The KJV in Orthodox Perpsective PDF

The KJV in Orthodox Perspective
Simon Crisp
A possible framework for this study is provided by the following ques-

tion: What kind of influence of the King James Bible could we expect in
the Orthodox world? Given that the majority of Orthodox Christians are
familiar with the Scriptures in Greek or Slavonic, we might imagine that
any influence would be either slight or nonexistent.
One possible starting point for our investigations could be the boom
in Bible translation in the early nineteenth century, which was driven by
the major English-speaking Bible societies in the colonial context of mis-
sionary expansion and included translation projects in many countries
with majority Orthodox populations.
In the case of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS), for exam-
ple, we can see an interesting mixture of centralization on the one hand
and devolution on the other. In the early decades of BFBS translation
activity in Orthodox countries as elsewhere, in order to secure approval
for publication every translation had to pass across the desk of the BFBS
Editorial Superintendent in London. However, at the same time (not sur-
prisingly, given the volume of work) the decision to publish was largely
based on reviews of the text provided by or commissioned from respected
members of the local community.
Even in the early translation policy statements of the BFBS we do not
find unequivocal demands to rely on the KJV as the basis for translation.
The following statement from the Suggestions for Translators, Editors and
Revisers of the Bible (1877) is characteristically balanced:
It ought to be mentioned in so many words … that the BFBS has never

considered the English version a fixed standard in all matters of transla-
tion. It is only regarded as a generally safe type of what a version ought to
-445-
This essay was published in The King James Version at 400: Assessing Its Genius as Bible
Translation and Its Literary Influence, edited by David G. Burke, John F. Kutsko, and
Philip H. Towner. Copyright © 2013 by the Society of Biblical Literature.
446 THE KING JAMES VERSION AT 400
be in style, idiom and learning. Its renderings are not infallible, but they
ought not lightly to be set aside.1
Later, the Rules for the Guidance of Translators, Revisers and Editors Work-
ing in Connection with the British and Foreign Bible Society (1917) are
more forthright about use of the KJV and its successor the RV, but only in
cases where translators cannot work directly from the original languages:
“Translators who are unacquainted with the originals are desired to follow
the text or margin of the English Authorized or Revised Version, or, in the
case of translators unacquainted with English, some other version sanc-
tioned by the Committee.”2
Since in the overwhelming majority of cases Bible translators in Ortho-
dox countries undoubtedly were to a greater or lesser extent “acquainted
with the originals,” it would seem that such a line of inquiry is unlikely to
turn up much in the way of direct influence of the KJV.
A more promising area of research may be English-speaking Ortho-
doxy, since the part of the Orthodox oikoumenē where the KJV has had
most influence—unsurprisingly—is the English-speaking Orthodox world.
Looking first at the question of Bible text for church reading and pri-
vate devotion, it is hardly surprising that the KJV has fulfilled the role
of the Holy Scripture for English-speaking Orthodoxy. However, this is
by default (or by tradition) rather than by design: before the twentieth
century there was essentially no alternative. As Michael Prokurat justly
observes, “the irony of Orthodox nostalgia for the KJV is that that transla-
tion never had any blessing or authority bestowed upon it by any part of
the Eastern Church, nor was it ever checked theologically for accuracy
against Eastern usages(s).”3 From the point of view of base text, of course,
the New Testament in the KJV is naturally more acceptable for Ortho-
dox usage because the Textus Receptus upon which it is based is not so
dissimilar from the traditional text of the Byzantine church (at least, it is
much more similar than are the modern critical texts of the NT)—but this
is hardly the case with the Old Testament, since the KJV is translated from
the Hebrew text rather than the Septuagint, which is canonical for almost
all Orthodox.
This may also be the reason why none of the modern ecumenical or
interconfessional Bible translations in English has been officially accepted
by the Orthodox Church. In the case of the NRSV, for example, there was
some Orthodox involvement in the translation process, but this was at the
level of individual scholars rather than church bodies. The resulting text
CRISP: THE KJV IN ORTHODOX PERSPECTIVE 447
was not accepted for church use by any English-speaking Orthodox juris-
diction, mainly because the church authorities were uncomfortable with
the use of inclusive language.4
If there is any reason—beyond default or tradition—for Orthodox use
of the KJV, it is surely to be found in a nostalgic (to use Prokurat’s term) or
instinctive feeling that the language of this translation is somehow partic-
ularly appropriate for conveying the message of the Bible. And this in turn
is due to the pervasive influence of the conservative language of liturgy.
It has been said that the vast liturgical corpus of Orthodoxy may
best be characterized as an extended meditation on Scripture, and so the
acquaintance of Orthodox Christians with the text of the Bible is primar-
ily in the context of the services of the church. It has been calculated, for
example, that the Divine Liturgy contains 98 references to the Old Testa-
ment and 124 references to the New Testament.5
Before the twentieth century, of course, the question of which English
text of the Bible should be used in the Divine Liturgy and other services
hardly arose. Unless an original translation of the biblical passages was to
be made, there was scarcely any viable alternative to the KJV. In any case
Orthodox liturgical texts in English were little more than curiosities at this
time: since there was hardly a community using them, their purpose was
essentially to introduce an exotic form of worship to the English-speaking
Christian world.
All of this changed, however, with the work of a doughty Episco-
palian woman from New England called Isabel Florence Hapgood.6 She
was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on November 21, 1851, to a rela-
tively well-to-do manufacturing family. Her father was responsible for
several inventions, most notably a railway sleeping car that was a precur-
sor of the Pullman. Isabel displayed an early gift for languages, and over
the course of her life translated into English a number of literary works
from several languages—most notably perhaps several works by Count
Leo Tolstoy, with whom she maintained a personal correspondence over
many years, and whom she visited in person during a two-year stay in
Russia in the 1880s.
Hapgood’s most abiding monument is the Service Book of the Holy
Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church, which she compiled and translated
over a period of some eleven years (from 1895 to 1906). The volume was
first published in 1906, and went through six editions over the course
of the twentieth century. Until the rise of more recent English liturgical
translations, “Hapgood’s Service Book,” as it became known, was a key text
used in English-speaking Orthodox parishes on both sides of the Atlantic,

