The Kjv Was Not The First English Translation Of The Bible
A few King-James-Only Christians believe that the King James Bible was the first English translation of the Scriptures. This belief is incorrect. John Wycliffes Bible was translated from Latin into English and hand-copied in the 1400s. In 1526, almost 100 years before the KJV was first published, William Tyndales English translation of the Greek New Testament was printed. A decade or so later, full English Bibles began to be printed. First came the Coverdale Bible which used Tyndales NT, as did the Matthew Bible . Then came Richard Taverners Bible , closely followed by the Great Bible . The Geneva Bible was published by and for Calvinist Puritans. The Bishops Bible was based on the Great Bible and edited by Church of England bishops, partly, in response to the Geneva Bible. The Douay Rheims Bible was translated from the Latin Vulgate, rather than Hebrew and Greek, for the Roman Catholic Church.
Much of the KJV, which was first published in 1611, borrows heavily from earlier English translations, especially Tyndales New Testament and the Bishops Bible.
The Bible Was Authorized By The King
This myth was created due largely to the title used today for the KJV. The King James Bible or the . Either name is not bad, but it often convinces people that the Bible was somehow the product of the kings command.
In fact, the king never formally authorized or endorsed the Bible directly. The last Bible in English to receive royal sanction was the Great Bible during the reign of Henry VIII.
Ultimately, James was embarrassed to inherit a divided Anglican churchand he wanted neither side to win at his first meeting with church leaders at Hampton Court. He upbraided both, though he backed the established church. In this, we glimpse some of Jamess policy on Puritanism: he decided to hold two apparent contradictions in tension.
Like Elizabeth, he continued to stress the need for conformity to the pattern of Anglicanism, and yet, when reasonable, he would allow more breathing room for those Puritans who felt the established church wounded their conscience.
One may find this a bad gamble on peace, but it is also likely James was exercising good leadershipbending for the sake of those who needed it, not breaking for those who demanded it. At some point, the Puritan John Reynolds, a scholar from Oxford, suggested the idea of approving a new English translation of the Bible. James loved the idea. On the Bible, there was no division: both sides hewed to the Protestant understanding of the Word of God.
The Baby Becomes King Of Scotland
At just thirteen months old, James became James VI, the king of Scotland, in 1567. The famous Protestant leader John Knox preached at his coronation, and despite his mothers Catholic heritage, James was raised in the Protestant Church of Scotland. In fact, just one month earlier his mother Mary, Queen of Scots, was arrested by Protestant sympathizers, imprisoned, and forced to abdicate her throne. James never saw her again. Scotland was ruled by regents until 1583 when James was old enough to take on the role.
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A Brief History Of The King James Bible
Excerpted and adapted from
Who Was Jesus? Fingerprints of The Christ
How was the King James Bible created? Is the King James version of the Bible inspired and inerrant?
For the past several centuries since its creation in 1611, the King James Bible has been held up by devout Christians as an inspired and inerrant rendering into English, authorized by God himself. To this day, certain Fundamentalist Protestant Christians continue to believe this claim about the King James Version , regardless of the fact that the texts upon which it was based differ in many places from the earliest Greek manuscripts, which were not available during its translation.
Who Wrote The King James Bible And Why
One individualRichard Bancroft, the archbishop of Canterburywas notable for having the role of overseer of the project, something akin to a modern editor of a collection of short stories. The actual translating of the KJV was done by a committee of 47 scholars and clergymen over the course of many years.
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The Canon We Have Today Was Finalized In The Fourth Century Ad
In A.D. 367 the Thirty-ninth Paschal Letter of Athanasius contained an exact list of the twenty-seven New Testament books we have today. This was the list of books accepted by the churches in the eastern part of the Mediterranean world.
Thirty years later, in A.D. 397, the Council of Carthage, representing the churches in the western part of the Mediterranean world, agreed with the eastern churches on the same list. These are the earliest final lists of our present-day canon.
At the end of the last chapter in the final book in the biblical canon, John writes:
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.Revelation 22:18-19
The Roman Catholic Church Declared The Apocrypha As Canon
In 1546, at the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic Church officially declared the Apocrypha to be part of the canon . The Council of Trent was the response of the Roman Catholic Church to the teachings of Martin Luther and the rapidly spreading Protestant Reformation, and the books of the Apocrypha contain support for the Catholic teaching of prayers for the dead and justification by faith plus works, not by faith alone.
