Celebrating the King James Bible

While there are plenty of places to celebrate a special anniversary right here at the Jersey Shore, for one as monumental as the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, a trip into New York City to see On Eagles' Wings at the Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA) is just the thing.

The exhibit features a number of historic manuscripts, including a 1611 first folio edition of the bible and a 1440 New Testament. It also includes a collection of breathtaking paintings (my photos don't do them justice) that contemporary artist Makoto Fujimura created to illustrate a Crossway Books commemorative edition of The Four Holy Gospels. 

Transgressing in Love

Fujimura paints using the ancient Japanese Nihonga technique, but does so with "a visual vocabulary of 20th century contemporary art," the exhibit literature said. 

"Twentieth century abstraction has really given me the language to tap into the mystery of creation," said Fujimura in the promotional video that hooked me.

Four large works representing each of the gospels are on display, along with a fifth painting representing the tears of Jesus, and a collection of letters that the artist designed as chapter headings for the text.

Fujimura was a presidential appointee to the National Council on the Arts from 2003 to 2009 and is founder of the International Arts Movement, an organization that seeks to "equip the creative community to generate good, true and beautiful cultural artifacts: sign-posts pointing toward the 'world that ought to be.' "

"Art is always transgressive," he explained in the video. "We need to transgress in love. We, today, have a language to celebrate waywardness, but we do not have a cultural language to bring people back home."

Why 'Go Home' to the King James Bible?

On Eagles' Wings opened Friday night and was followed by an academic symposium Saturday morning, a screening of the documentary The Book that Changed the World (which can be rented for $3.99 at Amazon.com) Saturday afternoon, a banquet Saturday night, and a Sunday morning worship service at which N.T. Wright, the retired Anglican Bishop of Durham, England gave the homily. In all these events that were jointly hosted by the American Bible Society and MOBIA, answers could be found.

"I had not seen most of these Bibles and here they were — originals — beautifully displayed," wrote theologian and author Scot Mcknight at his Jesus Creed blog. 

McKnight was one of the symposium speakers.

"Perhaps more attention should be given to Wycliffe but I was overcome with excitement to see Tyndale. There it was, probably 83% of the King James, done by a man on a mission, a man on the run, and a man who was burned at the stake for translating the Bible into English," he wrote.

Celebrating the Vernacular

As McKnight noted, the King James Bible was primarily a conservative update of previous translations. It wasn't embraced by common people until 150 years after it was first published in 1611, said Bible scholar David Norton.

"Religious and political history was at work in the production of these Bibles," said McKnight. 

The King James Bible was meant to carry on the Protestant tradition of the Geneva and Bishop's Bibles, to be an alternative to the Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible, and to satisfy Puritan readers, he said.

"It's a great tragedy that the King James Bible has been distributed for many centuries without introduction," said Caribbean theologian Marlon Winedt.

He persuasively argued that the bible should be a model for translating scripture into indigenous vernaculars. 

"A true celebration of the King James Bible implies a celebration of vernacular," said Winedt.

Wright showed me a copy of the bible he had received as a gift from his godmother upon his confirmation in 1963, when he was 15 years old. 

"This is really where I cut my teeth as a young, keen, evangelical Anglican learning to find my way around Scripture," said Wright. "I'm very glad to have grown up with it."

The retired bishop also showed me a copy of his own contemporary New Testament translation, The Kingdom New Testament, which was published last week in the United Kingdom and which is scheduled for publication here in October.

"This is not an act of homage to the King James, nor an act of destruction to it, but it's a way of saying, rather like what [Winedt] was just saying now, you have to do it for each generation. This is for tomorrow's church," he said.

Join the Celebration

On Eagles' Wings runs through October 16. 

Admission is $7 for adults, $4 for students, senior citizens, and active military, and free for children under 12 years old.

MOBIA is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. except on Thursdays when it closes at 8 p.m.

The museum is located at 1865 Broadway at 61st Street, New York, NY 10023-7505.

For more information, call (212) 408-1500.