and also a significant contribution to Anglican-Orthodox dialogue.
Despite its rather idiosyncratic structure, Hapgood’s volume was for a
long time the only available English text for some of the less common ser-
vices, and it may be said to have become a part of the historical conscious-
ness of English-speaking Orthodoxy. According to the foreword to the
latest edition (1983), by Metropolitan Philip (Saliba) of the Anthiochian
archdiocese, “a continuous demand for the book exists and bears witness
to its unsurpassed usefulness.”7
Hapgood intended her Service Book to contribute to mutual under-
standing between her own Episcopal Church and the Church of Russia in
particular; to this end the language of her translation is a kind of pastiche
of the King James Bible and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, and as
such can read strangely today. The following examples are taken from her
text of the service of Great Vespers:
• Exalt the horn of Orthodox Christians

• That our good God … will be graciously favourable and easy to be
entreated
• Multiply them [these loaves] in this holy habitation
The translation of the rubrics can sound even more quaint:
And here shall be sung immediately, Lord, I have cried unto thee … And
in the mean time the Deacon censeth the Sanctuary and all the Temple.
Of course, the process of translating Orthodox liturgical texts into English

advanced considerably during the twentieth century. Most of the English-
speaking Orthodox jurisdictions have produced translations of a greater
or lesser number of liturgical texts, and in recent years the democratiza-
tion brought about by the Internet has led to the availability of several
individual efforts as well.8
A special place in this pantheon is occupied by two substantial vol-
umes prepared principally by Archimandrite (now Metropolitan) Kallis-
tos (Timothy) Ware—the author incidentally of what is probably the best-
known introductory volume on Orthodoxy for English-speaking readers,
The Orthodox Church.9 Entitled The Festal Menaion and The Lenten Tri-
odion, they contain English texts of the major services for Great Lent and
for the fixed feasts. What interests us most in this context however is the
introductory material in these volumes, in particular the extensive preface

