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.
History Of The King James Version
THE DEMAND.
When James I. came to the throne of England he found the Established Church in a sadly divided state. There were Conformists, who were satisfied with things as then found, and were willing to conform to existing usages and there were Puritans, who longed for a better state of things, and were determined to have it. These parties appealed to the king, and the Puritans had great hopes that he would favor their side. In October, 1603, James therefore called a conference, to meet in Hampton Court Palace, in the coming January, “for hearing and for the determining things pretended to be amiss in the Church.” So far as the objects chiefly sought were concerned, this Conference was a failure, but there began the movement for the version of the English Bible, now so widely accepted.
There were present on that occasion the leading divines, lawyers and laymen of the Church of England. Among them was Dr. John Reynolds, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. On the second day of the conference, this gentleman, in the course of discussion, suggested to the king, that a new version was exceedingly desirable, because of the many errors in the version then in use. That suggestion led to the action which, after some little delay, inaugurated measures for King James’ version.
INSTRUCTIONS TO THE TRANSLATORS.
WINNING ITS WAY.
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.
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The King James Version Errancy Debate
In Discovering and Classifying New Testament Manuscripts, fundamentalist Christian writer James Arlandson discusses the orthodox Christian belief that the four canonical gospels were inerrant and divinely inspired:
The original authors were inspired, but we do not have their very originals The original New Testament documents were transmitted by scribes, who were not inspired.
This more recent claim regarding only the originals being inspired essentially overrides the centuries-old, widely held notion that English translations such as the King James Bible are inerrant yet, there remain King James inerrantists.
Because such a position appears untenable, many Christian scholars and apologists today no longer adhere to the notion that translations themselves are inspired, claiming instead that only the originals are inspired, as noted. The rank-and-file believers, however, still frequently maintain as they have been taught that the King James translation, for one, is inerrant and its translators inspired. Regardless of whether or not trained apologists believe this claim anymore, the average Christian may not be aware of the debate regarding various translations and may indeed receive the impression that the Bible favored in his or her church is inerrant. In the words of evangelical Christian Gary Amirault:
One fundamentalist KJV defender, Brandon Staggs, comments on the debate thus:
Reputation Since The Early 20th Century
In the early 20th century the King James Version fell into disfavour among many mainstream Protestant churches, which viewed it as antiquated. Beginning in the middle of the century, they increasingly turned to more-modern translations, such as the Revised Standard Version , the New International Version , and the New Revised Standard Version . The King James Version, however, remained a popular source for the more famous Psalms and for the Gospels.
English-speaking Roman Catholics used an authorized English Bible, the Douai-Reims , which was produced from the Latin Vulgate by English Catholic exiles in France, who also worked from many of the same English sources used by translators of the King James Version. Yet among English Catholics the King James Version was widely accepted from the 18th century moreover, when the Douai-Reims Bible was updated in the mid-18th century, the translator, Richard Challoner , a convert from Protestantism to Catholicism, largely worked from the King James Version. Both the King James Version and the Douai-Reims Bible were finally supplanted in popularity by the Jerusalem Bible .
The King James Version is still the favoured biblical translation of many Christian fundamentalists and some Christian new religious movements. It is also widely regarded as one of the major literary accomplishments of early modern England. A complete New King James Version with modernized spellings was published in 1982.
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Commissioning The Kjv Bible
In England the landscape changed rapidly, as England left the Catholic church under the reign of Henry VIII and formed a new state church. Acceptance of an English translation grew and many in the church and laity turned their hand to translation, often with margin notes along either protestant and reforming lines or promoting a church hierarchy.
In 1604, King James I of England, himself a religious scholar who had re-translated some of the psalms, sought to unite the differences into one universally accepted text.
Six committees in Oxford, Westminster, and Cambridge rendered different books of the Bible. The translation was done by forty-seven scholars lasting seven years. These scholars examined every word with continuous peer review to determine the most accurate translation.
The Kjv Was Not The First Authorised English Translation Of The Bible
The KJV was not the first approved or first authorised English translation as is sometimes alleged. 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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Standard Text Of 1769
The 1611 and 1769 texts of the first three verses from I Corinthians 13 are given below.
1. Though I speake with the tongues of men & of Angels, and haue not charity, I am become as sounding brasse or a tinkling cymbal. 2 And though I haue the gift of prophesie, and vnderstand all mysteries and all knowledge: and though I haue all faith, so that I could remooue mountaines, and haue no charitie, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestowe all my goods to feede the poore, and though I giue my body to bee burned, and haue not charitie, it profiteth me nothing.
1. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
There are a number of superficial edits in these three verses: 11 changes of spelling, 16 changes of typesetting , three changes of punctuation, and one variant textwhere “not charity” is substituted for “no charity” in verse two, in the erroneous belief that the original reading was a misprint.
A particular verse for which Blayney‘s 1769 text differs from Parris‘s 1760 version is Matthew 5:13, where Parris has
The Translators Of The Kjv 1611 Were Relatively Unfamiliar With Koine Greek
Koine Greek is the original language of the New Testament, but the KJV translators of the New Testament, who were accomplished scholars of Classical Greek, were relatively unfamiliar with Koine Greek. Koine Greek was not well-understood in the 1600s. Some people suggested it was a Judaic or Hebraic Greek. Some even believed it was a unique Spirit-inspired dialect. It was not until the 1800s and early 1900s, when tens of thousands of papyrus documents were discovered, many written in Koine, that we began to understand the language more fully. Unlike the translators of the KJV, modern translators of the New Testament are usually scholars of Koine Greek. There are also some issues with the KJV translation of the Hebrew into English in the Old Testament.
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List Of Books Of The King James Version
These are the books of the King James Version of the Bible along with the names and numbers given them in the Douay Rheims Bible and Latin Vulgate. This list is a complement to the list in Books of the Latin Vulgate. It is an aid to finding cross references between two longstanding standards of Biblical literature.
History Of The King James Bible
Four hundred eleven years ago marked the publishing, at the request of the Anglican clergy, of what would become the Authorized Version of the Bible to wide acclaim.
But there are three problems with that statement.
While it is true that the King James Bible was published in 1611 and eventually became the most influential Bible in the English-speaking world if not the most printed book of all time:
The details of how the King James Bible came to be are a bit different. And while May 2 is the date that the publication is celebrated, the actual printing date is not known with certainty.
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King James Authorised The New Translation For Political Reasons
King James believed that a single, authorised version was a political and social necessity. He hoped this book would hold together the warring factions of the Church of England and the Puritans that threatened to tear apart both church and country. Most of the translators were clergymen belonging to the Church of England, but at least some had Puritan sympathies.
King James issued over a dozen rules that the translators had to follow. He disliked the Geneva Bible, the Bible used by the Puritans, because he believed that some of the comments in the margin notes were seditious and did not show enough respect for kings. James new translation was to have no commentary in the margins.
King James favoured the hierarchical structure of the Church of England and wanted the new translation to use words that supported a bishop-led hierarchy. In keeping with his preferred views on church government, he specified, The old ecclesiastical words to be kept as the word church not to be translated congregation. King James also ruled that only his new Bible could be read in Englands churches. The political motives of King James had a direct influence on the translation of the KJV.
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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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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The Story Behind The King James Bible
The King James Bible remains one of the most untouched versions of The Bible ever published, following its creation in 1611. Directly translated from a combination of Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and some Latin texts, it is The Bible in its purest form. But how did the King James Bible come to be? What is the story behind the King James Bible? Learning the history of the King James Bibles creation and the differences between this version and other translations will enhance your knowledge of The Bible itself.
How The King James Bible Changed The World
The year 2011 marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James translation of the Bible, one of the landmark events in the history of Christianity — in the history of the faith in England, in Europe, and ultimately on a global scale. To commemorate the event, Baylor University recently played host to a remarkable international conference on “The King James Bible and the World it Made, 1611-2011.” The need for such a celebration seemed obvious enough, given the translation’s vast importance in shaping Anglo-American culture and literature, language and politics but it was of course the book’s central religious element that made it such a natural fit for Baylor. It is scarcely too much to say that the King James Bible represents a critical foundation of Protestant Christianity in the English-speaking world, and the book’s influence ranges deep into other traditions. How could we let such an epochal moment pass without proper notice?
– Victor Hugo
What a moment in history! Rudyard Kipling celebrated the making of England in a once-famous poem, which appeared in the tercentennial year of the King James Version, in 1911: “England’s on the anvil! Heavy are the blows! … England’s being hammered, hammered, hammered into shape!”
Just how fundamental a part of our language the Bible’s words have become is hard to exaggerate. In a recent piece in the British newspaper The Independent, journalist Boyd Tonkin illustrates the point:
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