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= King_James_Version =
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Introduction
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The King James Version (KJV), also referred to as the King James Bible
and the Authorized Version, is an Early Modern English translation of
the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned
in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of King James VI and I.
The 80 books of the KJV include 39 books of the Old Testament, 14
books of Apocrypha, and the 27 books of the New Testament.
Noted for its "majesty of style," the KJV has remained in continuous
use for over four centuries, exerting more influence on English
literature and Christian thought than any other English Bible
translation. Its phrasing has been credited with shaping not only
hymnody and liturgy, but also the idioms of everyday speech used in
the English-speaking world. It is considered one of the important
literary accomplishments of early modern England. The original KJV is
a 17th-century translation and thus contains a large number of
archaisms and false friends--words that contemporary readers may think
they understand but that actually carry obsolete or unfamiliar
meanings--making understanding the text difficult for modern readers,
even pastors and preachers trained in formal theological institutes.
While the 1611 text reflects Early Modern English usage, subsequent
standardizations--most notably the 1769 Oxford edition and the more
recent 1900 Pure Cambridge Edition--have made the KJV considerably
more accessible to later generations. Many scholars note that its
sentence structure is often clearer and more direct than some modern
versions, despite occasional obsolete vocabulary.
The King James Version was the third translation into English approved
by the Church of England. The first had been the Great Bible in 1535,
and the second had been the Bishops' Bible in 1568. Meanwhile in
Switzerland, the first generation of Protestant Reformers had produced
the Geneva Bible in 1560, which proved more popular among the laity.
However, the footnotes represented a Calvinistic Puritanism.
King James convened the Hampton Court Conference in January 1604,
responding to Puritan grievances outlined in the Millenary Petition.
At this conference, a proposal for a new English translation of the
Bible was presented, aiming to address perceived issues in existing
versions. King James issued directives to ensure the translation
adhered to the ecclesiology of the Church of England, reflecting its
episcopal structure and doctrines, including the belief in an ordained
clergy. Notably, translators were instructed to avoid marginal notes
whenever possible, a feature in the Geneva Bible that had been
criticized for promoting Puritanical and anti-monarchical sentiments.
For the New Testament, the 'Textus Receptus' was utilized; the Old
Testament was translated from the Masoretic Text; and the Apocrypha
was rendered from the Septuagint and Latin Vulgate.
By the first half of the 18th century, the King James Version had
become effectively unchallenged as the only English translation used
in Anglican and other English Protestant churches, except for the
Psalms and some short passages in the 'Book of Common Prayer' of the
Church of England. Over the 18th century, the KJV supplanted the Latin
Vulgate as the standard version of scripture for English-speaking
scholars. With the development of stereotype printing at the beginning
of the 19th century, this version of the Bible had become the most
widely printed book in history, almost all such printings presenting
the standard text of 1769, and nearly always omitting the books of the
Apocrypha. Today the unqualified title "King James Version" usually
indicates this Oxford standard text.
In surveys of English-speaking Christians, the KJV frequently ranks
among the most read and memorized translations, with many citing its
literary cadence and perceived faithfulness to the original texts as
reasons for its continued preference.
Name
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The title of the first edition of the translation, in Early Modern
English, was "THE HOLY BIBLE, Conteyning the Old Teſtament, 'AND THE
NEW: Newly Tranſlated out of the Originall tongues: & with former
Tranſlations diligently compared and reuiſed, by his Majesties
ſpeciall Comandement'." Underneath the title, it is written that the
Bible is to be read in Churches." Biblical scholar F. F. Bruce
suggests it was "probably authorised by order in council," but no
record of the authorization survives "because the Privy Council
registers from 1600 to 1613 were destroyed by fire in January
1618/19."
For many years it was common not to give the translation any specific
name. In his 'Leviathan' of 1651, Thomas Hobbes referred to it as "the
English Translation made in the beginning of the Reign of King James."
A 1761 "Brief Account of the various Translations of the Bible into
English" refers to the 1611 version merely as "a new, compleat, and
more accurate Translation," despite referring to the Great Bible by
its name, and despite using the name "Rhemish Testament" for the
Douay-Rheims Bible version. Similarly, a "History of England," whose
fifth edition was published in 1775, writes merely that "[a] new
translation of the Bible, 'viz.', that now in Use, was begun in 1607,
and published in 1611."
King James's Bible is used as the name for the 1611 translation (on a
par with the Genevan Bible or the Rhemish Testament) in Charles
Butler's 'Horae Biblicae' (first published 1797). Other works from the
early 19th century confirm the widespread use of this name on both
sides of the Atlantic: it is found both in a "historical sketch of the
English translations of the Bible" published in Massachusetts in 1815
and in an English publication from 1818, which explicitly states that
the 1611 version is "generally known by the name of King James's
Bible". This name was also found as King James' Bible (without the
final "s"): for example in a book review from 1811. The phrase "King
James's Bible" is used as far back as 1715, although in this case it
is not clear whether this is a name or merely a description.
The use of Authorized Version, capitalized and used as a name, is
found as early as 1814. For some time before this, descriptive phrases
such as "our present, and only publicly authorised version" (1783),
"our Authorized version" (1731, 1792) and "the authorized version"
(1801, uncapitalized) are found. A more common appellation in the 17th
and 18th centuries was "our English translation" or "our English
version", as can be seen by searching one or other of the major online
archives of printed books. In Britain, the 1611 translation is
generally known as the "Authorised Version" today.
King James' Version, evidently a descriptive phrase, is found being
used as early as 1814. "The King James Version" is found,
unequivocally used as a name, in a letter from 1855. The next year
King James Bible, with no possessive, appears as a name in a Scottish
source. In the United States, the "1611 translation" (actually
editions following the standard text of 1769, see below) is generally
known as the King James Version today.
Earlier English translations
==============================
There were several translations into Middle English of large portions
of Scriptures in the 14th Century, with the first complete bibles
probably being made by the followers of John Wycliffe. These
translations were effectively but not formally banned in 1409 due to
their association with the Lollards. The Wycliffite Bibles pre-dated
the printing press but were circulated very widely in manuscript form.
In 1525, William Tyndale, an English contemporary of Martin Luther,
undertook a translation of the New Testament into Early Modern
English. Tyndale's translation was the first printed Bible in English.
Over the next ten years, Tyndale revised his New Testament in the
light of rapidly advancing biblical scholarship, and embarked on a
translation of the Old Testament. Despite some controversial
translation choices, and in spite of Tyndale's execution on charges of
heresy for being a Lutheran, the merits of Tyndale's work and prose
style made his translation the ultimate basis for all subsequent
renditions into Early Modern English.
With these translations lightly edited and adapted by Myles Coverdale
to remove offensive notes, in 1539, Tyndale's New Testament and his
incomplete work on the Old Testament became the basis for the Great
Bible. This was the first "authorised version" issued by the Church of
England during the reign of King Henry VIII. When Mary I succeeded to
the throne in 1553, she returned the Church of England to the
communion of the Catholic faith and many English religious reformers
fled the country, some establishing an English-speaking community in
the Protestant city of Geneva. Under the leadership of John Calvin,
Geneva became the chief international centre of Reformed Protestantism
and Latin biblical scholarship.
