The Bible: Establishing And Preserving the English Language

I have chosen The Bible as a text that I feel has helped not only shape English into the language we know and love today, but it has helped maintain that original, poetic luster in our everyday vernacular.
In the Early Christian world, holy scriptures like The Bible were not nearly as accessible as they are today; in fact, you had to devote your life to the church by joining a monastery in order to have hands-on interaction with these sacred texts (History of Christianity). This separation of the word of God from the masses allowed the leaders of the church ultimate power and authority that could not be contradicted by the people who could not read God’s revelation for themselves.
Keeping The Bible in the languages of antiquity such as: Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin, was a sure way of adding stones to the wall between the fundamentals of the church and its congregation. For the vast majority of the population, attaining the means to be taught one of these scholastic languages was not even something that could be dreamt about. This lingual detachment also allowed the leaders more artistic liberties when they were translating the ancient tongues into the spoken languages of their congregations, thus removing even more rights of the people to the word of God.
As you can imagine, this custom of elite election to consecrated truths did not foster a healthy environment for the gospel to flourish. During this age we can see the most corruption of sanctified ordinances the Christian world has ever seen. This bastardization of Church roles can be seen in texts like Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales with characters like The Pardoner. John Wycliffe, as the “morning star of the Reformation”, was able to prime the world with his translations of The Bible from the Latin vulgate to Middle English (Reader’s Encyclopedia). Sadly, the Catholic Church was not ready for The Bible to be so freely available to the public and Wycliffe’s memory was not given the reverence it deserved. Forty-four years after he died, the Pope ordered that Wycliffe’s bones be disinterred, crushed, and scattered in the river.
The Czech preacher, John Hus, one of Wycliffe’s followers, carried on Wycliffe’s dream that members of the congregation would one day be able to read the word of God in their own language. Before Hus was burned at the stake, with Wycliffe’s translations of The Bible used as kindling, his last words were said to have been a prophecy of Martin Luther, saying, “In 100 years, God will raise up a man whose calls for reform cannot be suppressed” (Final Declaration) Almost exactly one hundred years later, Martin Luther graced the religious scene, doing his best to bring God back into the church; the church that had been turned into a political system that was more interested in its own bottom line than it was in the fundamentals that it was supposed to be teaching. Confronting indulgence salesmen in 1517 with his The Ninety-five Theses, Luther was able to put his intensive Bible Study to use. Luther saw that the more he read of The Bible, the more he realized that man can only draw closer to God by studying His direct revelation. Luther’s The Ninety-five Theses were rapidly introduced and spread throughout Germany, then to France, and all the way to England.
By this time, there were so many corruptions in the Latin Bible that Thomas Linacre, an Oxford professor and the personal physician to both Kings Henry VII and Henry VIII, upon reading The Bible in its original Greek said, “Either this [the original Greek] is not the Gospel, …or we are not Christians.” (British Online History) This purer, original Greek appealed to John Colet as well, and as the Mayor of London’s son he was able to hold public mass with his English interpretations without being executed. These English readings of God’s word were so popular in fact, that they drew crowds of 20,000 to London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, and at least that many waiting outside to get in (Preaching and Reform). With so many flaws in the Latin vulgate, and an increasing crowd pleading to hear the Gospel in their own language, the world was ready for William Tyndale.
The first man to ever publish an English edition of the New Testament, William Tyndale drew solely upon the Hebrew and Greek texts of The Bible to bring English speakers the most untainted revelation from God that was mortally possible. Tyndale’s translations comprise most of what we know of as The Bible today. With 75.7% of the King James Version of the Old Testament, and a whopping 83.7% of the New Testament coming from Tyndale, we can come close to seeing how much effect this one man has had on this iconic text that English speakers everywhere have read, memorized and employed into their daily speech. This constant interaction with The Bible has fossilized some of the English William Tyndale would have heard in his hometown of Gloucestershire England, so it can be heard in the comings and goings of English speakers centuries later.
With 783,137 words in the King James Version of The Bible, speakers of the English language had a lot of beautiful verse to incorporate into the spoken word. Phrases such as:


