Zero Yorkshiremen

Others will comment more eloquently on the literary merits of The King James Bible - published 400 years ago - than I can.  It's true that the influence of its language has been widespread: how could the following piece of parody from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail be possible if the words and rhythms of the Authorised Version were not so well known:

LAUNCELOT: We have the Holy Hand Grenade [...]
ARTHUR: Consult the Book of Armaments! [...]
BROTHER MAYNARD: Armaments, chapter two, verses nine to twenty-one. [...]
SECOND BROTHER: And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that, with it, Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits in Thy mercy.' And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and large chu--
MAYNARD: Skip a bit, Brother.
SECOND BROTHER: And the Lord spake, saying, 'First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then, lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it.'

The Monty Python team were also famously responsible for the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, but it's a source of mischevious delight to me as a 'Southerner' living in exile in the North that neither Yorkshiremen nor indeed Northerners of any description had any significant influence on the language of the King James Bible:

[W]ith virtually no exceptions, the scholars assembled [by King James I] for the purpose of translating the Bible were based in the South of England [...] Northern forms of English made little, if any, impact on the translation.  Alister McGrath In The Beginning - The Story of the King James Bible

Mischief aside there's an interesting feature of the language of the King James Bible which the Monty Python parody (unintentionally?) emulates, and which brings it very much into the world of this blog.  The Authorised Version uses the Thou/Thee/Thy forms of address for both God speaking to people, and people speaking to God, as in the 'Lord's Prayer': Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. (Matthew 6:9)

The (singular) Thou/Thee/Thy form of address had been used in Mediaeval England amongst family members; the (plural form) Ye/You/Your as a mark of respect when addressing a social superior.  Whilst this distinction was slightly old-fashioned by the time the translators of the King James Version set to work it fascinates me that the translation made this familiar way of speaking to God, as though to a family member, a commonplace in our language.  A relationship with transcendence might beg a respectful form of address; in the language of the King James Bible, people speak to God as though to a family member.  Heaven in ordinary.