These English expatriates undertook a translation that became known as
the Geneva Bible. This translation, dated to 1560, was a revision of
Tyndale's Bible and the Great Bible on the basis of the original
languages. Soon after Elizabeth I took the throne in 1558, problems
with both the Great and Geneva Bibles (namely, that the latter did not
"conform to the ecclesiology and reflect the episcopal structure of
the Church of England and its beliefs about an ordained clergy")
became apparent to church authorities. In 1568, the Church of England
responded with the Bishops' Bible, a revision of the Great Bible in
the light of the Geneva version.
While officially approved, this new version failed to displace the
Geneva translation as the most popular English Bible of the age, in
part because the full Bible was printed only in lectern editions of
prodigious size and at a cost of several pounds. Accordingly,
Elizabethan lay people overwhelmingly read the Bible in the Geneva
Version, as small editions were available at a relatively low cost. At
the same time, there was a substantial clandestine importation of the
rival Douay-Rheims New Testament of 1582, undertaken by exiled
Catholics. This translation, though still derived from Tyndale,
claimed to represent the text of the Latin Vulgate.
In May 1601, King James VI of Scotland attended the General Assembly
of the Church of Scotland at Saint Columba's Church in Burntisland,
Fife, at which proposals were put forward for a new translation of the
Bible into English. Two years later, he ascended to the throne of
England as James I.
Considerations for a new version
==================================
The newly crowned King James convened the Hampton Court Conference in
1604. That gathering proposed a new English version in response to the
perceived problems of earlier translations as detected by the Puritan
faction of the Church of England. Here are three examples of problems
the Puritans perceived with the 'Bishops' and 'Great Bibles':
Instructions were given to the translators that were intended to use
formal equivalence and limit the Puritan influence on this new
translation. The Bishop of London added a qualification that the
translators would add no marginal notes (which had been an issue in
the 'Geneva Bible'). King James cited two passages in the Geneva
translation where he found the marginal notes offensive to the
principles of divinely ordained royal supremacy: Exodus 1:19, where
the 'Geneva Bible' notes had commended the example of civil
disobedience to the Egyptian Pharaoh showed by the Hebrew midwives,
and also II Chronicles 15:16, where the 'Geneva Bible' had criticized
King Asa for not having executed his idolatrous 'mother', Queen
Maachah (Maachah had actually been Asa's grandmother, but James
considered the Geneva Bible reference as sanctioning the execution of
his own mother Mary, Queen of Scots).
Further, the King gave the translators instructions designed to
guarantee that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology of
the Church of England. Certain Greek and Hebrew words were to be
translated in a manner that reflected the traditional usage of the
church. For example, old ecclesiastical words such as the word
"church" were to be retained and not to be translated as
"congregation". The new translation would reflect the episcopal
structure of the Church of England and traditional beliefs about
ordained clergy.
The source material for the translation of the New Testament was the
Textus Receptus version of the Greek compiled by Erasmus; for the Old
Testament, the Masoretic text of the Hebrew was used; for some of the
apocrypha, the Septuagint Greek text was used, or for apocrypha for
which the Greek was unavailable, the Vulgate Latin.
James' instructions included several requirements that kept the new
translation familiar to its listeners and readers. The text of the
Bishops' Bible would serve as the primary guide for the translators,
and the familiar proper names of the biblical characters would all be
retained. If the Bishops' Bible was deemed problematic in any
situation, the translators were permitted to consult other
translations from a pre-approved list: the Tyndale Bible, the
Coverdale Bible, Matthew's Bible, the Great Bible, and the Geneva
Bible. In addition, later scholars have detected an influence on the
Authorized Version from the translations of Taverner's Bible and the
New Testament of the Douay-Rheims Bible. A recent estimate is that 84%
of the New Testament in the KJV is word-for-word identical to the
Tyndale Bible, and about 76% of Tyndale's incomplete Old Testament is
in the KJV.
It is for this reason that the flyleaf of most printings of the
Authorized Version observes that the text had been "translated out of
the original tongues, and with the former translations diligently
compared and revised, by His Majesty's special commandment." As the
work proceeded, more detailed rules were adopted as to how variant and
uncertain readings in the Hebrew and Greek source texts should be
indicated, including the requirement that words supplied in English to
'complete the meaning' of the originals should be printed in a
different type face.
Translation committees
========================
The task of translation was undertaken by 47 scholars, although 54
were originally approved. All were members of the Church of England
and all except Sir Henry Savile were clergy. The scholars worked in
six committees, two based in each of the University of Oxford, the
University of Cambridge, and Westminster. The committees included
scholars with Puritan sympathies, as well as high churchmen. Forty
unbound copies of the 1602 edition of the 'Bishops' Bible' were
specially printed so that the agreed changes of each committee could
be recorded in the margins.
The committees worked on certain parts separately and the drafts
produced by each committee were then compared and revised for harmony
with each other. The scholars were not paid directly for their
translation work. Instead, a circular letter was sent to bishops
encouraging them to consider the translators for appointment to
well-paid livings as these fell vacant. Several were supported by the
various colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, while others were promoted
to bishoprics, deaneries and prebends through royal patronage.
On 22 July 1604 King James VI and I sent a letter to Archbishop
Bancroft asking him to contact all English churchmen requesting that
they make donations to his project.
The six committees started work towards the end of 1604. The Apocrypha
committee finished first, and all six completed their sections by
1608. From January 1609, a General Committee of Review met at
Stationers' Hall, London to review the completed marked texts from
each of the committees, and were paid for their attendance by the
Stationers' Company. The General Committee included John Bois, Andrew
Downes, John Harmar, and others known only by their initials,
including "AL" (who may be Arthur Lake). John Bois prepared a note of
their deliberations (in Latin) - which has partly survived in two
later transcripts. Also surviving of the translators' working papers
are a bound set of marked-up corrections to one of the forty 'Bishops'
Bibles'--covering the Old Testament and Gospels; and also a manuscript
translation of the text of the Epistles, excepting those verses where
no change was being recommended to the readings in the 'Bishops'
Bible'. Archbishop Bancroft insisted on having a final say making
fourteen further changes, of which one was the term "bishopricke" at
Acts 1:20.