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Where Did The Bible Come From
- Wayne Grudem
The Bible is a collection of 66 books believed to have been written by more than 40 divinely-inspired authors. Its thousands of years old, and Christians still place their trust in it today. So where did the Bible come from? How did we end up with these 66 books?
In his online systematic theology course, Dr. Wayne Grudem explores the origins of the biblical canon to answer questions like these. The following post is adapted from his course.
The Apocrypha Shouldnt Be Considered Scripture
We must conclude that they are merely human words, not God-breathed words like the words of Scripture:
The Apocryphal books have value for historical and linguistic research, and they contain a number of helpful stories about the courage and faith of many Jews during the period after the Old Testament ends, but they have never been part of the Old Testament canon, and they should not be thought of as part of the Bible. Therefore, they have no binding authority for the thought or life of Christians today.
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King James Only Movement
The King James Only movement advocates the belief that the King James Version is superior to all other English translations of the Bible. Most adherents of the movement believe that the Textus Receptus is very close, if not identical, to the original autographs, thereby making it the ideal Greek source for the translation. They argue that manuscripts such as the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, on which most modern English translations are based, are corrupted New Testament texts. One of them, Perry Demopoulos, was a director of the translation of the King James Bible into Russian. In 2010 the Russian translation of the KJV of the New Testament was released in Kyiv, Ukraine. In 2017, the first complete edition of a Russian King James Bible was released. In 2017, a Faroese translation of the King James Bible was released as well.
Bringing The Bible Directly To The People
Printing had already been invented, and made copies relatively cheap compared to hand-done copies, says Carol Meyers, a professor of religious studies at Duke University. The translation into English, the language of the land, made it accessible to all those people who could read English, and who could afford a printed Bible.
Whereas before, the Bible had been the sole property of the Church, now more and more people could read it themselves. Not only that, but the language they read in the King James Bible was an English unlike anything they had read before. With its poetic cadences and vivid imagery, the KJV sounded to many like the voice of God himself.
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Other Translations For Matthew : 34
Thinke not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.– King James Version – View 1611 Bible Scan“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.– New American Standard Version Think not that I came to send peace on the earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.– American Standard Version Do not have the thought that I have come to send peace on the earth I came not to send peace but a sword.– Basic English BibleDo not think that I have come to send peace upon the earth: I have not come to send peace, but a sword.– Darby BibleThink not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. – Webster’s BibleDo not suppose that I came to bring peace to the earth: I did not come to bring peace but a sword.– Weymouth BibleDon’t think that I came to send peace on the earth. I didn’t come to send peace, but a sword.– World English BibleNile ye deme, that Y cam to sende pees in to erthe Y cam not to sende pees, but swerd.– Wycliffe Bible`Ye may not suppose that I came to put peace on the earth I did not come to put peace, but a sword – Youngs Literal Bible
The Kjv Was Not The First Authorised English Translation Of The Bible
The KJV was not the first approved or first authorised English translation. The 1537 edition of the Coverdale Bible was officially approved by Henry VIII and it bears the royal license on the title page. Henry VIII then authorised The Great Bible . Thomas Cromwell, who was Vicar General and Henrys secretary, issued an injunction that a copy of the Great Bible be set up in every parish church. It was consequently the first English Bible formally authorized for public use.
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How Important Was The King James Bible
The commissioning of the King James Bible took place in 1604 at the Hampton Court Conference outside of London. The first edition appeared in 1611. The King James version remains one of the greatest landmarks in the English tongue. It has decidedly affected our language and thought categories, and although produced in England for English churches, it played a unique role in the historical development of America. Even today, many consider the King James Bible the ultimate translation in English and will allow none other for use in church or personal devotions. However, the story behind the creation of this Bible translation is little known and reveals an amazing interplay of faith and politics, church and state. To understand what happened, we need to go back to the world of the early 17th century.
Try to imagine what it was like to live in the England of 1604. Theirs was not a world like ours where speed, change, and innovation are consciously cultivated and thoughtlessly celebrated. Their world moved at a much slower pace and continuity was prized over change. In their world, the crowning of a new monarch was a grand event that deeply affected the life and identity of the nation. The monarch would rule for life. There was no continuous cycle of election campaigns in their world as there is in ours.
