Victor R. Claveau, MJ
In January, 1604, King James I brought together church dignitaries, scholars, and Puritans—all loyal Protestants. On the last day of the conference between James and the churchmen, January 18, 1604, the first formal step was taken toward the making of the so-called Authorized Version of the English Bible.
Some of the High Church party objected that there were translations enough already; but it struck James’ fancy to set them all aside by another version, which he at once said he would order. It was to be made by the most learned of both universities, then to be revised by the bishops and other Church dignitaries, then presented to the Privy Council, and finally to be passed upon by himself. The King was true to his word in this line also, and before the year was out, he had appointed the fifty-four of the best biblical scholars of the realm to create the new version.
They were to sit in six companies of nine each, two at Oxford, two at Cambridge, and two at Westminster. It must be said for the King that the only principle of selection was scholarship, and when those six groups of men met, they were men of the very first rank, with no peers outside their own numbers—with one exception, and that exception is of some passing interest. Hugh Broughton (1549 –1612) was probably the foremost Hebrew scholar of England, perhaps of the world, at the time, and apparently, he was not appointed on the committee. Chiefly, it seems to have been because he was a man of ungovernable temper and utterly unfit to work with others. Failure to appoint him however angered him, and the only keen and sharp criticism that was passed on the version in its own day was by Hugh Broughton himself. He sent word to the King, after it was completed, that as for himself he would rather be rent to pieces by wild horses than have had any part in the urging of such a wretched version of the Bible on the poor people.
It was the original plan that when one company had finished its part, the result should go to each of the other companies, coming back with their suggestions to the original workers to be recast by them. The whole was then to be reviewed by a smaller committee of scholars to give it uniformity and to see it through the press. The records are not extant that tell whether this was done in full detail, though we may presume that each section of the Scripture had the benefit of the scholarship of the entire company.
We know a good deal of the method of their work. We can understand it better by recalling what material they had at hand. They were enabled to use the result of all the work that had been done before them. They were instructed to follow the Bishops’ Bible wherever they could do so fairly; but they were given power to use the versions already named from Wycliffe down, as well as those fragmentary versions which were numerous, and of which no mention has been made. In addition, they had all other versions made in the tongues of the time. Chiefly there was Luther’s German Bible, already become for the German tongue what their version was destined to be for the English tongue. There were parts of the Bible available in Spanish, French, and Dutch. They were kept at hand constantly for any light they might cast on difficult passages.
For the Old Testament there were very few Hebrew texts. There had been little critical work yet done on them, and for the most part there were only different editions running back over the centuries. There was, of course, the Septuagint, with the guidance it could give in doubtful places on the probable original. And finally, there was the Vulgate. This was all the Old Testament material they had, or that anyone could have in view of the antiquated original sources.
The New Testament material was more abundant, though not nearly so abundant as today. There were few manuscripts of the early days to which they could refer; but there were the two great critical versions of the New Testament in Greek, that by Erasmus[1] and the Complutensian Polyglot Bible,[2] which had made use of the best manuscripts known. Then, finally again, there was the Vulgate. We must stop a moment to see what was the value of the Vulgate in this work. The Vulgate may be wrong because it is only a translation; but it may be right because it is a translation of earlier manuscripts.
With all this material the scholars of the early seventeenth century set to work. Each man in the group made the translation that seemed best to him, and together they analyzed the results and finally agreed on the best. They hunted the other versions to see if it had been better done elsewhere. The ghost of Tyndale was over it all. The Geneva Version was the most influential. The Douai had its share, and the Bishops’ was the general standard, altered only when accuracy required it. On all hard passages they called to their aid the appropriate departments of both universities. All scholars everywhere were asked to send in any contributions, to correct or criticize as they would. Public announcement of the work was made, and all possible help was besought and gladly accepted. They had all this, but none were of the lineage of Petrine authority.
Faithfully these greatest scholars spent hours upon hours working. No one worked for money but each for the joy of the working. Three years they spent on the original work, three years on careful revision and on the marginal references by which Scripture was made to throw light on Scripture. Then in six months a committee reviewed it all, put it through the press, and at last, in 1611, with the imprint of Robert Barker, Printer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, the King James Version appeared. The name Authorized Version is not necessarily correct, for so far as the records go it was never authorized either by the King or the bishop; and, even if it were, the authority does not extend beyond the English Church, which is a very small fraction of those who use it. On the title-page of the original version, as on so many since, is the familiar line, “Appointed to be Read in Churches,” but who made the appointment, history does not say.
