<< Back

The 1611 Authorized King James Version of the Bible
The Crowning Result of Tyndale's Sacrifice
Page 3

PREPARATION OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE

As mentioned earlier, the recommendation for a new revision had been made by Dr. John Rainolds (also written Reynolds by others in his time), president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and a leading Puritan.

Rainolds cited as the reason for a new translation was that the official Prayer Book, based on the Great Bible and Bishops' Bible, had translation errors in it. This charge was, by itself, a significant reason for a new translation. A better Prayer Book could be prepared from the new Bible.

After the January 14-18, 1604, Hampton Court conference ended, a diligent search was made for scholars "who had taken pains in their private study of the Scriptures" (G.S. Paine, pp. 12-13). The king requested the aid of "all our principal learned men within the kingdom" (op. cit., p. 13).

By July, James publicly announced his selection of 54 of the nation's best scholars to work on the project. The project formally began in 1607.

The revisers were divided into six companies, each assigned to work on a specific section of the Bible. The Old Testament groups translated from the Hebrew while the New Testament groups translated from the Greek:

1. In the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminister, ten men under the direction of Lancelot Barlow translated Genesis through 2 Kings.
2. Also working at Westminster, William Barlow chaired a group of seven which worked on Romans through Jude.
3. At Oxford, John Harding led seven men in their work on Isaiah through Malachi.
4. Also at Oxford, Thomas Ravis oversaw the work of eight men working on the Gospels, Acts, and Revelation.
5. At Cambridge, Edward Lively's group translated 1 Chronicles through Song of Solomon.
6. Also at Cambridge, John Bois' team translated the Apocrypha.

When the group work was completed, two members of each of the three companies were chosen to check over the final revision, prior to sending it to a London printing house.

In summary, The entire work was divided in this manner: The first three years (1604-1607) were occupied in finalizing and perfecting the preliminary arrangements. Dur

ing this time, some of the translators carefully worked over the material they would soon be translating.

The next two to three years were occupied in the individual and cooperative labor of the six groups of revisers. The translation was completed during this time.

After this, in London nine months were devoted to working on the final revision.

THE COMPLETED BOOK

The Bible was printed by Robert Barker in a large folio edition that, in appearance, was very much like the Bishops' Bible.

A flattering dedication to King James was at the front. A longer Preface was also at the front of the Bible. Unfortunately, this Preface, written by Miles Smith, one of the translators, is no longer included. But it was very worthwhile and replied to the charge of the Catholics, that no English Bible was needed.

It is only available today in a booklet published by Edgar J. Goodspeed (who himself translated an early 20th-century Bible translation), entitled, The Translators to the Reader. Miles Smith's Preface was excellent!

"But it is high time to leave them [the critics], and to show in brief what we proposed to ourselves, and what course we held in this our perusal and survey of the Bible. Truly, good Christian Reader, we never thought from the beginning that we should need to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one . . but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal one, not justly to be excepted against; that hath been our endeavor, that our mark. To that purpose there were many chosen [to work on the project] . . If you ask what they had before them, truly it was the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, the Greek of the New. These are the two golden pipes, or rather conduits where-through the olive branches empty themselves into the gold."-Miles Smith, part of the Preface, Authorized (King James) Bible.

For the New Testament, the King James translators used the Erasmus, Stephenus, and Beza Greek Texts. Theodore Beza, a faithful Protestant had gathered additional manuscripts, which he placed in a text. But his text was essentially the same as that of Erasmus, except that it had a broader number of Majority Text manuscripts in it.

For the Old Testament, they produced a translation from the Hebrew manuscripts which far surpassed any English translation in its faithful representation of the Hebrew text, yet did it in a simplicity admirably representative of the Elizabethan age.

It has been said that the New Testament is so expressive in language and form, that it even surpasses the original Greek as literature.

When all the intellectual attainments of the scholars, their careful work, and the careful rules were established in order to produce the most careful, accurate text-the fact remains that, according to a consensus of authorities, approximately 90 percent of Tyndale's words were left intact by the King James translators.

John Foxe wrote this:
"Before Tyndale's day, the English versions of the Bible had been but translations of a translation, being derived from the Vulgate or older Latin versions. Tyndale, for the first time, went back to the original Hebrew and Greek. And not only did he go back to the original languages seeking for the truth, but he embodied that truth when found in so noble a translation that it has ever since been deemed wise by scholars and revisers to make but few changes in it; consequently every succeeding version is in reality little more than a revision of Tyndale's. It has been truly said that the peculiar genius which breathes through the English Bible, the mingled tenderness and majesty, the Saxon simplicity, the grandeur-unequalled, unapproached in the attempted improvements of modern scholars-all are here, and bear the impress of the mind of one man, and that man William Tyndale."-John Foxe, Foxes' Christian Martyrs of the World, p. 362.

Tyndale has justly been called "the father of the English Bible" (Dowley, Handbook to Christianity, p. 370).

But not everyone liked the King James Bible. A marginal note in the Catholic Rheims-Douai Bible, produced later specifically to introduce Catholic errors and take the place of the King James Bible, said this: The men who made the King James Bible "would be abhorred in the depths of hell" (quoted in McClure, Translators Revised, p. 88).

As soon as the King James Bible came off the press, it met opposition from some groups. Everything good is always opposed by someone. But it soon outran in popularity the Bishops' Bible, which had not been reprinted since 1606.

With the Geneva Bible, it waged a running fight for a full half century. But character and merit won the contest, and the King James Bible completely took the field.

Continued >>

 Back to Top 

<<Back Home