Emily Miller

10/12/15

Blog Post #1: In the Beginning…Chap 2

By the standards of 14th Century England I would be considered an ignorant barbarian, having no knowledge of Latin or of the Bible. I was raised in the Jewish religion and attended a nonsectarian public school. I was never assigned or encouraged to read the Bible. My limited Jewish education centered on the Ten Commandments, the Holocaust and Reformed Jewish holidays and traditions. The only reference I recall (and not in any detail) to ancient religious writings was to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Consequently, I approached the readings for this course about the Bible with much trepidation. However, even with my limited background, I found the three chapters of In The Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture by Alister McGrath a surprisingly fast and interesting read.

The visit to the Rare Books Library put the reading into context for me because it gave me a visual and tactile starting point. Of course we take for granted that any book we desire is available in English with one-click ordering from Amazon. To read and learn about the political and social influences leading to the first English translation of the Bible was surprising and interesting. It is only recently that I feel native-born Americans are starting to appreciate that English is not superior to other languages. The trend has shifted and it is now common for schools to require a certain proficiency in an “other than English” language. People of my generation are rightfully embarrassed that we cannot communicate in any other language while most people from other nations speak and understand at least some English. All this is to say how surprising it was to read that English was considered “..the language of peasants, incapable of expressing anything other than the crudest and most basic of matters” (McGrath 24).

Equally as interesting to me was the parallel between English Nationalism and the acceptance of the English language as suitable for Bible translation. McGrath describes the dominance of French culture throughout England and all of Western Europe in the 11th through 13th centuries. French was considered the language of the elite and dominated the political and religious domains. It was in the 15th century that English Nationalism thrived under Elizabeth I and the English language began replacing French in educational, political and literary arenas. Until then, Latin and French were seen as the only acceptable languages for Bible translation and religious teachings. England’s military victories over France in the 1450’s contributed to the elevation of the English language. But it wasn’t until the 1500’s that the divide between the language of the Clergy and that of the rest of the people could no longer be justified or ignored. There still remained a resistance from the Church as well as academia to accept English as the dominant language, but in the end it did prevail. The implications of this shift are interesting to me and raise questions about the relationship of power to language. I am curious to apply this concept to the debate about teaching Standard English to teens and adults today.