Printed by George E. Eyre and Andrew Spottiswoode, Printers to the Queen’s Most Excellent
Majesty, and sold at their Warehouse, 189, Fleet Street, 1844. [Nonpareil Reference,
12mq.]” The Dedication “ To the most high and mighty Prince, James,” states
that His “ Highness had once out of deep judgment apprehended how convenient it was
that out of the Original Sacred Tongues,* together with comparing of the labours, both in
our own, and other foreign Languages, of many worthy men who went before us, there
should be one more exact Translation of the Holy Scriptures into the English Tongue”
It thus becomes patent that our copy is not printed in one of “ the Original Sacred
Tongues,” but merely professes to be a “ more exact Translation ” into English than, at the
date of its publication, 242 years ago, had previously appeared. Even conceding that the
Holy Scriptures|h the “ Original Sacred Tongues” may have been revealed word for word
by the Almighty, and granting that their ediiio princeps was a manuscript in the autographs
of divinely-inspired Scribes, no reasonable person will deny the possibility that this English
translation may embrace some errors—none among the educated will be so unreasonable as to
insist upon the infallibility of its English translators, however erudite, however conscientious
; nor perchance will claim inspiration for these worthies. Childishly credulous as we
are by nature, and uncritical though the generality of us remain through education, no
sane Anglo-Saxons, since the middle ages, allow “ divine inspiration” to men of their own
race. We accord the possibility of “ inspiration ” solely to members of a single family
that lived a long time ago, and a great way off ; whose descendants (although nowadays
ranking among the best citizens of our cis-Atlantic Republic) are still abused by our kinsfolk
across the water ; and who, although contributors to our own and the latter’s welfare
and glory, are yet debarred, as unworthy, from a voice in the British Parliament : and all
this, forsooth, in the same breath of acknowledgment that we derive our most sacred Code
of Religion, Morals, and Laws, from their inspired ancestors! and whilst, based upon our
modern notions of their ancient creed, we nasally vociferate that they and ourselves are
“ of one blood as brothers” !
Our copy, such as it is, may be accepted without hesitation as a lineal descendant of the
primary authorized version in the English language, wrested from the Lords Spiritual and
Temporal through the intelligence of our ancestors, quickened by the Reformation ; who
bled for the same rights that we their posterity can now assert, in the free United States
of America and in Great Britain (without even the merit of boldness), viz. the right to
examine the Scriptures, and everything else, for ourselves, and to express our opinions
thereon in the broad light of heaven.
Archseologically speaking, in order to insure minute exactness, it would be imperative to
collate, year by year, and edition by edition, the whole succession of copies of our “ authorized
version” ; and, by retracing from the exemplar on our table backwards to that first
printed in black-letter during the reign of king James, to ascertain whether any and what
changes, beyond variations in typography, may have been introduced. But such dreadful
labor is, to the writer, impossible for want of the series ; ungenial to his tastes as well as
unnecessary for his objects. He contents himself with the assertion that there are many
differences between such copies of divers editions that have fallen in his way, although considered
by others of little or no moment ; being chiefly marginal, as in the superadded and
spurious chronology ; or capitular, as in the apocryphal headings to chapters, &c. ; neither
of which can have any more to do with the original “ word of God,” than the printer’s
name, the binding, or the paper.
As positivists in Philosophy while archaeologists in method, we clear the table of these com-
paratively-trivial disputations ; and bounding retrogressively over the interval that divides
our generation from that of His Majesty King James, the reader is requested to take with
us the historical era of the promulgation of the “ authorized version” as a common point
of departure; viz. a . ©. 1611.
The most ancient printed copy of king James’s version, that has been accessible to us,
lies in the British Museum. It contains a memorandum by the Rev. Dr. Horne to the effect
that the title-pages are of thè primary edition of the year 1611, but that the rest appertains
to that of 1613. The whole folio is printed in black-letter. Its frontispieces are literary
gems ; and so faithfully portraying the symbolism of Europe’s “ ihoyen age” in their astrolo-
gico-theological emblems, that every antiquary must deplore that castigating zeal which
"has effaced such quaiùt exprèssions of ancestral piety, to substitute for them, in some of
our current copies, typographical whims that cannot pretend even to the venerable halo of
bygone days. The title-page to the Old Testament is embellished by vignettes, among
which figure the Lion, Man, Bull, and Eagle\ (36) ancient signs for the solstices and equinoxes.
