To thine own Bible-swiping be true

Wikipedia's entry for William Shakespeare summarizes: "William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the 'Bard of Avon.' "

There's no mention of how Shakespeare leaned upon and outright lifted from the Bible.

What many are unaware of is that even some of Shakespeare’s most influential works were at the very least “adapted” from the Bible.

As the Reader’s Digest reference book, The Bible Through the Ages, reports, “The Geneva Bible was the edition in general use in England during Shakespeare’s time, and much of the language of his plays and sonnets echoes its wording and themes.

“In particular, echoes of the Geneva translation of the Book of Job can be heard in Othello, Richard II, and As You like It and in Hamlet’s most famous soliloquy.

Act III, Scene 1 of Hamlet reads, “To be, or not to be, that is the Question: Whether ’tis Nobler in the minde to suffer The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune, Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them: To dye, to sleepe, No more; and by a Sleepe, to say we end The Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockes That Flesh is heyre to?"

Job 6: 2-4 and Job 7:21 read, “Oh that my grief were wel weighed,. . . For it wolde be now heavyer than the sand of the sea: therefore my wordes are swallowed up. For the arrows of the Almightie are in me . . . & the terrours of God fight against me. . . now shal I slepe in the dust, and if thou sekest me in the morning, I shal not be founde.”

*****

It was at the same time Shakespeare was writing Macbeth in early 17^th-century England that the King James Bible was published, becoming the most influential rendering of the Bible in English and quickly supplanting the Geneva Bible as the most popular text for private use.

The Holy Bible of 1611, later named the King James Version, represented the culmination of 100 years of translating into the English language. The reason it supplanted its predecessors is because the effort to get the Word of God into English had arrived.

“The literary quality of the King James Version—the strength and nobility of its language combined with its openness to a variety of interpretations—has earned it an indisputable authority,” says the Reader’s Digest book.

“Because the text of the King James Version was to be used at church services, the translators worked hard to make it suitable for reading aloud—its punctuation indicated emphasis and its rhythmic prose could be used to great effect.

“The translators noted in the preface that they made a deliberate attempt not to be restricted ‘to a uniformity of phrasing, or an identity of words.’ The very freedom and richness of the language lend the translation freshness.

“The text’s oral quality can also be traced to the translation process. Since each translator had to read his version aloud to the others, his work was written as language to be spoken.”

*****

Greek was the universal language at the time Jesus walked the earth and was replaced by English, which represents the only other universal language in modern world history.

Scholars readily agree that the English language is in its structure, grammar and the way words are formed and ideas communicated comparable to the accuracy and power of the Greek language.

Gail Riplinger, author of several critically-acclaimed books on the infallibility of the King James Bible, writes, “Scholars agree that the English language did not become fixed until the King James Version. Earlier editions, like the Tyndale and the Geneva, although practically identical to the King James Version, did not always contain the built-in dictionary found in the King James Version.

"They did not need it, because they were written at the unusual juncture in history when English was becoming English; the root languages of Anglo-Saxon, French and Latin were still familiar. . .

“One secular lexicographer admits, ‘About the beginning of the 17^th Century, in the reign of James 1, our language had already begun to assume the form in which we now find it, and is from that date entitled to be called the English language.

"From the time the Bible was translated into English, and, by being printed and spread among the people . . . the language may be said to have been fixed.’ ”

***** 

Riplinger, in her 1994 book New Age Bible Versions, makes the point that while people in modern times like to comment, “Why can’t the Bible speak as we speak?” the answer is, “Because we are not speaking—GOD is speaking.”

She refers to this passage in Exodus 4: “And Moses said unto the LORD, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.
[11] And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD?
[12] Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.”

Riplinger writes, “God did not say to Moses, ‘Forget eloquence! Use plain talk!’ Rather, God said He would teach him eloquence.

“He truly did! Many linguists trace the origin of the alphabet to Mt. Sinai. (See Mysteries of the Alphabet by Marc-Alain Ouaknin, translated by Josephine Bacon, New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 1999.)”

(new article tomorrow)