Common Consent

THE Authorised Version is, by common consent, among the greatest literary achievements in the English language, if not the greatest. It has, without question, been the most influential, for it has been known wherever the language is spoken and by all sorts and conditions of men. For many it has been the only book they know. It would be hard to think of a greater, or more disastrous, cultural break than would be involved in its demise.

I should like to think that the literary merit of the Authorised Version in comparison with modern translations will not be contested, but in case it is, let me give some examples drawn from passages in familiar use at Christmas. Here, for instance, are the opening verses of the Gospel for Christmas Day in the New English Bible:

When all things began, the Word already was. The Word dwelt with God, and what God was, the Word was.

and in the Authorised Version:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The one contains the jingle 'What God was, the Word was', which is almost unreadable and which no ordinary English speaker would think of uttering. The other is simple, direct and memorable.

Later in the same chapter the Authorised Version moves in a mounting crescendo which even an unpractised reader must find himself carried along by:

He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

In the New English Bible the sense of movement to a decisive climax is entirely lost, and the rhythm is awkward and jerky:

He was in the world; but the world, though it owed its being to him, did not recognise him. But to all who did receive him, to those he gave the right to become children of God, not born of any human stock, or by the fleshly desire of a human father, but the offspring of God himself. So the word became flesh: he came to dwell among us and we saw his glory, such glory as befits the Father's only son, full of grace and truth.

Not only is this not memorable; it is not, by ordinary standards, well written. If the first sentence had said, '. . . the world did not receive him', the emphasis in the second sentence of '. . . to all who did receive him' would have been appropriate. As it is there is no contrast with '. . . the world did not recognise him'. 'Not born of any human stock, or by the fleshly desire of a human father' is shapeless compared with 'not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man' and 'but of God himself' would have been stronger and simpler than 'but the offspring of God himself'.

If we turn to the Epistle for Christmas Day we find that in the Authorised Version it begins:

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers of the prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son . . .

Here there is a strong double emphasis, achieved by the placing of the words, upon God and his Son. In the New English Bible this emphasis is lost:

When in former times God spoke to our forefathers, he spoke in fragmentary and varied fashion through the prophets. But in this final age he has spoken to us in the Son ...

To take just one more example. Here is the New English Bible version of Luke 2.8-10:

Now in this same district there were shepherds out in the fields, keeping watch through the night over their flock, when suddenly there stood before them an angel of the Lord, and the splendour of the Lord shone round them. They were terror-struck, but the angel said, 'Do not be afraid.'

Compare with this the familiar

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them 'Fear not'.

Again the difference is evident. The Authorised Version quietly describes the scene in the first sentence, placing the stress where it belongs upon the word 'shepherds', and then by means of the repetition 'the angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them' achieves a sudden and overwhelming climax. There is a pervasive sense of the numinous which renders the shepherds' fear wholly intelligible. In the modern version all the dramatic urgency has vanished. The sudden vision of the angel goes into a subordinate clause and little of the numinous survives in the prosaic 'terror-struck' and 'Do not be afraid'. There are, of course, better passages than these to be found in the New English Bible and other modern versions and they contain some felicities, but they are not to be compared with the transcendent virtue of the Authorised Version. It is great literature and they are not.

This, I imagine, will be generally conceded, but it may nevertheless be rejected as irrelevant by many of those to whom the present appeal is directed. What matters, it may be said, is not the literary and cultural value of the language used, but its truthfulness and intelligibility. From this standpoint the literary merit of the Authorised Version (and of the Book of Common Prayer) is religiously irrelevant and may even be a spiritual danger. As a speaker in a television programme once put it: 'one gets side-tracked by the beauty'.

This objection is based upon a false conception of what constitutes literary merit-the notion that the 'beauty' of language is a kind of superfluous embellishment which it may be self-indulgent to enjoy. The bare sense could and should be conveyed independently of style. The fallacy is clearly and elegantly exposed by Bertrand Russell as quoted by his biographer, Ronald W. Clark:

A Rugby master wrote explaining that he had taken a passage from [Russell's] chapter on education, discussed it with his class, and then rewritten it. Now he wanted to know what Russell thought of his effort. 'The logical meaning is, of course, unchanged' he was told,

'but what is lost is the movement and rhythm. In a passage of this kind one instinctively develops a theme in the kind of way in which Beethoven does. One works it gradually free from antagonistic feelings, until at the end it emerges triumphant. This of course affects the whole rhythm of the sentences and the changes in cadence. I do not mean that all this is deliberate or conscious: indeed it is only through comparing it with your reconstruction that I became aware of a certain crescendo in the original which I feel to be lacking in your reconstruction. You begin with the triumph and end with the terror which would suggest thought as a tyrannic master rather than an inspiring leader into freedom.'

