The Bible and the English Language

Presidency University Dept. of English, B.A. 3rd Year

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The Sun says Aston Villa "refused to give up the ghost.

Wendy Richard calls her EastEnders character Pauline Fowler "the

salt of the earth".
!

The England cricket coach tells reporters, "You can't put words in
my mouth."
!

Daily Mirror fashion pages call Tilda Swinton "a law unto herself".

Who wrote the King James Bible?

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54 scholars, all members of the Church of England, were chosen

and 47 completed the task
!

Worked in six panels, each responsible for a different part of the

Bible
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Based in Oxford, Cambridge and London

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Drew heavily on the work of William Tyndale, who was one of the
first to translate the Bible into English from Hebrew and Greek
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It was all at the request of King James I, who was unhappy with
existing translations and regularly visited the scholars at work

Highlight the Biblical Phrases

God forbid that the powers that be are able to thus

turn the world upside down in their lust for the filthy
lucre of riches and political muscle. Corruption and
indigence can only take root under such
circumstances; as for those who are not party to this
conspiracy, they are weak and ignorant. To give them
the leadership of the country will result in the blind
leading the blind. The way forward now is to
convince these corrupt politicians that they too have
feet of clay and that there is, ultimately, no peace for
the wicked.
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Professor of theology, Alistair McGrath

points to several reasons. The Bible
was "a very public text", he says. "It
would have been read aloud in
churches very, very extensively, which
would have imprinted it on people's
minds."
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The language was itself in a very fluid

state so it could admit so many new
phrases.
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A recent book by the linguist David Crystal, appropriately called Begat:

The King James Bible and the English language, counts 257 phrases
from the King James Bible in contemporary English idiom.
!
He also found that the Bible coined few new words. Shakespeare by
comparison, introduced about 100 phrases into our idiom, to the Bible's
257, but something like 1,000 new words. The English Bible introduced
only 40 or so, including "battering ram" and "backsliding.
!
Only 18 of the idioms are from the KJV and the rest are from the
Bishops Bible (149), The Geneva Bible (160), the Douaiy-Rheims Bible
(135), Tyndale (86) and Wycliffe (40). There is a history of over a
hundred years of Biblical scholarship before the KJB that we need to
consider when we discuss the influence of the Bible on the English
language.
!
"This reflects their different jobs," says Crystal. "The whole point of
being a dramatist is to be original in your language. The Bible
translators, in contrast, were under strict instructions not to be
innovative but to look backwards to what earlier translators had
done." So paradoxically it seems that the profound influence of the King
James Bible in changing and shaping our language came through the
desire to be as linguistically conservative as possible.
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Turned the world upside down Acts 17:6

God forbid Romans 3:4

Take root 2 Kings 19:30

The powers that be Romans 13:1

Filthy lucre 1 Timothy 3:3

No peace for the wicked Isaiah 57: 21

A fly in the ointment Ecclesiastes 10:1

Wheels within wheels Ezekiel 10:10

The blind leading the blind Matthew 15:13

Feet of clay Daniel 2:33

Using the OED

fought the good fight
gave up the ghost
put words in my mouth
salt of the earth
out of the mouths of babes

David Crystal on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8GNU9Kp2ao

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