The “ornament of the law”: vestments and the translation of Judaism in the Geneva Bible

Abstract

While the 1560 Geneva Bible has long been recognized as a landmark in the development of English Puritan culture, little has been said about its relation to the English vestiarian controversy. The Geneva translators were among a faction of radical Protestants who regarded the liturgical vestments as a form of idolatry that should be completely expunged from Christian worship. This paper argues that the translators’ hostility toward the physical garments of Roman Catholicism prompted their effort within the Geneva translation to appropriate a spiritualized version of the Judaic priestly dress described in Exodus. A consideration of this process will demonstrate that the Geneva translators did not simply repudiate Judaism as a form of fleshly idolatry, but, rather, aimed to appropriate its ritual forms to bring spiritual authority to the new biblical text.