The King James Version (1611)
THE KING JAMES VERSION (1611)
1. The Millenary Petition.
On January 14, 1603 a delegation of Puritan Reformers came before King James of England to petition for a change in the established church services and in the various Roman Catholic rituals such as the sign of the cross. Their petition had been signed by about 1000 Puritan leaders (hence the name, “Millenary Petition.” During the debates that followed, it was suggested that there be made a new translation of the Bible from the original Greek and Hebrew text. King James agreed.
2. The Work of Translation.
Within six months, 54 men had been chosen to do the work of translation. Each was an expert in either Greek or Hebrew. The list included both Anglicans and Puritans. The scholars were divided into six teams and sections of the Scriptures were assigned to each team...|
Two at Oxford|Isaiah-Malachi, Gospels, Acts, Revelation|
Two at Cambridge|Chronicles-Ecclesiastes, Apocrypha|
Two at Westminster|Genesis-Kings, the Epistles| This explains why a word like hagiou pneumatos has been translated “Holy Ghost” in some portions of the Bible and “Holy Spirit” in other portions. The teams translating the Old Testament used the Masoretic Text while the teams translating the New Testament used a Beza's Greek Text - commonly known as the Textus Receptus (“the Received Text”) and based upon the third edition of Erasmus which had been published by Stephanus in 1550.
3. Erasmus.
Desiderius Erasmus had been the great enemy of Luther. In 1515 he had been commissioned by the Roman Catholic Church to put together a Greek New Testament. He was able to find five Greek manuscripts, none of which contained the entire New Testament and none of which dated earlier than the 12th century.
Unfortunately, there were several chapters from the book of Revelation for which he had no manuscripts at all. This did not stop Erasmus, for he simply took the Latin Vulgate and translated it from Latin back into Greek. To make matters worse, when he was editing his third edition, he was urged by the Roman Catholic Church to place the Vulgate's version of 1 John 5:7 into his Greek Bible. Erasmus complained that there was no Greek manuscript that contained the verse. The Catholic Church quickly complied by drafting up a Greek manuscript that contained the verse and presenting it to him. Erasmus reluctantly entered this revised verse into his 3rd edition (although he took it back out for his 4th and 5th editions). It was this same 3rd edition of Erasmus that was used by the translators of the King James Version.
4. The Reception of the Translation.
The translation was completed in 1611. It turned out to be somewhat unpopular. The Catholics claimed that it favored the Protestants. The Arminians thought it leaned toward Calvinism while the Calvinists felt that it favored Arminianism. The Puritans objected to certain ecclesiological terms. There was only one person in all of England who did like the new translation — King James. And so, it was ratified and became the official translation for England. It has been one of the finest English translations ever produced, in spite of the poor manuscripts upon which it was based. The Model-T was the best car of its day, and even now, it is still a fully legal car. If you ever drive one, people will smile and wave. And it sure beats walking or riding a horse. But if you ever drive one for more than a few miles, you will soon find that a car meant for dirt roads doesn't do so well on the modern highway. The same is true with old bible versions such as the King James Version. It was the best of its day and is now just as valid as ever with still quite a large readership. But just as I prefer my new Saturn for most driving purposes over the Model-T, I prefer to use a modern English Bible over the King James Version for my regular Bible reading.