to the Festal Menaion that deals precisely with two key issues of direct
relevance to our topic:
So far as the general style of our translation is concerned, after much

experimenting we decided to take as our model the language of the
Authorized Version (the King James Bible). This, we realize, is a con-
troversial decision. Many of our readers will probably feel that, if the
liturgical texts are to come alive for people today, they must be rendered
in a more contemporary idiom. To this it must be answered that the
Greek used in the canons and hymns that are here translated was never
a “contemporary” or “spoken” language. The Byzantine hymnographers
wrote in a liturgical style that was consciously “artificial,” even though it
was never intentionally obscure or unintelligible. As we see it, the lan-
guage of the Authorized Version is best adapted to convey the spirit of
the original liturgical Greek.10
The first matter raised here concerns the general appropriateness of

archaic versus modern language in liturgical translation. Of course this
is hardly specific to Orthodoxy, but Metropolitan Kallistos applies the
argument precisely to the situation of English-speaking Orthodoxy and
the King James Bible, arguing that since the Greek of the liturgical texts
was deliberately archaic (or more exactly, archaizing), it is entirely appro-
priate to use an archaic form of the language for the English translation
of these texts.
An even more specific and significant issue concerns the relationship
of English-speaking Orthodoxy to the English (essentially to the Angli-
can) liturgical tradition. This is how Metropolitan Kallistos characterizes
the situation in the preface already referred to:
For three centuries and more the Authorized Version, and along with it
the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, have provided the words with
which English-speaking peoples throughout the world have addressed
God. So long as certain archaisms of language and construction are
avoided, the English of the King James Bible is still easily understood.11
For other authors the issue is by no means so clear-cut (and indeed they
reach the opposite conclusion from Metropolitan Kallistos). In a valuable
survey article on Orthodox liturgical translation Paul Garrett writes: “We
cannot—or rather, should not—consider ourselves bound to the (essen-
tially Anglican) tradition of the King James Version (and the accompany-
ing Book of Common Prayer).”12 The reason for this is that English-speak-
ing Orthodox, as those coming late to the fold from outside the Orthodox
heartlands, can be less tied to a kind of nostalgia for archaic formulations.
The same point is well put by Nigel Gotteri:
Our advantage as Orthodox is that we are not so much revising our Eng-
lish as translating into modern English a variety of Christian experience
which has evolved quite without reference to English conceptual frame-
works. As a result we should be able to avoid outworn clichés more easily
than most; we may use well-established words if we are sure that they
have retained their full content, but we are not tied to them by our own
traditions or by feelings of nostalgia.13
Garrett’s argument is in fact a more sophisticated one than would at first

appear from the plain statement that Orthodox do not need to follow an
Anglican tradition. In short he is arguing for a distinction between two
levels of language—simpler and more direct for biblical texts and more
complex for liturgical ones:
The text we adopt must be of sufficiently simple style for us to be able

to develop its themes hymnographically. The text of Scripture ought
not to “compete” with the liturgical materials, as would be the case if an
extremely “literary” Bible is chosen. Rather it should form a clear, solid
foundation for the hymnographer’s art. Furthermore, a very literary base
text will not only make the translator’s work more complex than neces-
sary … but will, in addition, distort the proper relationship of Scripture
to liturgy which can be seen in the original koine (or “common”) Greek
of the Scriptures and the luxuriant Byzantine Greek of the liturgy.14
The distinction made here between the language of Scripture and the lan-
guage of liturgy is really an argument for the kind of functional equivalence
first proposed by Eugene Nida:15 just as there are two types or levels of
Greek used in the services (a simple one for the text of Scripture and a
more elaborate one for the hymns), so an attempt should be made to main-
tain the same distinction in English translation.
A more explicit application of translation theory to liturgical transla-
tion is made by Adriana Şerban. She begins, we may say, where Metropoli-
tan Kallistos left off. Noting the archaizing tendency apparent in several
English translations of the Orthodox liturgy, she observes:
It is then particularly interesting to note how, in the absence of an Ortho-