Even a scholar is human, and there must have been times when some of them would be inclined to salt the mine a little, to see that it would yield what they would want it to yield. So far as these men were able to do it, they made it say in English just what it said in Hebrew and Greek. They showed no inclination to use it as a weapon in their personal warfare. For many English speaking Christians, the King James Version became a national treasure, a monument of literary excellence, of theological and textual accuracy—sometimes all these. For others, it stood for a very different, oppressive reality of Anglo-Protestant hegemony. It became for some the Vulgate of Protestantism, a text that could not be challenged without calling into question one’s authentic Christianity.
Errors in the King James Version
Two editions were printed in 1611, later distinguished as the “He” and “She” Bibles because of the variant readings “he” and “she” in the final clause of Ruth 3:15 (“and he went into the city”). Some errors in subsequent editions have become famous. The following are a sampling of these errors. In various printings of the King James Version of the Bible, some of the more famous examples have been given their own names. Among them are:
- The Blasphemous Comma: Several editions: Luke 23:32 reads “And there were also two other malefactors [crucified with Jesus].” It should have read “And there were also two others, malefactors.”
- “Judas Bible”, from 1613: This Bible has Judas, not Jesus, saying “Sit ye here while I go yonder and pray.” (Matthew 26:36)
- “Printers Bible”, from 1612: In some copies Psalm 119:161 reads “Printers have persecuted me without a cause” rather than “Princes have persecuted me…”
- “Wicked Bible”, “Adulterous Bible” or “Sinner’s Bible”, from 1631: Barker and Lucas: Omits an important “not” from Exodus 20:14, making the seventh commandment read “Thou shalt commit adultery.” The printers were fined £300 and most of the copies were recalled immediately. Only 11 copies are known to exist today.
- “More Sea Bible”, from 1641: “…the first heaven and the first earth were passed away and there was more sea” rather than “…the first heaven and the first earth were passed away and there was no more sea.” (Revelation 21:1)
- “Unrighteous Bible” or “Wicked Bible”, from 1653: Cambridge Press: Another edition carrying this title omits a “not” before the word “inherit”, making I Corinthians 6:9 read “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of God?…” In addition, Romans 6:13 reads “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of righteousness into sin…” where it should read “unrighteousness”.
- “Sin On Bible”, from 1716: Jeremiah 31:34 reads “sin on more” rather than “sin no more”.
- “Vinegar Bible”, from 1717: J. Baskett, Clarendon Press: The chapter heading for Luke 20 reads “The Parable of the Vinegar” instead of “The Parable of the Vineyard.” One reviewer called this particular edition “a Baskett full of errors,” what with its being replete with numerous other specimens of typographical errata throughout. One copy sold for $5,000 in 2008.
- “The Fools Bible”, from 1763: Psalm 14:1 reads “the fool hath said in his heart there is a God”, rather than “…there is no God”. The printers were fined £3,000 and all copies ordered destroyed.
- “Denial Bible”, from 1792: The name Philip is substituted for Peter as the apostle who would deny Jesus in Luke 22:34.
- “Murderer’s Bible”, from 1801: “Murmurers” is printed as “murderers”, making Jude 16 read: “These are murderers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.”
- “Lions Bible”, from 1804: 1 Kings 8:19 reads “thy son that shall come forth out of thy lions”, rather than “loins”. This edition had another error in Numbers 35:18 which read: “The murderer shall surely be put together” rather than “…put to death”.
- “To-remain Bible”, from 1805: In Galatians 4:29 a proof-reader had written in “to remain” in the margin, as an answer to whether a comma should be deleted. The note inadvertently became part of the text, making the edition read “But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit to remain, even so it is now.”
- “Discharge Bible”, from 1806: “Discharge” replaces “charge” making I Timothy 5:21 read “I discharge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.”
- “Standing Fishes Bible”, from 1806: “Fishes” replaced “fishers” making Ezekiel 47:10 read “And it shall come to pass, that the fishes shall stand upon it from Engedi even unto Eneglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many.”