!width=180|Committee!!width=240|Scriptures translated!!Members
|First Westminster Company Genesis to 2 Kings Lancelot Andrewes, John
Overall, Hadrian à Saravia, Richard Clarke, John Layfield, Robert
Tighe, Francis Burleigh, Geoffrey King, Richard Thomson, William
Bedwell;
|First Cambridge Company 1 Chronicles to the Song of Solomon Edward
Lively, John Richardson, Lawrence Chaderton, Francis Dillingham, Roger
Andrewes, Thomas Harrison, Robert Spaulding, Andrew Bing
|First Oxford Company Isaiah to Malachi John Harding, John Rainolds
(or Reynolds), Thomas Holland, Richard Kilby, Miles Smith, Richard
Brett, Daniel Fairclough, William Thorne
|Second Oxford Company Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Book of
Revelation Thomas Ravis, George Abbot, Richard Eedes, Giles Tomson,
Sir Henry Savile, John Peryn, Ralph Ravens, John Harmar, John
Aglionby, Leonard Hutten
|Second Westminster Company Epistles William Barlow, John Spenser,
Roger Fenton, Ralph Hutchinson, William Dakins, Michael Rabbet, Thomas
Sanderson (who probably had already become Archdeacon of Rochester)
|Second Cambridge Company Apocrypha John Duport, William Branthwaite,
Jeremiah Radcliffe, Samuel Ward, Andrew Downes, John Bois, Robert
Ward, Thomas Bilson, Richard Bancroft.
Printing
==========
The original printing of the Authorized Version was published by
Robert Barker, the King's Printer, in 1611 as a complete folio Bible.
It was sold looseleaf for ten shillings, or bound for twelve. Robert
Barker's father, Christopher, had, in 1589, been granted by Elizabeth
I the title of royal Printer, with the perpetual Royal Privilege to
print Bibles in England. Robert Barker invested very large sums in
printing the new edition, and consequently ran into serious debt, such
that he was compelled to sub-lease the privilege to two rival London
printers, Bonham Norton and John Bill. It appears that it was
initially intended that each printer would print a portion of the
text, share printed sheets with the others, and split the proceeds.
Bitter financial disputes broke out, as Barker accused Norton and Bill
of concealing their profits, while Norton and Bill accused Barker of
selling sheets properly due to them as partial Bibles for ready money.
There followed decades of continual litigation, and consequent
imprisonment for debt for members of the Barker and Norton printing
dynasties, while each issued rival editions of the whole Bible. In
1629 the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge successfully managed to
assert separate and prior royal licences for Bible printing, for their
own university presses--and Cambridge University took the opportunity
to print revised editions of the Authorized Version in 1629, and 1638.
The editors of these editions included John Bois and Samuel Ward from
the original translators. This did not, however, impede the commercial
rivalries of the London printers, especially as the Barker family
refused to allow any other printers access to the authoritative
manuscript of the Authorized Version.
Two editions of the whole Bible are recognized as having been produced
in 1611, which may be distinguished by their rendering of Ruth 3:15;
the first edition reading "he went into the city", where the second
reads "she went into the city"; these are known colloquially as the
"He" and "She" Bibles.
The original printing was made before English spelling was
standardized, and when printers, as a matter of course, expanded and
contracted the spelling of the same words in different places, so as
to achieve an even column of text. They set v for initial u and v, and
u for u and v everywhere else. They used the long s (ſ) for non-final
s. The letter or glyph j occurs only after i, as in the final letter
in a Roman numeral, such as XIIJ. Punctuation was relatively heavy
(frequent) and differed from modern practice. When space needed to be
saved, the printers sometimes used 'ye' for 'the' (replacing the
Middle English thorn, Þ, with the continental y), set ã for 'an' or
'am' (in the style of scribe's shorthand), and set & for 'and'. In
contrast, on a few occasions, they appear to have inserted these words
when they thought a line needed to be padded. Later printings
regularized these spellings; the punctuation has also been
standardized, but still varies from current usage.
As can be seen in the example page on the left, the first printing
used a blackletter typeface instead of a roman typeface, which itself
made a political and a religious statement. Like the Great Bible and
the Bishops' Bible, the Authorized Version was "appointed to be read
in churches". It was a large folio volume meant for public use, not
private devotion; the weight of the type--blackletter type was heavy
physically as well as visually--mirrored the weight of establishment
authority behind it. However, smaller editions and roman-type editions
followed rapidly, e.g. quarto roman-type editions of the Bible in
1612. This contrasted with the Geneva Bible, which was the first
English Bible printed in a roman typeface (although black-letter
editions, particularly in folio format, were issued later).
In contrast to the Geneva Bible and the Bishops' Bible, which had both
been extensively illustrated, there were no illustrations in the 1611
edition of the Authorized Version, the main form of decoration being
the historiated initial letters provided for books and
chapterstogether with the decorative title pages to the Bible itself,
and to the New Testament.
In the Great Bible, readings derived from the Vulgate but not found in
published Hebrew and Greek texts had been distinguished by being
printed in smaller roman type. In the Geneva Bible, a distinct
typeface had instead been applied to distinguish text supplied by
translators, or thought needful for English grammar but not present in
the Greek or Hebrew; and the original printing of the Authorized
Version used roman type for this purpose, albeit sparsely and
inconsistently. This results in perhaps the most significant
difference between the original printed text of the King James Bible
and the current text. When, from the later 17th century onwards, the
Authorized Version began to be printed in roman type, the typeface for
supplied words was changed to italics, this application being
regularized and greatly expanded. This was intended to de-emphasize
the words.
The original printing contained two prefatory texts; the first was a
formal 'Epistle Dedicatory' to "the most high and mighty Prince" King
James. Many British printings reproduce this, while most non-British
printings do not.
The second preface was called 'Translators to the Reader', a long and
learned essay that defends the undertaking of the new version. It
observes the translators' stated goal, that they "never thought from
the beginning that [they] 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 good one, not justly
to be excepted against; that hath been our endeavour, that our mark."
They also give their opinion of previous English Bible translations,
stating, "We do not deny, nay, we affirm and avow, that the very
meanest translation of the Bible in English, set forth by men of our
profession, (for we have seen none of theirs [Catholics] of the whole
Bible as yet) containeth the word of God, nay, is the word of God." As
with the first preface, some British printings reproduce this, while
most non-British printings do not. Almost every printing that includes
the second preface also includes the first.
The first printing contained a number of other apparatus, including a
table for the reading of the Psalms at matins and evensong, and a
calendar, an almanac, and a table of holy days and observances. Much
of this material became obsolete with the adoption of the Gregorian
calendar by Britain and its colonies in 1752, and thus modern editions
invariably omit it.
So as to make it easier to know a particular passage, each chapter was
headed by a brief précis of its contents with verse numbers. Later
editors freely substituted their own chapter summaries, or omitted
such material entirely. Pilcrow marks are used to indicate the
beginnings of paragraphs except after the book of Acts.
Authorized Version
====================
The Authorized Version was meant to replace the Bishops' Bible as the
official version for readings in the Church of England. No record of
its authorization exists; it was probably effected by an order of the
Privy Council, but the records for the years 1600 to 1613 were
destroyed by fire in January 1618/19, and it is commonly known as the
Authorized Version in the United Kingdom. The King's Printer issued no
further editions of the Bishops' Bible, so necessarily the Authorized
Version replaced it as the standard lectern Bible in parish church use
in England.
