A short history of Bible translation

Recently I've come across several things about certain groups of American conservative Christians who believe that the King James Version is the only trustworthy and reliable translation of the Bible, and that all other translations or versions have a 'liberal' bias.  Ignoring that much of what they describe as 'liberal' most people would describe as 'sane,' does this claim make any sense?

Time for a history lesson.  The King James version was a translation made in the early seventeenth century (under the sponsorship of James I- or VI, if you're Scottish).  It followed on from a conference he'd called to try and sort out the English church, which was splitting between those who put more emphasis on style and ceremony, and the Puritan element which focused on preaching.  The Puritans hoped that James, coming from Scotland where the church was more to their liking, would reform the church along their lines, but the king didn't want to abolish bishops or relinquish his own control over the church.  He agreed to sponsor a new translation of the Bible as compensation to keep the Puritans within the church 'onside.'

The KJV was not (as some conservatives seem to believe) the 'original' English version.  English translations of the Bible had begun circulating in manuscript in the later middle ages due to clergyman John Wycliffe and the Lollard movement.  William Tyndale's translation was printed abroad and smuggled into early Tudor England.  And in 1539 Henry VIII authorised the King's Great Bible, the first legal translation.

Before that, the version of the Bible commonly used throughout the Catholic church was the Vulgate, St Jerome's 5th century Latin translation.  Around the end of the middle ages, more of Europe's learned classes had begun to study Greek and Hebrew, and had discovered many inaccuracies in the Vulgate.  This, along with the desire to make the Bible available to ordinary people in their own 'vernacular' language helped bring about the Reformation.  Martin Luther's German Bible, for example, was translated from Greek and Hebrew texts, but Luther 'Germanised' it by using words and similes that his congregation would be familiar with- translating by the 'sense' of the passage rather than the exact words.  This, presumably, is something the conservative Christians would not approve of, but provided it is well done it can often be a lot more helpful than a text which is word-for-word accurate, but where the sense of the words is lost (for example because it includes on Hebrew euphemisms that we no longer understand).

The conservative American Christians seem to believe that the older the text they are using is, the more reliable it is.  But as any historian will tell you that's not always the case.  Older texts often have more mistakes because they have been copied (or reprinted) more times, while newer translations have the advantage of advances in scholarship.  For example, since the KJV was made new manuscripts of some of the Biblical texts have come to light which have influenced scholars' opinions of what certain sections mean.  So in fact more recent translations, incorporating these finds, are probably more accurate to the original sense of the writers.

What about the supposed liberal bias?  Well, sometimes it just seems to boil down to verses they don't like or find awkward, which conservatives say can't possibly be authentic.*  Or to using a different meaning (where a word may be translated with more than one meaning) which suggests policies the conservatives dislike (eg socialism, feminism).  Perhaps I'm looking at this too much as a historian, but much of this perception of 'liberal bias' seems to me to be a result of some conservatives trying to fit the text to their beliefs, rather than their beliefs to the text.  That's a trap historians have often fallen into.

On the other hand, what these Christians have got right is the need to try to understand the Bible.  But we need to look at it in the light of what it meant to its original audience as well as to us, and as far as possible without bias, liberal or conservative.  Every translation of the Bible has a different 'slant:' some may be more faithful to the early texts than others, some use different words to make the text more easily understood.



*I am in no way intending to suggest that only conservatives do this kind of manipulation of the text, much of it is true just as much of all shades of Christian opinion.