- “Idle Shepherd”, from 1809: Zechariah 11:17 reads “the idle shepherd” rather than “idol shepherd”.
- “Ears To Ear Bible”, from 1810: Edition which makes Matthew 13:43 read: “…Who has ears to ear, let him hear.” The correct phrase should be “ears to hear”. In the same edition, Hebrews 9:14 comes out as “How much more shall the blood of Christ … purge your conscience from good works [should be “dead works”] to serve the living God.”
- “Wife-hater Bible”, from 1810: “Wife” replaces “life” in this edition, making Luke 14:26 redundantly read “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own wife also, he cannot be my disciple.”
- “The Large Family Bible”, from 1820: Isaiah 66:9 reads: “Shall I bring to birth and not cease to bring forth?” rather than “Shall I bring to birth and not cause to bring forth?”.
- “Rebecca’s Camels Bible”, from 1823: “Camels” replaces “damsels” in one instance, making Genesis 24:61 read “And Rebecca arose, and her camels, and they rode upon the camels, and followed the man: and the servant took Rebecca and went his way.”
- “Affinity Bible”, from 1927: Contains a table of family affinities that includes the line “A man may not marry his grandmother’s wife.”
- “Owl Bible”, from 1944: “Owl” replaces “own”, making 1 Peter 3:5 read, “For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their owl husbands.” The error was caused by a printing plate with a damaged letter n.
Why doesn’t the Catholic Church recognize the King James Version of the Bible?
“Because it follows the Protestant pattern of not including the Deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament that are recognized by Catholics. It should be noted, however, that the editors of the King James Version were instructed by King James I of England to make sure that the translation was in harmony with the theology of the Church of England. Some Protestants will tell you that the only acceptable version of the Bible is the King James. This position is known as King James-onlyism. Its advocates often make jokes such as, “If the King James Version was good enough for the apostle Paul, it is good enough for me,” or, “My King James Version corrects your Greek text.”[3]
“They commonly claim that the King James is based on the only perfect set of manuscripts we have (a false claim; there is no perfect set of manuscripts; and the ones used for the King James Version were compiled by a Catholic, Erasmus), that it is the only translation that avoids modern, liberal renderings, and that its translators were extremely saintly and scholarly men.
“As amusing as King James-onlyism may sound, some people take it very seriously. There is even a Catholic equivalent, which we might call “Douay-Rheims-onlyism.” The Douay-Rheims version, which predates the King James by a few years, (the complete King James Version was published in 1611, but the complete Douay-Rheims in 1609) was the standard Bible for English-speaking Catholics until the twentieth century.
“What many advocates of both King James-onlyism and Douay-Rheims-onlyism do not know is that neither Bible is the original issued in the 1600s. Over the last three centuries, numerous minor changes (for example, of spelling and grammar) have been made in the King James, with the result that most versions of the King James Version currently on the market are significantly different from the original. This has led one publisher to recently re-issue the 1611 King James Version Bible.
“The Douay-Rheims currently on the market is also not the original, 1609 version. It is technically called the “Douay-Challoner” Version because it is a revision of the Douay-Rheims done in the mid-eighteenth century by Bishop Richard Challoner.[4] He also consulted early Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, meaning that the Douay Bible currently on the market is not simply a translation of the Vulgate (which many of its advocates do not realize).” [5]
[1] Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (1466 –1536), known as Erasmus of Rotterdam, or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian. Erasmus was a classical scholar and wrote in a pure Latin style.
[2] The Complutensian Polyglot Bible is the name given to the first printed polyglot of the entire Bible, initiated and financed by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros (1436–1517) and published by Complutense University of Madrid. It includes the first printed editions of the Greek New Testament, the complete Septuagint, and the Targum Onkelos. Of the 600 printed six-volume sets, only 123 are known to have survived to date.
[3] For a still-in print critique of King James-onlyism, see D. A. Carson, The King James Version Debate, A Plea for Realism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979).
[4] The Right Reverend Bishop Richard Challoner, Bishop of Debra (1691 – 1781) was an English Roman Catholic bishop, a leading figure of English Catholicism during the greater part of the 18th century.
[5] Karl Keating, Catholic Answers, San Diego, California.