A multitude of sins—James 5:20
Let there be light—Genesis 1:3
Forbidden fruit—Genesis 2:17
Am I my brother's keeper? —Genesis 4:9
As old as Methuselah—Genesis 5:27
Ashes to ashes dust to dust—Genesis 18:27
Coat of many colors—Genesis 37:23
Living off the fat of the land—Genesis 45:18
Thou shalt not kill—Exodus 20:13
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—Exodus 21:24
Flesh and blood—Deuteronomy 12:27
Eat drink and be merry—Judges 9:27
Three score and ten—Judges 9:4
A man after his own heart—1 Samuel 13:14
How are the mighty fallen—2 Samuel 1:27
Give up the ghost—Job 3:11
As you sow so shall you reap—Job 4:8
By the skin of your teeth—Job 19:20
The root of the matter—Job 19:28
Out of the mouths of babes—Psalms 8:2
The apple of his eye—Psalms 17:8
My cup runneth over—Psalms 23:5
Bite the dust—Psalms 72:9
From strength to strength—Psalms 84:7
At his wits end—Psalms 107:27
Spare the rod and spoil the child—Proverbs 13:24
For everything there is a season—Ecclesiastes 3:1
A fly in the ointment—Ecclesiastes 10:1
Beat swords into ploughshares—Isaiah 2:4
A drop in the bucket—Isaiah 40:15
Lamb to the slaughter—Isaiah 53:7
No rest for the wicked—Isaiah 57:20
Woe is me—Jeremiah 4:31
Can a leopard change its spots? —Jeremiah 13:20
Sour grapes—Jeremiah 31:29
The writing is on the wall—Daniel 5:5
Man does not live by bread alone—Matthew 4:4
Blessed are the peacemakers—Matthew 5:9
The salt of the earth—Matthew 5:13
O ye, of little faith—Matthew 8:26
The blind leading the blind—Matthew 15:14
Get thee behind me Satan—Mathew 16:23
What God has joined together let no man put asunder—Matthew 19:6
Love thy neighbor as thyself—Matthew 19:19
Faith will move mountains—Matthew 21:21
Many are called but few are chosen—Matthew 22:14
All things must pass—Matthew 24:6
The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak—Matthew 26:41
Forgive them for they know not what they do—Luke 23:24
Physician heal thyself—Luke 4:23
Good Samaritan—Luke 10:33
In the beginning was the word—John 1:1
Born again—John 3:7
The bread of life—John 6:35
To cast the first stone—John 8:7
The fruits of your loins—Acts 2:30
It's better to give than to receive—Acts 20:35
The wages of sin is death—Romans 6:23
A thorn in the flesh—2 Corinthians 12:7
Fall from grace—Galatians 5:4
Let not the sun go down on your wrath—Ephesians 4:26
Love of money is the root of all evil—1 Timothy 6:10
Fight the good fight—1 Timothy 6:12
Throughout time, Christianity has been very important to English speakers; exhibiting this importance in their adamancy to have the word of God written in their own words. Then once they received those words, they kept them so close to their hearts and lips that the very fundamentals of Christian doctrine have been woven into the English language. This beautiful blend of the two fundamentals of language and religion have given us a culture centered around our Heavenly Father—something we can be very proud of.



Works Cited

The Reader's Encyclopedia; 2nd ed., Vol. 2, p. 1105, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1965
Herring, George. Introduction To The History Of Christianity. New York: New York University Press, 2006
Final Declaration written on 1 July 1415 - Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham University
British Online History. 2009. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=41379#n52
Arnold, Jonathan. “John Colet- Preaching and Reform at St. Paul’s Cathedral, 1505-1519.” Reformation and Renaissance Review: Journal of the Society for Reformation Studies 5, no. 2 (2003): 204-209

Alexandra Thomas