dox tradition in Britain that new translations could take as a reference
point, a number of 20th century translations … preferred to look back
to the language of Catholic and Protestant models, rather than to start
afresh, using contemporary English. In a sense, then, the process of trans-
lating the Orthodox liturgy into English is one of colonizing the past.16
What Şerban does, essentially, is to apply the functionalist or target-ori-

ented translation approach to English versions of the Orthodox liturgy.
This focus on appropriateness for the intended audience of the different
translations allows her to make some interesting observations. In particu-
lar, she draws attention to a dual tendency in translations of the liturgy
made in the United Kingdom. On the one hand, because of the growth in
numbers of English converts to Orthodoxy and the fact that second- and
third-generation immigrants from Orthodox countries are more comfort-
able using English than the language of their country of origin, she finds
a modernizing tendency in translations intended for lay or parish use. On
the other hand, in a translation intended primarily for monastic use, she
finds a conscious and systematic attempt to use archaic forms of language
based on the KJV and the Book of Common Prayer, which the translators
characterize—in an echo of Metropolitan Kallistos’s words quoted ear-
lier—as “liturgical English at is noblest.”
This may be illustrated by looking at a short extract from the Liturgy
(the Prayer of the Second Antiphon) in three different English translations:
• Lord our God, save thy people and bless thine inheritance; preserve
the fullness of thy Church, sanctify those who love the beauty of
thy house, glorify them by thy divine power and forsake us not who
hope in thee. (Liturgy of the Orthodox Church, 1979)
• Lord our God, save your people and bless your inheritance; protect
the fullness of your Church, sanctify those who love the beauty of
your house, glorify them in return by your divine power, and do not
forsake us who hope in you. (Divine Liturgy, 1995)
• O Lord our God, save thy people, and bless thine inheritance. Preserve
the fullness of thy Church. Sanctify them that love the habitation of
thy house. Do thou by thy divine power exalt them unto glory; and
forsake us not who put our trust in thee. (Orthodox Liturgy, 1982)
Looking at the first two translations, we can see that—in pronominal usage
and word order—the language has been lightly updated between 1979 and
1995 to conform more closely to contemporary usage. This surely reflects a

judgment about the way in which the needs of the target audience (essen-
tially parishes where the liturgical language is English) changed over the
fifteen years between the two translations.
The third translation, however, although it is more recent than the first,
adopts a much more consciously archaizing approach, evidently because of
its intended use in monastic services; and, in addition to archaic pronouns
and word order, it clearly seeks to use specific phrases from the KJV/Book
of Common Prayer tradition (as indicated by the boldface items).
Let us now attempt to draw some conclusions from the material we
have considered. First, it is undoubtedly true that the KJV has played a
central role in the engagement of English-speaking Orthodox Christians
with the text of Scripture. This is partly due to innate conservatism, partly
(in the case of the NT) because of issues of base text, but mainly it reflects
a feeling that the archaic language of the KJV is somehow more in accord
with ancient tradition.
Second, the issue of the appropriateness of KJV language for Eng-
lish liturgical translation has been a matter of some debate—essentially
between those who feel that Orthodox liturgical usage in English should
be linked to the Anglican tradition of the KJV (and the Book of Common
Prayer), and those who feel that the different origin of Eastern Christian
traditions allows more freedom when texts from this tradition are trans-
lated into English.
Third, the changing demography of English-speaking Orthodoxy
may lead to tensions between different constituencies (second- and
third-generation immigrants from the Orthodox heartlands on the one
hand, English-speaking converts on the other), and this may result in a
proliferation of Orthodox liturgical translations in English, for different
intended audiences.
In any event, I believe this short investigation has demonstrated that
the ripples emanating from the King James Bible, although perhaps slight
by the time they reached the shallows, have spread out to the edge of a very
wide pond!
Notes
1. R. R. Girdlestone, Suggestions for Translators, Editors and Revisers of the Bible

