"Thy Circumcision Is Prepuce": English Translation and the Bible

From The Bishop's Bible, 1569: Forerunner to the King James Bible. Notice Queen Elizabeth getting the treatment from Prudence, Fortitude, Mercy, and Justice. Any guesses as to the politics of this translation...?This is just a "reprint" of a couple of fun facts from my course notes for the Bible as Literature class I teach.

My students were asked to compare three translations of the 23rd Psalm (KJV, Jewish Publication Society's Tanakh, and the Douay-Rheims).

The most interesting work in the English language comes from the High Middle Ages and the Elizabethan period.  Not coincidentally, Bible translators in those periods often found phrases and words in other translations so felicitous that they "stole" them for their own versions. Happy phrasings in the late medieval and early modern period typically stuck in the memory of people the way that pop-phrases ("Show me the money!" "The Force be with you") do in ours, and it was often thought to be playing the game to retain them.

Fun homework assignment: Use the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and other research to list twenty common English words that owe their existence to the first five translations of the Bible into English.

Just a couple of highlights:

English owes Tyndale (1535) for about 120 words, plus the phrases "let there be light," "am I my brother's keeper," "the powers that be," "blessed are the peacemakers," and "the truth shall make you free."

We owe to Coverdale (1535), "forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors (the "trespasses" version is Tyndale's), "tender mercies," and "the valley of the shadow of death." The OED contains 184 words initially cited in Coverdale's Bible.Coverdale's Bible (Holbein), 1535. Woodcuts, people. Don't underestimate the woodcuts.

Eight words in the OED are first cited in the Great Bible (1540).

The Geneva Bible (1560) is also known as the Breeches Bible for its use of that word in Genesis 3:7, "Then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knewe that they were naked, and they sewed figge tree leaues together, and made them selues breeches." "Vanity of vanities," "Solomon in all his glory," and "My beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased" are all from the Geneva Bible. Twelve words in the OED are first cited in the Geneva Bible.

The Bishop's Bible (1568) bequeathed to us "the voice of one crying in the wilderness" and "persecuted for righteousness' sake," but in other idioms is notably deficient. It replaced "cast thy bread upon the waters," for example, with "lay thy bread upon wet faces" and the bishops chose "backbite not one another" instead of "speak not evil of one another." Only two words in the OED are first cited in the Bishop's Bible.A rather moth-eaten St. Jerome, who's Latin Vulgate was the basis for the Douay Rheims Bible

I love this one: Studded with Latinate words, the Douay-Rheims text is difficult to read and the usage is sometimes rather absurd, as in "if thou be a prevaricator of the law, thy circumcision is become prepuce" or "whatsoever thou shalt supererogate, I at my return will repay thee." Some 47 words in the OED are first cited in Douay-Rheims. (I've often had to accuse Christians of having a prepuce circumcision, though I'm sure there's some ointment for that...)

Which brings us to old King James, a work produced in defense of the Anglican stance against Romanism represented in the Douay-Rheims.  The high degree of scholarship in the translation is extraordinary and, surprisingly for a work produced by committees, it is truly a great work of English literature. 43 words in the OED are first cited in the King James Bible, but it uses a number of the words and phrases of its predecessors. One 1631 edition of the King James became known as the Wicked Bible because a printing error omitted a critical "not" in Exodus 20:14, thus commanding "Thou shalt commit adultery." You'd think that would be popular, but no: the edition was recalled and mostly destroyed (eleven copies survive today) and the printer fined £300, a lifetime's wages.

I expect those wages would've been made up by the grateful contributions to his pension from the owners of London's stews (that is, brothels).  Free advertising is good, but divine endorsements are beyond all price.

Comments

[Michelle]

What a fun post!