In the 1662 'Book of Common Prayer', the text of the Authorized
Version finally supplanted that of the Great Bible in the Epistle and
Gospel readings--though the Prayer Book Psalter nevertheless continues
in the Great Bible version.
The case was different in Scotland, where the Geneva Bible had long
been the standard church Bible. It was not until 1633 that a Scottish
edition of the Authorized Version was printed--in conjunction with the
Scots coronation in that year of Charles I. The inclusion of
illustrations in the edition raised accusations of Popery from
opponents of the religious policies of Charles and William Laud,
Archbishop of Canterbury. However, official policy favoured the
Authorized Version, and this favour returned during the
Commonwealth--as London printers succeeded in re-asserting their
monopoly on Bible printing with support from Oliver Cromwell--and the
"New Translation" was the only edition on the market. F. F. Bruce
reports that the last recorded instance of a Scots parish continuing
to use the "Old Translation" (i.e. Geneva) as being in 1674.
The Authorized Version's acceptance by the general public took longer.
The Geneva Bible continued to be popular, and large numbers were
imported from Amsterdam, where printing continued up to 1644 in
editions carrying a false London imprint. However, few if any genuine
Geneva editions appear to have been printed in London after 1616, and
in 1637 Archbishop Laud prohibited their printing or importation. In
the period of the English Civil War, soldiers of the New Model Army
were issued a book of Geneva selections called "The Soldiers' Bible".
In the first half of the 17th century the Authorized Version is most
commonly referred to as "The Bible without notes", thereby
distinguishing it from the Geneva "Bible with notes".
There were several printings of the Authorized Version in
Amsterdam--one as late as 1715 which combined the Authorized Version
translation text with the Geneva marginal notes; one such edition was
printed in London in 1649. During the Commonwealth a commission was
established by Parliament to recommend a revision of the Authorized
Version with acceptably Protestant explanatory notes, but the project
was abandoned when it became clear that these would nearly double the
bulk of the Bible text. After the English Restoration, the Geneva
Bible was held to be politically suspect and a reminder of the
repudiated Puritan era. Furthermore, disputes over the lucrative
rights to print the Authorized Version dragged on through the 17th
century, so none of the printers involved saw any commercial advantage
in marketing a rival translation. The Authorized Version became the
only then current version circulating among English-speaking people.
A small minority of critical scholars were slow to accept the latest
translation. Hugh Broughton, who was the most highly regarded English
Hebraist of his time but had been excluded from the panel of
translators because of his utterly uncongenial temperament, issued in
1611 a total condemnation of the new version. He especially criticized
the translators' rejection of word-for-word equivalence and stated
that "he would rather be torn in pieces by wild horses than that this
abominable translation (KJV) should ever be foisted upon the English
people". Walton's London Polyglot of 1657 disregards the Authorized
Version (and indeed the English language) entirely. Walton's reference
text throughout is the Vulgate.
The Vulgate Latin is also found as the standard text of scripture in
Thomas Hobbes's 'Leviathan' of 1651. Hobbes gives Vulgate chapter and
verse numbers (e.g., Job 41:24, not Job 41:33) for his head text. In
Chapter 35: "The Signification in Scripture of Kingdom of God", Hobbes
discusses Exodus 19:5, first in his own translation of the Vulgar
Latin, and then subsequently as found in the versions he terms "...
the English translation made in the beginning of the reign of King
James", and "The Geneva French" (i.e. Olivétan). Hobbes advances
detailed critical arguments why the Vulgate rendering is to be
preferred. For most of the 17th century the assumption remained that,
while it had been of vital importance to provide the scriptures in the
vernacular for ordinary people, nevertheless for those with sufficient
education to do so, Biblical study was best undertaken within the
international common medium of Latin. It was only in 1700 that modern
bilingual Bibles appeared in which the Authorized Version was compared
with counterpart Dutch and French Protestant vernacular Bibles.
In consequence of the continual disputes over printing privileges,
successive printings of the Authorized Version were notably less
careful than the 1611 edition had been--compositors freely varying
spelling, capitalization and punctuation--and also, over the years,
introducing about 1,500 misprints (some of which, like the omission of
"not" from the commandment "Thou shalt not commit adultery" in the
"Wicked Bible", became notorious). The two Cambridge editions of 1629
and 1638 attempted to restore the proper text--while introducing over
200 revisions of the original translators' work, chiefly by
incorporating into the main text a more literal reading originally
presented as a marginal note. A more thoroughly corrected edition was
proposed following the Restoration, in conjunction with the revised
1662 'Book of Common Prayer', but Parliament then decided against it.
By the first half of the 18th century, the Authorized Version was
effectively unchallenged as the sole English translation in then
current use in Protestant churches, and was so dominant that the
Catholic Church in England issued in 1750 a revision of the 1610
Douay-Rheims Bible by Richard Challoner that was much closer to the
Authorized Version than to the original. However, general standards of
spelling, punctuation, typesetting, capitalization and grammar had
changed radically in the 100 years since the first edition of the
Authorized Version, and all printers in the market were introducing
continual piecemeal changes to their Bible texts to bring them into
line with then current practice--and with public expectations of
standardized spelling and grammatical construction.
Over the course of the 18th century, the Authorized Version supplanted
the Hebrew, Greek and the Latin Vulgate as the standard version of
scripture for English speaking scholars and divines, and indeed came
to be regarded by some as an inspired text in itself--so much so that
any challenge to its readings or textual base came to be regarded by
many as an assault on Holy Scripture.
In the 18th century there was a serious shortage of Bibles in the
American colonies. To meet the demand various printers, beginning with
Samuel Kneeland in 1752, printed the King James Bible without
authorization from the Crown. To avert prosecution and detection of an
unauthorized printing they would include the royal insignia on the
title page, using the same materials in its printing as the Authorized
Version was produced from, which were imported from England.
Standard text of 1769
=======================
By the mid-18th century the wide variation in the various modernized
printed texts of the Authorized Version, combined with the notorious
accumulation of misprints, had reached the proportion of a scandal,
and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge both sought to produce an
updated standard text. First of the two was the Cambridge edition of
1760, the culmination of 20 years' work by Francis Sawyer Parris, who
died in May of that year. This 1760 edition was reprinted without
change in 1762 and in John Baskerville's folio edition of 1763.
This was effectively superseded by the 1769 Oxford edition, edited by
Benjamin Blayney, though with comparatively few changes from Parris's
edition; but which became the Oxford standard text, and is reproduced
almost unchanged in most current printings. Parris and Blayney sought
consistently to remove those elements of the 1611 and subsequent
editions that they believed were due to the vagaries of printers,
while incorporating most of the revised readings of the Cambridge
editions of 1629 and 1638, and each also introducing a few improved
readings of their own.
