The Battle for the Bible in England, 1557-1582 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by Donald Dean Smeeton Eastern Mennonite University The Battle for the Bible in England, 1557-1582. By Cameron A. MacKenzie. (New York: Peter Lang Publishing Group. 2002. Pp. xi, 338. $69.95.) "The Bible says so." That should end the argument, but truth and certainty are not that simple today nor, as Cameron A. MacKenzie shows, were they that simple during the English Reformation. His stated purpose is to examine early English Bibles to see "what we can learn about the religious and theological commitments of the communities that produced them" (p. 1). He argues that the Geneva Bible was essentially adopted and domesticated by the Anglican Church in order to temper the separatistic impulses of English Puritanism. Then he describes how the Rheims text was a Catholic attempt to turn the Protestant arguments against their creators without sacrificing what it meant to be Catholic in the sixteenth century. By limiting his scope to the period between the publication of the Geneva Bible and production of the Rheims New Testament, he fills in details omitted by the broad outlines drawn by other authorities. There have been several significant works that have provided the big picture. David Daniell's The Bible in English: Its History and Influence (2005) and Alister McGrath's In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible (2001) are but two recent, readable examples. By narrowing his inquiry, MacKenzie fills in the significant steps between William Tyndale's New Testament (1526) and the King James Bible (1611). MacKenzie has focused on the cultural, political, theological, and social forces that influenced the three major Bible translations (the Geneva Bible, the Bishops Bible, and the Rheims New Testament) of this twenty-five-year period. The Geneva Bible was, of course, the voice of opposition not only to the Catholic politics of Mary Tudor but also against the "settlement" of her half-sister Elizabeth. He correctly shows the weakness of speaking of "the" Geneva Bible because it appeared in many editions in both Europe and in England. Each edition of the Geneva Bible had a distinctive preface, different introductions to the various sections, explanatory notes, marginal readings, liturgical calendars, and noted textual variants. Each set of editors was guided by religious, not to mention political, values that informed their presentations. Their understanding of the Bible's message and its perspicuity influenced not only their choice of words in translation, but also their choice of what was needed to make the message evident. MacKenzie points out that what first had been produced as a work of opposition to the English throne was, in the end, printed by the British establishment to consolidate Anglicanism and provide a united front against the threat—which was both real and exaggerated—of Catholics destabilizing the fragile Elizabethan settlement. By employing arguments from philology, the church fathers, and textual criticism, the Rheims translators of the New Testament reversed the Catholic opposition to an English text. Their translation relied fundamentally upon the authority of the Catholic Church expressed, in this instance, by the decrees of the Council of Trent and showed that an English Bible could support orthodoxy as [End Page 966] well as heresy. Like its Protestant counterparts, the Rheims New Testament was partisan and polemical in its notes, chapter summaries, tables, and explanations. It was Latinate, even obscure; English was a deliberate choice rather than simply taking issue with Protestants regarding the clarity of the text. MacKenzie's work is thorough with extensive explanatory endnotes, a solid bibliography, and a useful index. Just as his work is strongest when dealing with the religious and political issues of the Anglican Church, it is weakest in describing the ecclesiastical and theological changes in Roman Catholicism that allowed the Rheims project to become a reality.