The Bible in English:
Before and After the Hampton Court Conference, 1604

30 January - 16 April 2004

In January 2004, Bridwell Library, SMU, marked the 400th anniversary of the Hampton Court Conference, the meeting of English bishops, Puritan leaders, and James I that gave birth to a project to translate the Bible into English. The result, completed some seven years later, was the famous King James Bible.

The history of the English Bible is not widely known. This is a little surprising, given the devotion to the Bible in the English-speaking world. Virtually every speaker of German (and English, for that matter) knows the name Martin Luther and is aware that he translated the Bible. How many people know the name William Tyndale? Or even John Wyclif? Many people admire the King James Version, yet do so without realizing exactly what it is or how it came to be.

This exhibition looked at the tumultuous political and literary history behind the King James Version. When the first complete Bible in English, the Coverdale Bible, was presented to Henry VIII in 1535, he allegedly said “Let it go among our people.” But then he qualified this support with the ambivalent addition: “if there be no heresy in it!” Although Henry may have had second thoughts, the Bible did go out among the people, and it had a profound effect on their faith, politics, literature, art, and society. This exhibit described the circumstances of the launch of the English Bible.

English Bibles took a different path from other European vernacular Bibles. This stems from the fact that in England, unlike almost every other country, it was illegal to translate the word of God. The ban lasted some one hundred twenty-seven years. Overcoming the political and ecclesiastical resistance to an English Bible was not an easy task. Lives were lost along the way -- not only for producing English Bibles, but also for merely owning or reading them. When the Bible became legal in England, a number of different, and competing, translations appeared.

Every major English Bible translation was on exhibit -- a feat that very few libraries could accomplish. Visitors saw rare manuscripts of the first translation of the Bible into English, along with first editions of all the significant English versions up to and including the King James Version. To own the first edition of the King James Bible is rare, but Bridwell Library boasts of not one but four copies of it. The ability to view and compare multiple copies of items of great rarity was one of the unique aspects of this exhibit.

The exhibit was curated by David Price, Associate Professor of History at SMU and Charles C. Ryrie, Professor of Theology, Emeritus at Dallas Theological Seminary. To complement the exhibition, they have written a new and provocative study of the English Bible: Let It Go Among Our People: An Illustrated History of the Bible in English from Wyclif to the King James Bible, which was published by Lutterworth Press in Cambridge. Both curators were on hand at a special preview of the exhibition on January 29, 2004, the 400th anniversary of the first meetings of the Hampton Court Conference.