back in 1603 queen elizabeth the first
passed away she had ruled england for 45
years was well loved and provided
a sense of stability and security during
a reign described as neither a good
protestant nor yet resolute papist she
was
able to provide a relatively happy
medium between the two warring sects
having no children of her own though the
throne was open to king james vi
of scotland who became king james the
first of england upon her death
england had been at war with scotland on
and off over the years james's own
mother mary had been
beheaded by elizabeth still many people
saw the rise of a new king as
being the opportunity for religious
reform that they had been waiting for
on his journey south to his english
coronation king james he was stopped by
a delegation of puritans who
presented him with a list of grievances
and their proposed reforms
it was signed by over a thousand
clergymen which was
10 of england's clergy at the time and
was subsequently called the millinery
petition they addressed things such as
banning the use of wedding rings and
wearing a cross but
didn't mention anything about a new
bible translation
the new king james called for a meeting
at hampton court palace to
address the concerns in the millinery
petition which took place
in early 1604. the puritans weren't
allowed to attend the first day of the
conference and james largely disregarded
most of their requests
in fact james was happy with the setup
of the english church having been
extremely frustrated with the scottish
presbyterian model
eventually dr john reynolds the lead
puritan voice at the conference brought
up the idea
of a bible translation because those
which were allowed in the reign of king
henry viii and king edward vi
were corrupt and not answerable to the
truth of the original
james who hated the popular geneva bible
for its anti-royalty message
agreed that a new translation would be
for the best and
despite the other outcomes of the
conference the puritans they were happy
because
they believed they would have a say in
the new translation perhaps enabling
them to
bring about some of the reforms that
they wished for the translation of the
bible
it didn't begin until 1607.
54 bible experts only 48 were recorded
as some died before the translation was
finished
they all gathered together at oxford
westminster
and cambridge to discuss the translation
they came from all levels of religion
and had different ideas about the reform
that they wanted to see
there to follow 15 rules for translation
including making no notes in the margins
of the bible
and keeping the language accessible to
the common people many of whom were
wholly illiterate at the time the
translators were broken
into subcommittees each translator
independently translating the same
section of the bible
which he then brought back to the
subcommittee all of the translations
were compared and
one was selected to be sent to the
general revising committee the revising
committee then listened to the
translation
rather than read it because much of
their audience was illiterate they
wanted the bible to sound right
more than they wanted it to look right
if the translation didn't sound good the
general committee would debate and
revise the passage until it did
afterwards they would send the approved
passages to a few bishops who would then
send the passages on to the archbishop
of canterbury who would send it to king
james who had the final say
in the approval of the new translation
the new translation was finally
completed in 1610 but didn't become
available
to the public until the following year
it was printed by robert barker
king james's personally appointed
printer unfortunately the new
translation had been so anticipated that
barca rushed to the printer
and many mistakes were made barca had
paid 3500 pounds for the rights to
publish the bible
and spent even more trying to fix
mistakes and fend off pirating
publishers
by 1635 he was in debt as prison where
he'd later die
aside from printing two different
versions of the bible at the same time
and allowing their pages to get
bound up together rather than separately
major typos were also discovered in the
1631 printing which
later became known as the wicked bible
among other discrepancies god's
greatness was misprinted as god's great
ass
and the word not was left out of the
commandments
thou shall not commit adultery because
of this it isn't exactly a mystery as to
why the king james version
was not very popular from the very
beginning over time the king james bible
underwent a number of revisions from the
original translation
typos were corrected new chapter
summaries were included and marginal
references were
added and verified for accuracy the
revisions opened the door to increasing
the king james version's popularity
and the rest as they say is history
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