(The Life of Bertrand Russell, p. 334)

The superiority of the Authorised Version in the passages I have quoted lies precisely in the way the language conveys the sense, placing the emphasis where it ought to be, developing the thought to its proper culmination, expressing the dominant emotion; and doing all these things so simply and directly that the effect continues to be achieved throughout constant repetition. Not only are these the qualities that make it great literature; they are also the qualities that convey spiritual truth, for it is through them that the listener's attention is seized and held, his imagination enriched and his thoughts concentrated, both at the time of first hearing and in later recollection. By contrast, the failure of modern translations of the Bible, and of modern liturgies, is the failure to convey the fullness of religious meaning and truth in a manner that is memorable.

One might leave the matter there and let the case for the continued regular use of the. Authorised Version and the Book of Common Prayer rest simply on the de facto inadequacy of the available alternatives. But it is, perhaps, worth trying to go deeper and explain this inadequacy, if we can. For there is reason to believe that it results from the character of contemporary language itself. We are familiar nowadays with two deliberate and reflective uses of language. One is critical and argumentative; the other is expressive or 'creative'. Both are aimed at a restricted class of people: those who are trained to think; and those who, by temperament or training, can share imaginatively in the author's unique vision. One is 'objective', the other 'subjective'; and it is significant that we tend to regard these as mutually exclusive and as together exhausting the possibilities. We have available no public language that both claims universal truth and challenges the imagination. Its place is taken by the language of journalism, as used in the Press and in broadcasting; and this needs to be easy to read or listen to, and easy to forget. In order to be readily intelligible it must make few demands upon the intellect or the imagination. And since it cannot presuppose any stable or deep convictions on the part of those addressed, it responds rapidly to fashions and lapses easily into clichés. When serious journalists manage to avoid this, as of course they sometimes do, it is by deliberately restricting their audience and either engaging in critical argument or adopting a purely personal 'voice'. It follows (if this is true) that the only sort of language that is entirely contemporary and widely available is the language of journalism, and this language inevitably lacks the range, depth, resonance and precision that is required for translating the Bible or for liturgical use. It is not surprising, therefore, that critics have found the language of the New English Bible 'journalistic'.

In addition to this entirely general difficulty there is a further problem specific to religion which derives from the fundamental dichotomy between 'objective' and 'subjective'. Religion is not objective in the way science is: therefore, it is often assumed to be wholly a matter of inwardness, of the individual's existential commitment. Hence it is felt not to be appropriate, or even possible, to talk about God or to address him in a public, universal way that presupposes understanding of what is being said by all who seriously attend. How can language convey transcendence when the cultural assumptions underlying the language effectively deny it?

It is right to endeavour to make the Bible relevant to each succeeding age and it is natural to think that this can only be done by newly translating it into the idiom of that age. But there is yet another difficulty about this which is not sufficiently recognised. What the Bible says is, in a sense, trite. Its truths are not, now, novel, so that when a modern religious poet like Eliot tries to express them he has to do it in indirect and allusive ways. The translator has no such licence; he has to render the original and this means that he has to use modern English for a purpose, and in a genre, that no contemporary writer would undertake with any hope of success. No wonder the result sounds flat and lifeless! It may well be that a work can continue to live through successive periods for those who cannot read it in the original only if it is fortunate enough to receive definitive and classical expression at a stage when the translator's language is apt for it. For it is one of the marks of great literature that it does not go out of date; it remains available for successive generations and its resources are inexhaustible.

A possible objector may still, perhaps, not be convinced. The Authorised Version, he may concede, is great literature and, as such, apt for the expression of spiritual truth; nevertheless it is not of our time and so cannot be understood by ordinary people today. Or, if it is understood, it comes across as archaic and therefore as something not relevant to our contemporary concerns. Maybe contemporary English is a less flexible and expressive instrument than the English of the Authorised Version, but it is the only language we use and understand.

I should myself contest this. For centuries the Bible, in this form, was the only literature many people knew and even today it is more likely to be found in the homes and to be reflected in the speech, of non-churchgoers than any of the modern versions. Moreover it is the language neither of The Times nor of the Daily Mirror and so is able to transcend class and regional differences as no modern version can succeed in doing. It can remain intelligible so long as it is regularly used.

Meanwhile, alongside the traditional worship of the church which ought to be regularly maintained, there is need to experiment with new ways of expressing religious truth, which will involve new forms of language. For the reasons I have given there is nothing lying at hand readily available and no easy translation is possible. A new language for transcendence will demand a renewed understanding of transcendence.