to agree with Dr. Krans' analysis.  The reading "θεοῦ" is a variant found in Stephanus' margin.  We have good reason to believe that Beza had access to Stephanus' textual apparatus as it appears in the 1550 edition.  It is also believed that Beza may have had access to a more detailed unpublished apparatus prepared by Henri Stephanus.  

Stephanus identifies the manuscript in question as 15(ιε), namely GA 82, a tenth century miniscule.

(source, 476 - 477)

GA 82 is available online.  The relevant portion of the manuscript is this:

(source)

GA 82 differs slightly from the text of Beza (pre-1582) in terms of having "ο ων. και ος ην οσιος" (INTF transcription).  Similarly, GA 82 differs from the main text of the Stephanus 1550.

(source, 494 - 495)

Stephanus' margin does note a variant at Revelation 16:5 and points to the same manuscript: 15(ιε), namely GA 82.  In this case, though, I believe Stephanus intended to direct the reader to the fact that GA 82 does not insert "Lord" into the text.  

Of course, it is possible that Henri Stephanus' more complete apparatus (assuming this in fact existed and that Beza had it) may have mentioned the absence of the "και ο" before the "οσιος".  These are details that Beza's explanation aims to address, at least in part.

That leaves the question of whether possibly Henri Stephanus himself in his more complete apparatus suggested the conjectural emendation adopted by Beza.  We must admit, however, that this is simply speculation, as the more complete apparatus (if it existed) seems to have been lost to time.

Based on my reading of Dr. Krans' thesis, I believe it would be accurate to say that Beza generally only identified the two codices in his possession: Codex Claromontanus and Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis. Neither of these manuscripts includes Revelation.  

I don't think Dr. Krans' take is too harsh, namely that Beza did not particularly care which manuscript had a given reading.  So, it makes sense that his handwritten notes mention a manuscript, but not which manuscript (the note referenced by Dr. Krans at Revelation 1:4 is reproduced below):

Whether Beza was then tripped up by the excessive brevity of his note at Revelation 16:5 (reproduced below) or whether Beza misread the notes of Henri Stephanus, we may never know.

It was interesting to note that Dr. Krans had not included Revelation 16:5 in his thesis because Beza asserted he had based his change on a manuscript.  What seems inescapable, however, is that Beza seems to have been wrong in that claim.  As we have no reason to think Beza a liar, we must conclude that he came to this error honestly. 

Update note: Updated 12/3/2024 to correct "co-expectation of heresy" (which was my mistranslation) with "expectation of coherence".