Moses is truthfully represented, as in Michel-angelo’s statue, with his characteristic
horns ; according to the Vulgate of Exod. (xxxiv. 29, 30, 35), “ cornuta esset facies
sua,” which preserves one sense of the Hebrew KRN, horn. The zodiaco-heraldic arms of
the “ 12 Tribes” of Israel are also preserved; (37) together with a variety of other symbols,
archæologically precious. That of the New Testament is still more curious, inasmuch as
it exhibits the esoteric transmission (perceived even as late as at that time by learned
reformers in England) of certain antique symbolisms of Hebrew Scriptures into those of the
Orientalized Greeks or Hellenized Jews. The “ 4 ” solstitial and equinoctial signs of the
“4 seasonS” remain, but are now attached to the figures of the “ 4 ” Evangelists ; while the
zodiaco-heraldic arms of the “ 12 Sons of Jacob” {Gen. xlix. |J 28), whence the “ 12 Tribes
of Israel,” lie parallel with and officiate as “ pendants” to the “ 12 Apostles,” each with
his symbolical relation to the “ 12 months” of the year, &c.— the whole, indeed, saving its
uncouth artistic execution, so vividly solar and astral in conception, as to betray that primeval
Ægy^to-Chaldaic source whence students of hieroglyphical and cuneiform monuments,
— exhumed and translated more than two centuries subsequently to the publication
of our English “ editio princeps ”*5£-now know that the types of this imagery are derived.
The reader, who seeks throughout our modern editions in vain for the once-conSecrated
embellishments of ages past, may now perceive that we are not altogether ill-advised when
hinting that great liberties have been taken with the authorized English Bible between
a . d . 1611, era of its first promulgation, and those copies ostensibly represented in the
current year (1853) to be its lineal and unmutilated offspring . Theologically, however,
these variants through omission or commission are not of the same importance as they
seem to be archæologically, nor need we dwell upon them now;
The accuracy of this English version, and its fidelity to the original Hebrew and Greek
MSS., must rest upon the opinion we can form of its Translators; legalized by the royal
seal and confirmed by an act of Parliament. With the value of the two last authorities,
regal or parliamentary, in questions of purely-philological criticism and of strictly-literary
knowledge, we American Republicans may be excused in declaring that we have nothing
to do. Until it is proved to our comprehension that the acquaintance of those worthy
M. P.’s with the “ original sacred tongues ” was profound, and that they devoted one or
more Sessions to the verification of the minute exactness of the volume they endorsed, their
fiat upon the literary merit of the book itself carries with it no more weight in science
than, to bring the case home, could the Presidential signature to an act of Congress authorizing
the printing in Arabic, at national expense, of the Mohammedan Koràn, in the
year 1853, be accepted as a criterion or even voucher of such huge folio’s historical or
philological correctness.
To us the only admissible evidence of the exactitude of king James’s version, as a faithful
exponent of the “ word of God” (originally written, and closed some 1500 years before that
monarch’s reign, in Hebrew and in Greek), must be twofold -^- historical, and exegetical : the
former, by establishing the learning, oriental knowledge, critical skill, and integrity of the
men; the latter, by demonstrating that rigid examination will fail to detect errors in the
performance itself. Of this duplex evidence .we now go in quest ; remarking at the outset,
(36) Conf. S a l v e r t e : Sciences Occultes; i. pp. 46, 47. Comp. EzeldeL i. 10, with Apocalypse iv. 7. R ig h e l -
“m: Franc-maçonnerie; Paris, 1842; i. p. 824, pi. 4, fig. 1,
(o7J Conf. K i r c h e r : OEdipus Ægyptiacus ; Rome, 1658; Vol. ii. part 1. p. 21. Drummond : OEdipus Judaicus;
London, 1811 ; plate 15 — “ Dissertation on XLIXth Chapter of Genesis ” : |~ and L a n c i : Paralipomeni, passim