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“Words are static. The world is dynamic.”
Dr. Ben Mack
I am a fan of crossword puzzles. Occasionally the New York Times Crossword will provide a clue for a “biblical” word. The correct answer will be something like “shalt” or “hath.” Although I don’t get too annoyed by clues in crossword puzzles, every time I see this, I see it as a perpetuation of the idea that the King James English is authentic biblical language in a way that ordinary English of the early 21st century is not.
Instead of calling this type of language “biblical,” I am going to call this “Godspeak.” Godspeak is a unique and strange language, spoken only inside certain churches and used on the pages of the King James Bible.
In other words, King James English is “Godspeak.” Along with the idea that the “Authorized” King James Version is somehow the official “Word of God,” King James English has been endowed with the idea that it is somehow the official language of God and all business dealing with God must be conducted in Godspeak.
Godspeak has its own rules of grammar and its own distinct vocabulary. Here are the first two rules of Godspeak.
Rule #1. When you pray, you must use a certain set of pronouns to refer to God and anything belonging to God: thou, thee, thy, thine.
So, when you pray the Lord’s Prayer, you pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”
Rule #2. You must use odd verbal constructions, such as “shalt,” “wouldst,” “doth,” “hath,” or “art.” So you pray to “Our Father who art in Heaven.” You learn that “Thou shalt not kill”
The question I raise is this: Is Godspeak a biblical language? Certainly, Godspeak occurs throughout the King James Bible, but does that make Godspeak biblical? In fact, what the New York Times Crosswords calls “biblical” language is neither more nor less “biblical” than contemporary English.
Let’s consider the English of the King James Version. The King James Bible was a remarkable linguistic accomplishment for many reasons. (My problems with the King James Version concern the way it is used in the contemporary church. I stand in awe of the translation itself.)
Among his other talents, James was a Bible scholar who worked on his own translations. When he commanded that a group of scholars create a new English translation, he had several purposes.
He wanted to replace The Geneva Bible, which was the Bible of the Protestant Reformation, with a version that was friendlier to the Anglican Church and reinforced his authority as head of the Church of England.
He also wanted the Bible translated into common speech–the vernacular–so that ordinary people could read it.
Just in passing–this is the same motivation that led Martin Luther to translate the entire Bible into his own regional German dialect in the 1530s and in the process, set the stage for his dialect to become standard “High German.”
So, the goal of the translators was to use the common speech of the time. It was not elevated speech. It was not fancy speech. It was not the speech of the aristocracy. In 1611, the King James Bible was written in the ordinary English of ordinary folks.
(Coincidentally, Shakespeare was still writing his plays when the King James Bible was published. Shakespeare wrote his plays from approximately 1587 to the year of his death, in 1616. Shakespeare also wrote in the common speech of his time.)
Meanwhile, four hundred years have passed. English is a dynamic, living language. As I recently heard Dr. Ben Mack say so succinctly, “Words are static. The world is dynamic.” The words on the page of King James Bible are static, but the meaning of the words has changed as the world has changed around them.
Often, people will argue that the King James Version is so elegant, so beautiful, so refined, that putting the words into ordinary English would not sound “biblical” enough.
And that is exactly the point. The ordinary speech of the 17th century has become a relic in the 21st. No one uses “thou” and “shalt” in ordinary speech. This means that the ordinary speech of the King James Bible has become the elevated language of Godspeak.
Despite the fact that Godspeak occurs in the King James Bible, Godspeak is not inherently “biblical.” In the next post, I will demonstrate why using Godspeak to pray the Lord’s Prayer dramatically changes the original intention of the prayer.
Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson
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