They undertook the mammoth task of standardizing the wide variation in
punctuation and spelling of the original, making many thousands of
minor changes to the text. In addition, Blayney and Parris thoroughly
revised and greatly extended the italicization of "supplied" words not
found in the original languages by cross-checking against the presumed
source texts. Blayney seems to have worked from the 1550 Stephanus
edition of the Textus Receptus, rather than the later editions of
Theodore Beza that the translators of the 1611 New Testament had
favoured; accordingly the current Oxford standard text alters around a
dozen italicizations where Beza and Stephanus differ. Like the 1611
edition, the 1769 Oxford edition included the Apocrypha, although
Blayney tended to remove cross-references to the Books of the
Apocrypha from the margins of their Old and New Testaments wherever
these had been provided by the original translators. It also includes
both prefaces from the 1611 edition. Altogether, the standardization
of spelling and punctuation caused Blayney's 1769 text to differ from
the 1611 text in around 24,000 places.
The 1611 and 1769 texts of the first three verses from 'I Corinthians
13' are given below.
There are a number of superficial edits in these three verses: 11
changes of spelling, 16 changes of typesetting (including the changed
conventions for the use of u and v), three changes of punctuation, and
one variant text--where "not charity" is substituted for "no charity"
in verse two, in the 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 (1760) has
Blayney (1769) changes 'lost his savour' to 'lost its savour', and to
trodden.
For a period, Cambridge continued to issue Bibles using the Parris
text, but the market demand for absolute standardization was now such
that they eventually adapted Blayney's work but omitted some of the
idiosyncratic Oxford spellings. By the mid-19th century, almost all
printings of the Authorized Version were derived from the 1769 Oxford
text--increasingly without Blayney's variant notes and cross
references, and commonly excluding the Apocrypha. One exception to
this was a scrupulous original-spelling, page-for-page, and
line-for-line reprint of the 1611 edition (including all chapter
headings, marginalia, and original italicization, but with Roman type
substituted for the black letter of the original), published by Oxford
in 1833.
Another important exception was the 1873 Cambridge Paragraph Bible,
thoroughly revised, modernized and re-edited by F. H. A. Scrivener,
who for the first time consistently identified the source texts
underlying the 1611 translation and its marginal notes. Scrivener,
like Blayney, opted to revise the translation where he considered the
judgement of the 1611 translators had been faulty. In 2005, Cambridge
University Press released its New Cambridge Paragraph Bible with
Apocrypha, edited by David Norton, which followed in the spirit of
Scrivener's work, attempting to bring spelling to present-day
standards. Norton also innovated with the introduction of quotation
marks, while returning to a hypothetical 1611 text, so far as
possible, to the wording used by its translators, especially in the
light of the re-emphasis on some of their draft documents. This text
has been issued in paperback by Penguin Books.
From the early 19th century the Authorized Version has remained almost
completely unchanged--and since, due to advances in printing
technology, it could now be produced in very large editions for mass
sale, it established complete dominance in public and ecclesiastical
use in the English-speaking Protestant world. Academic debate through
that century, however, increasingly reflected concerns about the
Authorized Version shared by some scholars: (a) that subsequent study
in oriental languages suggested a need to revise the translation of
the Hebrew Bible--both in terms of specific vocabulary, and also in
distinguishing descriptive terms from proper names; (b) that the
Authorized Version was unsatisfactory in translating the same Greek
words and phrases into different English, especially where parallel
passages are found in the synoptic gospels; and (c) in the light of
subsequent ancient manuscript discoveries, the New Testament
translation base of the Greek Textus Receptus could no longer be
considered to be the best representation of the original text.
Responding to these concerns, the Convocation of Canterbury resolved
in 1870 to undertake a revision of the text of the Authorized Version,
intending to retain the original text "except where in the judgement
of competent scholars such a change is necessary". The resulting
revision was issued as the Revised Version in 1881 (New Testament),
1885 (Old Testament) and 1894 (Apocrypha); but, although it sold
widely, the revision did not find popular favour, and it was only
reluctantly in 1899 that Convocation approved it for reading in
churches.
By the early 20th century, editing had been completed in Cambridge's
text, with at least 6 new changes since 1769, and the reversing of at
least 30 of the standard Oxford readings. The distinct Cambridge text
was printed in the millions, and after the Second World War "the
unchanging steadiness of the KJB was a huge asset."
It is also worth noting that some American publishers use the 1769
text, but with updated American spelling. Words like "colour" will be
spelled as "color" and names like "Elias" will be rendered as "Elijah"
in the New Testament.
Editorial criticism
=====================
F. H. A. Scrivener and D. Norton have both written in detail on
editorial variations which have occurred through the history of the
publishing of the Authorized Version from 1611 to 1769. In the 19th
century, there were effectively three main guardians of the text.
Norton identified five variations among the Oxford, Cambridge, and
London (Eyre and Spottiswoode) texts of 1857, such as the spelling of
"farther" or "further" at Matthew 26:39.
In the 20th century, variation between the editions was reduced to
comparing the Cambridge to the Oxford. Distinctly identified Cambridge
readings included "or Sheba", "sin", "clifts", "vapour", "flieth",
"further" and a number of other references. In effect the Cambridge
was considered the current text in comparison to the Oxford. These are
instances where both Oxford and Cambridge have now diverged from
Blayney's 1769 Edition. The distinctions between the Oxford and
Cambridge editions have been a major point in the Bible version
debate, and a potential theological issue, particularly in regard to
the identification of the Pure Cambridge Edition.
Cambridge University Press introduced a change at 1 John 5:8 in 1985,
reversing its longstanding tradition of printing the word "spirit" in
lower case by using a capital letter "S". A Rev. Hardin of Bedford,
Pennsylvania, wrote a letter to Cambridge inquiring about this verse,
and received a reply on 3 June 1985 from the Bible Director, Jerry L.
Hooper, claiming that it was a "matter of some embarrassment regarding
the lower case 's' in Spirit".
Marginal notes
================
In obedience to their instructions, the translators provided no
marginal interpretation of the text, but in some 8,500 places a
marginal note offers an alternative English wording. The majority of
these notes offer a more literal rendering of the original, introduced
as "Heb", "Chal" (Chaldee, referring to Aramaic), "Gr" or "Lat".
Others indicate a variant reading of the source text (introduced by
"or"). Some of the annotated variants derive from alternative editions
in the original languages, or from variant forms quoted in the
fathers. More commonly, though, they indicate a difference between the
literal original language reading and that in the translators'
preferred recent Latin versions: Tremellius for the Old Testament,
Junius for the Apocrypha, and Beza for the New Testament. At thirteen
places in the New Testament a marginal note records a variant reading
found in some Greek manuscript copies; in almost all cases reproducing
a counterpart textual note at the same place in Beza's editions.
A few more extensive notes clarify Biblical names and units of
measurement or currency. Modern reprintings rarely reproduce these
annotated variants, although they are to be found in the New Cambridge
Paragraph Bible. In addition, there were originally some 9,000
scriptural cross-references, in which one text was related to another.