(London: Hatchard, 1877), 10.
2. British and Foreign Bible Society, Rules for the Guidance of Translators, Revisers
and Editors Working in Connection with the British and Foreign Bible Society (London:
British and Foreign Bible Society, 1917), 8.
3. Michael Prokurat, “NRSV: Preliminary Report,” St. Vladimir’s Theological
Quarterly 43 (1999): 321 n. 13.
4. See ibid. for details. We may also mention here three recent efforts to produce
an Orthodox Bible translation in English. The Orthodox Study Bible (2008) uses the
NKJV text for its NT, while for the OT it has produced a new (and rather idiosyn-
cratic) text by adaptation from Brenton’s English translation of the Septuagint. The
Eastern/Greek Orthodox Bible (NT 2009, OT in progress) is a fresh translation of
the Patriarchal text of the NT and of the Septuagint; but once again it is the work of
a group of individuals, and there are no signs yet of it being officially adopted. The
same applies even more to the Orthodox New Testament (1st ed. 1999; 3rd ed. 2003;
2 vols.; Bueno Vista, Colo.: Holy Apostles Convent), a very literal rendering of the
Greek text published with the blessing of two Orthodox jurisdictions outside the
ecclesiastical mainstream.
5. Figures from D. Ciobatea cited in Adriana Şerban, “Archaising Versus Mod-
ernising in English Translations of the Orthodox Liturgy: St. John Crysostomos in
the 20th Century,” in Translation and Religion: Holy Untranslatable? (ed. Lynne Long;
Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2005), 79.
6. For a short biography of Hapgood see Stuart H. Hoke, “A Generally Obscure
Calling: A Character Sketch of Isabel Florence Hapgood,” St. Vladimir’s Theological
Quarterly 45 (2001): 55–93.
7. Isabel Florence Hapgood, Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apos-
tolic Church (6th ed.; Englewood, N.J.: Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese
of North America, 1983).
8. A good source for a wide range of English translations of liturgical texts is
the website of St Jonah’s Orthodox Church in Texas (http://www.saintjonah.org/ser-
vices/resources.htm). A comprehensive set of English translations can be found on the
homepage of Fr. Ephrem Lash, http://www.anastasis.org.uk/.
9. Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (rev. ed.; London: Penguin, 1993).
10. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware, The Festal Menaion (London:
Faber & Faber, 1969), 13–14.
11. Ibid., 14.
12. Paul D. Garrett, “The Problem of Liturgical Translation,” St. Vladimir’s Theo-
logical Quarterly 22 (1978): 106.
13. Nigel Gotteri, “The Language of Orthodoxy,” Sobornost 7/4 (1977): 255.
14. Garrett, “Problem of Liturgical Translation,” 106–7.
15. Eugene A. Nida and Charles R. Taber, The Theory and Practice of Translation
(Leiden: Brill, 1969).
16. Şerban, “Archaising Versus Modernising,” 77–78.

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The KJV in Orthodox Perspective

A possible framework for this study is provided by the following ques-

It ought to be mentioned in so many words … that the BFBS has never

used in English-speaking Orthodox parishes on both sides of the Atlantic,

• Exalt the horn of Orthodox Christians

The translation of the rubrics can sound even more quaint:

Of course, the process of translating Orthodox liturgical texts into English

introductory material in these volumes, in particular the extensive preface

So far as the general style of our translation is concerned, after much

The first matter raised here concerns the general appropriateness of

Garrett’s argument is in fact a more sophisticated one than would at first

The text we adopt must be of sufficiently simple style for us to be able

It is then particularly interesting to note how, in the absence of an Ortho-

What Şerban does, essentially, is to apply the functionalist or target-ori-

1995 to conform more closely to contemporary usage. This surely reflects a

1. R. R. Girdlestone, Suggestions for Translators, Editors and Revisers of the Bible

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