THE KING JAMES VERSION AS ENGLISH LITERATURELET it be plainly said at the very first that when we speak of the literary phases of the Bible we are not discussing the book in its historic meaning.It was never meant as literature in our usual sense of the word.Nothing could have been further from the thought of the men who wrote it, whoever they were and whenever they wrote, than that they were making a world literature.They had the characteristics of men who do make great literature-- they had clear vision and a great passion for truth; they loved their fellows mightily, and they were far more concerned to be understood than to speak.These are traits that go to make great writers.But it was never in their minds that they were making a world literature.The Bible is a book of religious significance from first to last.If it utterly broke down by the tests of literature, it might be as great a book as it needs to be.It is a subordinate fact that by the tests of literature it proves also to be great.Prof.Gardiner, of Harvard, whose book called The Bible as English Literature makes other such works almost unnecessary, frankly bases his judgment on the result of critical study of the Bible, but he serves fair warning that he takes inspiration for granted, and thinks it "obvious that no literary criticism of the Bible could hope for success which was not reverent in tone.A critic who should approach it superciliously or arrogantly would miss all that has given the Book its power as literature and its lasting and universal appeal."[1] Farther over in his book he goes on to say that when we search for the causes of the feelings which made the marvelous style of the Bible a necessity, explanation can make but a short step, for "we are in a realm where the only ultimate explanation is the fact of inspiration; and that is only another way of saying that we are in the presence of forces above and beyond our present human understanding."[2]
[1] Preface, p.vii.[2] Page 124.
However, we may fairly make distinction between the Bible as an original work and the Bible as a work of English literature.For the Bibleas an original work is not so much a book as a series of books, the work of many men working separately over a period of at least fifteen hundred years, and these men unconscious for the most part of any purpose of agreement.This series of books is made one book in the original by the unity of its general purpose and the agreement of its parts.The Bible in English is, however, not a series of books, but properly one book, the work of six small groups of men working in conscious unity through a short period of years.And while there is variation in style, while there are inequalities in result, yet it stands as a single piece of English literature.It has a literary style of its own, even though it feels powerfully the Hebrew influence throughout.And while it would not be a condemnation of the Bible if it were not great literature in English or elsewhere, it is still part of its power that by literary standards alone it measures large.
It is so that men of letters have rated it since it came into existence."It holds a place of pre-eminence in the republic of letters." When John Richard Green comes to deal with it, he says: "As a mere literary monument the English version of the Bible remains the noblest language of the English tongue, while its perpetual use made of it from the instant of its appearance the standard of our language."[1] And in Macaulay's essay on Dryden, while he is deploring the deterioration of English style, he yet says that in the period when the English language was imperiled there appeared "the English Bible, a book which if everything else in our language should perish would alone suffice to show the extent of its beauty and power."[1] Short History of the English People, Book vii, chap.i.
The mere fact that the English Bible contains a religion does not affect its standing as literature.Homer and Virgil are Greek and Roman classics, yet each of them contains a definite religion.You can build up the religious faith of the Greeks and Romans out of their great literature.So you can build up the religious faith of the Hebrews and the early Christians from the Old and New Testaments."For fifteen centuries a Hebrew Book, the Bible, contained almost the whole literature and learning of a whole nation," while it was also the book of their religion.