Such cross-references had long been common in Latin Bibles, and most
of those in the Authorized Version were copied unaltered from this
Latin tradition. Consequently the early editions of the KJV retain
many Vulgate verse references--e.g. in the numbering of the Psalms. At
the head of each chapter, the translators provided a short précis of
its contents, with verse numbers; these are rarely included in
complete form in modern editions.
Use of typeface
=================
Also in obedience to their instructions, the translators indicated
'supplied' words in a different typeface; but there was no attempt to
regularize the instances where this practice had been applied across
the different companies; and especially in the New Testament, it was
used much less frequently in the 1611 edition than would later be the
case. In one verse, 1 John 2:23, an entire clause was printed in roman
type (as it had also been in the Great Bible and Bishops' Bible);
indicating a reading then primarily derived from the Vulgate, albeit
one for which the later editions of Beza had provided a Greek text.
In the Old Testament the translators render the Tetragrammaton (YHWH)
by "the LORD" (in later editions in small capitals as ), or "the LORD
God" (for 'YHWH Elohim', יהוה אלהים), except in four places by
"IEHOVAH". However, if the Tetragrammaton occurs with the Hebrew word
(Lord) then it is rendered not as the "Lord LORD" but as the "Lord
God". In later editions it appears as "Lord ", with "" in small
capitals, indicating to the reader that God's name appears in the
original Hebrew.
Old Testament
===============
For the Old Testament, the translators used a text originating in the
editions of the Hebrew Rabbinic Bible by Daniel Bomberg (1524/5), but
adjusted this to conform to the Greek Septuagint (LXX) or Latin
Vulgate in passages to which Christian tradition had attached a
Christological interpretation. For example, the Septuagint reading ""
was used in Psalm 22:16 (vs. the Masoretes' reading of the Hebrew
"like lions my hands and feet"). Otherwise, however, the Authorized
Version is closer to the Hebrew tradition than any previous English
translation--especially in making use of the rabbinic commentaries,
such as David Kimhi, in elucidating obscure passages in the Masoretic
Text; earlier versions had been more likely to adopt LXX or Vulgate
readings in such places. Following the practice of the Geneva Bible,
the books of 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras in the medieval Vulgate Old
Testament were renamed 'Ezra' and 'Nehemiah'; 3 Esdras and 4 Esdras in
the Apocrypha being renamed '1 Esdras' and '2 Esdras'.
New Testament
===============
For the New Testament, the translators chiefly used the 1598 and
1588/89 Greek editions of Theodore Beza, which also present Beza's
Latin version of the Greek and Stephanus's edition of the Latin
Vulgate. Both of these versions were extensively referred to, as the
translators conducted all discussions amongst themselves in Latin. F.
H. A. Scrivener identifies 190 readings where the Authorized Version
translators depart from Beza's Greek text, generally in maintaining
the wording of the 'Bishops' Bible' and other earlier English
translations. In about half of these instances, the Authorized Version
translators appear to follow the earlier 1550 Greek Textus Receptus of
Stephanus. For the other half, Scrivener was usually able to find
corresponding Greek readings in the editions of Erasmus, or in the
Complutensian Polyglot. However, in several dozen readings he notes
that no printed Greek text corresponds to the English of the
Authorized Version, which in these places derives directly from the
Vulgate. For example, at John 10:16, the Authorized Version reads ""
(as did the Bishops' Bible, and the 16th-century vernacular versions
produced in Geneva), following the Latin Vulgate "", whereas Tyndale
had agreed more closely with the Greek, "" (). The Authorized Version
New Testament owes much more to the Vulgate than does the Old
Testament; still, at least 80% of the text is unaltered from Tyndale's
translation.
Apocrypha
===========
Unlike the rest of the Bible, the translators of the Apocrypha
identified their source texts in their marginal notes. From these it
can be determined that the books of the Apocrypha were translated from
the Septuagint--primarily, from the Greek Old Testament column in the
Antwerp Polyglot--but with extensive reference to the counterpart
Latin Vulgate text, and to Junius's Latin translation. The translators
record references to the Sixtine Septuagint of 1587, which is
substantially a printing of the Old Testament text from the Codex
Vaticanus Graecus 1209, and also to the 1518 Greek Septuagint edition
of Aldus Manutius. They had, however, no Greek texts for 2 Esdras, or
for the Prayer of Manasses, and Scrivener found that they here used an
unidentified Latin manuscript.
Translations of the books of the biblical apocrypha were necessary for
the King James version, as readings from these books were included in
the daily Old Testament lectionary of the Book of Common Prayer.
Protestant Bibles in the 16th century included the books of the
apocrypha--generally, following the Luther Bible, in a separate
section between the Old and New Testaments to indicate they were not
considered part of the Old Testament text--and there is evidence that
these were widely read as popular literature, especially in Puritan
circles.
The apocrypha of the King James Version has the same 14 books as had
been found in the apocrypha of the Bishops' Bible; however, following
the practice of the Geneva Bible, the Esdras books are named Ezra and
Nehemiah (Old Testament) and 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras (apocrypha), rather
than respectively 1, 2, 3, and 4 Esdras as in the Bishops' Bible and
the Thirty-nine Articles. Starting in 1630, volumes of the 'Geneva
Bible' were occasionally bound with the pages of the apocrypha section
excluded. In 1644, the Long Parliament forbade the reading of the
apocrypha in churches; and in 1666, the first editions of the King
James Bible without the apocrypha were bound.
The standardization of the text of the Authorized Version after 1769
together with the technological development of stereotype printing
made it possible to produce Bibles in large print-runs at very low
unit prices. For commercial and charitable publishers, editions of the
Authorized Version without the apocrypha reduced the cost, while
having increased market appeal to non-Anglican Protestant readers.
With the rise of the Bible societies, most editions have omitted the
whole section of apocryphal books. The British and Foreign Bible
Society withdrew subsidies for Bible printing and dissemination in
1826, under the following resolution:
The American Bible Society adopted a similar policy. Both societies
eventually reversed these policies in light of 20th-century ecumenical
efforts on translations, the ABS doing so in 1964 and the BFBS in
1966.
Sources
=========
The translators appear to have otherwise made no first-hand study of
ancient manuscript sources, even those that--like the Codex
Bezae--would have been readily available to them. In addition to all
previous English versions (including, and contrary to their
instructions, the 'Rheimish New Testament' which in their preface they
criticized), they made wide and eclectic use of all printed editions
in the original languages then available, including the ancient Syriac
New Testament printed with an interlinear Latin gloss in the Antwerp
Polyglot of 1573. In the preface the translators acknowledge
consulting translations and commentaries in Chaldee, Hebrew, Syrian,
Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, and German.
The translators took the Bishops' Bible as their source text, and
where they departed from that in favour of another translation, this
was most commonly the Geneva Bible. However, the degree to which
readings from the Bishops' Bible survived into final text of the King
James Bible varies greatly from company to company, as did the
propensity of the King James translators to coin phrases of their own.
John Bois's notes of the General Committee of Review show that they
discussed readings derived from a wide variety of versions and
patristic sources, including explicitly both Henry Savile's 1610
edition of the works of John Chrysostom and the Rheims New Testament,
which was the primary source for many of the literal alternative
readings provided for the marginal notes.