Who Was King James
Originally crowned as King James VI of Scotland, the man who would later sponsor the translation of the King James Bible was not originally in line to become king of England. He ruled Scotland at the same time that the last heir of Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth I, ruled England. As Elizabeths health waned, and as she had no husband nor children, she began to look further up her ancestral lineage for a successor. Jamess great-grandmother, Margaret Tudor, was Henry VIIIs sister, allowing James to take the throne and re-crowning him as King James I of Scotland, England, and Ireland.
Under King James rule, the translation of the King James Version was sponsored and finished. It was translated into English at the Puritans request, enabling anyone to read The Bible without scholarly knowledge. The spread of the KJVs influence accelerated following the beginning of English colonization in North America and the creation of Jamestown and the Virginia Colony.
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What Is King James Bible
The King James Bible is a translation of the Christian scripture, the Holy Bible, for Englands church. It was commissioned and published under King James, the first.The King James Version is celebrated as the most important religious scripture of all time for its most widely accepted ideals and values of Christianity.This Bible was commissioned and published in 1604 and 1611, respectively, for the Church of England after the Geneva Bible, which was considered unorthodox and mutinous. It consists, as usual, of an Old Testament, New Testament, and an Apocrypha. It is the most widely used and best-known Bible in the world today.
The Origins Of The King James Bible
A handwritten draft of the worlds most famous bible has been discovered in England
When an archive yields an unexpected discovery, it’s usually cause for celebration. But when that discovery involves the world’s most famous bible, scholarly excitement mounts to ecstastic levels. The earliest known draft of the King James Bible has been unearthed at the University of Cambridge, writes Jennifer Schuessler for The New York Times, and its being lauded as a critical find for historians.
The draft was discovered by Jeffrey Alan Miller, an American scholar conducting research in the Cambridge archives. It contains the handwriting of dozens of authors, dating from 1604 to 1608. That handwriting is a crucial find, Schuessler writes, because it reveals how they translated and assembled the text.
“There’s a strong desire to see the King James Bible as a uniform object, and a belief that it’s great because of its collaborative nature,” Miller tells Schuessler. “It was incredibly collaborative, but it was done in a much more complicated, nuanced, and at times individualistic way than we’ve ever really had good evidence to believe.”
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Criticisms Of Recent Bible Translations
One of the criticisms levelled at some modern English translations is that the New Testament was translated from the Westcott and Hort Greek New Testament. However, more recent translations, such as the 2011 edition of the New International Version , are based on the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland/ United Bible Societies Greek New Testament. This is a critical text that takes into consideration all known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, as well as New Testament quotations from early church fathers and from ancient lectionaries. Any criticism of the Westcott and Hort text, or the men themselvesand much of the criticism has been misleading and outright slanderhas no relevance whatsoever to the latest edition of the New International Version and other recent translations.
Another criticism of newer translations is that some words and phrases, and even a few passages, that are included in the KJV, are absent in newer translations. These are not omissions. Rather, these words and phrases are additions in the Textus Receptus and in the KJV. These additions are absent in some of the more ancient Greek manuscripts. Most modern translations still acknowledge the traditional additions in some way: in margin notes, in footnotes, or they are printed in a different font, etc.
Did King James Write The King James Bible
Now lets get to the story of who wrote the King James Bible and why. With the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century, peoples appetite for translation of ancient texts grew. This included ancient classical pieces as well as the Biblical texts which were written in Classical Greek and Hebrew. This desire led to the creation of the Tyndale Bible – translated in 1526 – and is credited as being the first English Bible translated from the original Greek and Hebrew texts.
In 1604 King James sought to address many of the religious differences by creating one universally accepted translation of the scriptures. This undertaking was begun by a committee of scholars led by John Rainolds. This was no small undertaking as the process literally took seven years it was a very meticulous undertaking. Rainolds never saw his work completed because he died four years before the King James Version of the Bible was published, which happened in 1611.
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Literary Genius And Legacy
Is it a coincidence of history that the King James Bible was produced during the reign of one of Englands greatest literary kings? James wrote commentaries on Scripture, original poetry, and a treatise on poetics. He produced works on political theory, a manual on kingship, and even writings on witchcraft and tobacco. He was a patron of William Shakespeare, John Donne, and Sir Francis Bacon.
The King James Bible is considered a masterpiece of Jacobean prose, with many considering the translators of the Authorized Version to be the greatest concentration of literary talent to ever enjoy royal sponsorship in England. Despite the political intrigue and impetus behind the translation, the beauty, scholarship and authority make the King James Bible a lasting legacy of King James I, an eternal gift to Christians, the church universal and the whole of humankind.