Variations in recent translations
===================================
A number of Bible verses in the King James Version of the New
Testament are not found in more recent Bible translations, where these
are based on modern critical texts. In the early seventeenth century,
the source Greek texts of the New Testament which were used to produce
Protestant Bible versions were mainly dependent on manuscripts of the
late Byzantine text-type, and they also contained minor variations
which became known as the Textus Receptus. With the subsequent
identification of much earlier manuscripts, most modern textual
scholars value the evidence of manuscripts which belong to the
Alexandrian family as better witnesses to the original text of the
biblical authors, without giving it, or any family, automatic
preference.
Style and criticism
=====================
A primary concern of the translators was to produce an appropriate
Bible, dignified and resonant in public reading. Although the
Authorized Version's written style is an important part of its
influence on English, research has found only one verse--Hebrews
13:8--for which translators debated the wording's literary merits.
While they stated in the preface that they used stylistic variation,
finding multiple English words or verbal forms in places where the
original language employed repetition, in practice they also did the
opposite; for example, 14 different Hebrew words were translated into
the single English word "prince".
In a period of rapid linguistic change the translators avoided
contemporary idioms, tending instead towards forms that were already
slightly archaic, like 'verily' and 'it came to pass'. The pronouns
'thou'/'thee' and 'ye'/'you' are consistently used as singular and
plural respectively, even though by this time 'you' was often found as
the singular in general English usage, especially when addressing a
social superior (as is evidenced, for example, in Shakespeare). For
the possessive of the third person pronoun, the word 'its', first
recorded in the 'Oxford English Dictionary' in 1598, is avoided. The
older 'his' is usually employed, as for example at Matthew 5:13: "if
the salt have lost 'his' savour, wherewith shall it be salted?"; in
other places 'of it', 'thereof' or bare 'it' are found. Another sign
of linguistic conservatism is the invariable use of '-eth' for the
third person singular present form of the verb, as at Matthew 2:13:
"the Angel of the Lord appear'eth' to Joseph in a dreame". The rival
ending '-(e)s', as found in present-day English, was already widely
used by this time (for example, it predominates over '-eth' in the
plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe). Furthermore, the translators
preferred 'which' to 'who' or 'whom' as the relative pronoun for
persons, as in Genesis 13:5: "And Lot also 'which' went with Abram,
had flocks and heards, & tents" although 'who(m)' is also found.
The Authorized Version is notably more Latinate than previous English
versions, especially the Geneva Bible. This results in part from the
academic stylistic preferences of a number of the translators--several
of whom admitted to being more comfortable writing in Latin than in
English--but was also, in part, a consequence of the royal
proscription against explanatory notes. Hence, where the Geneva Bible
might use a common English word, and gloss its particular application
in a marginal note, the Authorized Version tends rather to prefer a
technical term, frequently in Anglicized Latin. Consequently, although
the King had instructed the translators to use the Bishops' Bible as a
base text, the New Testament in particular owes much stylistically to
the Catholic Rheims New Testament, whose translators had also been
concerned to find English equivalents for Latin terminology. In
addition, the translators of the New Testament books transliterate
names found in the Old Testament in their Greek forms rather than in
the forms closer to the Old Testament Hebrew (e.g. "Elias" and "Noe"
for "Elijah" and "Noah", respectively).
While the Authorized Version remains among the most widely sold,
modern critical New Testament translations differ substantially from
it in a number of passages, primarily because they rely on source
manuscripts not then accessible to (or not then highly regarded by)
early-17th-century Biblical scholarship. In the Old Testament, there
are also many differences from modern translations that are based not
on manuscript differences, but on a different understanding of Ancient
Hebrew vocabulary or grammar by the translators. For example, in
modern translations it is clear that Job 28:1-11 is referring
throughout to mining operations, which is not at all apparent from the
text of the Authorized Version.
Mistranslations
=================
The King James Version contains several alleged mistranslations,
especially in the Old Testament where the knowledge of Hebrew and
cognate languages was uncertain at the time. Among the most commonly
cited errors is in the Hebrew of Job and Deuteronomy, where with the
probable meaning of "wild-ox, aurochs", is translated in the KJV as
"unicorn"; following in this the Vulgate 'unicornis' and several
medieval rabbinic commentators. The translators of the KJV note the
alternative rendering, "rhinocerots" in the margin at Isaiah 34:7. On
a similar note Martin Luther's German translation had also relied on
the Latin Vulgate on this point, consistently translating רְאֵם using
the German word for unicorn, 'Einhorn'. Otherwise, the translators are
accused on several occasions of having mistakenly interpreted a Hebrew
descriptive phrase as a proper name (or vice versa); as at 2 Samuel
1:18 where "the Book of Jasher" () properly refers not to a work by an
author of that name, but should rather be rendered as "the Book of the
Upright" (which was proposed as an alternative reading in a marginal
note to the KJV text).
Some scholars and commentators contend that these examples reflect
differences in translation philosophy and ongoing lexical uncertainty
rather than demonstrable mistranslation. In the case of the , the
precise referent remains disputed, and earlier translations such as
the Septuagint () and the Vulgate () likewise render the term as a
one-horned animal, indicating that the King James translators followed
a long-standing interpretive tradition rather than an isolated or
novel reading. It is further noted that the translators frequently
acknowledged ambiguity by supplying alternative renderings in marginal
notes, such as "rhinocerots'"' at Isaiah 34:7, suggesting awareness of
competing interpretations rather than simple linguistic error.
Similarly, while the "Book of Jasher" can be translated descriptively
as "Book of the Upright," it also appears to function as a title in
multiple biblical passages (e.g., Joshua 10:13). Although several
extant works bear the name 'Sefer ha-Yashar', including a medieval
Midrashic collection and later compilations of Jewish legend,
mainstream scholarship regards these as distinct from the "lost" book
referenced in Scripture, and dates them to much later periods (e.g.,
16th-17th centuries or later). From this viewpoint, the rendering
"Book of Jasher”" in the KJV reflects a translation choice consistent
with traditional Jewish and Christian usage of the title and
recognizes that the original "Book of the Upright" remains lost to
history.
Influence
======================================================================
Despite royal patronage and encouragement, there was never any overt
mandate to use the new translation. It was not until 1661 that the
Authorized Version replaced the Bishops' Bible in the Epistle and
Gospel lessons of the 'Book of Common Prayer', and it never did
replace the older translation in the Psalter. In 1763 'The Critical
Review' complained that "many false interpretations, ambiguous
phrases, obsolete words and indelicate expressions ... excite the
derision of the scorner". Blayney's 1769 version, with its revised
spelling and punctuation, helped change the public perception of the
Authorized Version to a masterpiece of the English language. By the
19th century, F. W. Faber could say of the translation, "It lives on
the ear, like music that can never be forgotten, like the sound of
church bells, which the convert hardly knows how he can forego."
Geddes MacGregor called the Authorized Version "the most influential
version of the most influential book in the world, in what is now its
most influential language", "the most important book in English
religion and culture", and "the most celebrated book in the
English-speaking world". David Crystal has estimated that it is
responsible for 257 idioms in English; examples include feet of clay
and reap the whirlwind. Furthermore, prominent atheist figures such as
Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have praised the King James
Version as being "a giant step in the maturing of English literature"
and "a great work of literature", respectively, with Dawkins then
adding, "A native speaker of English who has never read a word of the
King James Bible is verging on the barbarian".
The King James Version is one of the versions authorized to be used in
the services of the Episcopal Church and other parts of the Anglican
Communion, as it is the historical Bible of this church.
It was presented to King Charles III at his coronation service.
Other Christian denominations have also accepted the King James
Version. The King James Version is used by English-speaking
Conservative Anabaptists, along with Methodists of the conservative
holiness movement, in addition to certain Baptists. In the Orthodox
Church in America, it is used liturgically and was made "the
'official' translation for a whole generation of American Orthodox".
The later Service Book of the Antiochian archdiocese, in vogue today,
also uses the King James Version. The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints continues to use its own edition of the Authorized
Version as its official English Bible.
Although the Authorized Version's preeminence in the English-speaking
world has diminished--for example, the Church of England recommends
six other versions in addition to it--it is still the most used
translation in the United States, especially as the Scofield Reference
Bible for Evangelicals. However, over the past forty years it has been
gradually overtaken by modern versions, principally the New
International Version (1973), the New Revised Standard Version (1989),
and the English Standard Version (2001), the latter of which is seen
as a successor to the King James Version.
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.
Copyright status
======================================================================
The Authorized Version is in the public domain in most of the world.
In the United Kingdom, the right to print, publish and distribute it
is a royal prerogative, and the Crown licenses publishers to reproduce
it under letters patent. In England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, the
letters patent are held by the King's Printer; in Scotland, they are
held by the Scottish Bible Board. The office of the King's Printer has
been associated with the right to reproduce the Bible for centuries,
the earliest known reference coming in 1577.
In the 18th century, all surviving interests in the monopoly were
bought out by John Baskett. The Baskett rights descended through a
number of printers and, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the
King's Printer is now Cambridge University Press, which inherited the
right when they took over the firm of Eyre & Spottiswoode in 1990.
Other royal charters of similar antiquity grant Cambridge University
Press and Oxford University Press the right to produce the Authorized
Version independently of the King's Printer. In Scotland, the
Authorized Version is published by Collins under licence from the
Scottish Bible Board. The terms of the letters patent prohibit any
other than the holders, or those authorized by the holders, from
printing, publishing or importing the Authorized Version into the
United Kingdom. The protection that the Authorized Version, and also
the 'Book of Common Prayer,' enjoy is the last remnant of the time
when the Crown held a monopoly over all printing and publishing in the
United Kingdom.
Although Crown Copyright usually expires 50 years after publication,
Section 171(b) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 made an
exception for 'any right or privilege of the Crown' not written in an
act of parliament, thus preserving the rights of the Crown under the
unwritten royal prerogative.
Permission
============
Within the United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press permits the
reproduction of at most 500 words for "liturgical and non-commercial
educational use", provided that their prescribed acknowledgement is
included, the quoted words do not exceed 25% of the publication
quoting them and do not include a complete Bible book. For use beyond
this, the Press is willing to consider permission requested on a
case-by-case basis and in 2011 a spokesman said the Press generally
does not charge a fee but tries to ensure that a reputable source text
is used.
See also
======================================================================
* 21st Century King James Version
* Bible errata
* Bible translations
* Charles XII Bible
* Dynamic and formal equivalence
* Modern English Bible translations § King James Versions and
derivatives
* New King James Version
* Red letter edition
* Young's Literal Translation
Notes
=======
{{Notelist|refs=
}}
Further reading
=================
Chronological order of publication (newest first)
* Joalland, Michael. "Isaac Newton Reads the King James Version: The
Marginal Notes and Reading Marks of a Natural Philosopher." 'Papers of
the Bibliographical Society of America', vol. 113, no. 3 (2019):
297-339.
* Burke, David G., John F. Kutsko, and Philip H. Towner, eds. 'The
King James Version at 400: Assessing Its Genius as Bible Translation
and Its Literary Influence' (Society of Biblical Literature; 2013) 553
pages; scholars examine such topics as the KJV and 17th-century
religious lyric, the KJV and the language of liturgy, and the KJV in
Christian Orthodox perspective.
*
* Published to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the initial
publication, in 1611, of the Authorized ("King James") Version of the
Bible
*
*
* In US: Paperback:
*
* [
https://books.google.com/books?id=tC1kuaetNqoC The Diary Of Samuel
Ward: A Translator Of The 1611 King James Bible], eds. John Wilson
Cowart and M.M. Knappen, contains surviving pages of Samuel Ward's
diary from 11 May 1595 to 1 July 1632.
* Ward, Thomas (1903). 'Errata of the Protestant Bible ['i.e.' mostly
of the Authorized "King James" Version]; or, The Truth of the English
Translations Examined, in a Treatise Showing Some of the Errors That
Are to Be Found in the English Translations of the Sacred Scriptures,
Used by Protestants'. A new ed., carefully rev. and corr., in which
are add[itions]. New York: P.J. Kennedy and Sons. 'N.B'.: A polemical
Roman Catholic work, first published in the late 17th century.
*
External links
======================================================================
*Scanned copy of the
[
https://archive.org/details/1611-the-authorized-king-james-bible_202007
original 1611 Authorized King James Bible]
* [
https://books.google.com/books?id=SF1CAQAAMAAJ 'The Holy Bible: An
Exact Reprint Page for Page of the Authorized Version Published in the
Year MDCXI.'] Oxford: The University Press, 1833, "a scrupulous
original-spelling, page-for-page, and line-for-line reprint of the
1611 edition (including all chapter headings, marginalia, and original
italicization, but with Roman type substituted for the black letter of
the original)" cited in Footnote 'd' above. Complete pdf of the
original book.
* [
https://archive.org/details/cambridgeparagra00scri/page/n5 'The
Cambridge Paragraph Bible of the Authorized English Version: With the
Text Revised by a Collation of Its Early and Other Principal Editions,
the Use of the Italic Type Made Uniform, the Marginal References
Remodelled, and a Critical Introduction Prefixed.'] Cambridge, UK: The
University Press, 1873. Complete pdf of the original book.
* Online searchable database of the original 1611 text, including the
Apocrypha and introductory text. It also contains the 1769 standard
edition.
* On-line image of a page (beginning of St John's gospel) with a
written description by the British Library.
* On-line facsimile (page images) of the 1611 printing of the King
James Bible, "He" Bible variant.
* On-line facsimile (page images) of the 1611 printing of the King
James Bible.
*
License
=========
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License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Version
