Here are reasons for the making of the King James bible...historical lessons learned.
Counter-Reformation
By 1550, the Protestant Reformation was thoroughly established and two-thirds of Europe had withdrawn from the Roman Catholic Church. To counter the effects of the Reformation, Ignatius of Loyola founded the Jesuit order. These highly disciplined intellectuals would establish colleges and universities throughout Europe for the training of young men to regain control of European culture and to infiltrate Protestant seminaries. The Council of Trent, held from 1545 to 1563, was dominated by the Jesuits as the Pope's theologians. The Council's first anathemas were directed at Luther's propositions concerning the sole authority of the Scriptures as written in the original languages, since Catholic bibles were translated only in Latin. Fuller emphasizes the primary importance of the translation of the Holy Bible: "This shows how fundamental to all reform, as well as to the great Reformation, is the determining power over Christian order and faith, of the disputed readings and the disputed books of the Bible."
When the leadership of the Reformation passed from Germany to England, the Catholic Church recognized that it must regain England if the English-speaking world would be Catholic. The Jesuits produced an English New Testament in 1582 which in 1609, upon completion of the Old Testament based on the Alexandrian manuscripts of the type used by Constantine, became the Douay Rheims Bible. During this critical period, England would be assaulted by Rome not only from within by the Jesuit English New Testament in 1582, but also from without by the Spanish Armada which was allied with Rome. Determined to meet the challenge, in 1588, the English fleet defeated the Armada which positioned England to become a world sea power. On the spiritual front, the English clergy were alarmed that the Jesuit Bible was poisoning the people with Roman doctrines and one thousand ministers petitioned the English monarch, King James I, "that there might be a new translation of the Bible, without note or comment." .
The Authorized Version
(King James Version)
From the 2nd through the 17th century, God's promise had been fulfilled as Scripture was preserved in the Greek Received Text (New Testament) and the Hebrew Masoretic Text (Old Testament). According to D.A. Waite, the Textus Receptus, the text traditionally used as the basis for translation of the Bible into various languages, is derived from the overwhelming majority of ancient Bible manuscripts which comprised the Traditional Text of the early Church. These 5,210 manuscripts (99% of extant or existing manuscripts) agree with each other, as opposed to only 45 (1% of extant) texts which form the basis of the Revised Version and other modern translations.
The Translation Committee for an Authorized Version was composed of forty-seven scholars of the highest qualifications. No secrecy shrouded the work of the translators, who were accountable to one another and to the Church of England clergy and bishops. These learned men possessed all of the extant manuscripts which had been made available through the industry of Erasmus. Although counterfeit documents of the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus family were available to the translators, these were rejected. Fuller notes that, not only did the translators possess profound erudition, they were men who "had gone through a period of great suffering for the Word of God . . . and were building upon a foundation well and truly laid by the martyrs of the previous century." Let us look at the qualifications of a few of these translators:
* Dr. Lancelot Andrews, B.A., M.A. - Doctor of Divinity and a Fellow at Cambridge, Director of one of the Old Testament translators group. Conversant in fifteen modern languages in addition to Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Oriental languages.
* Dr. Miles Smith, M.A., D.D. - One of the twelve translators selected to review the final work. An expert in Chaldee (which is related to Hebrew), Syriac, Hebrew and Arabic languages.
* Dr. William Bedwell - An eminent Oriental scholar whose languages included Arabic and Persian. Considered the Father of Arabic Studies in England.
* John Bois - Fellow of St. John's at Cambridge. Read the Bible in Hebrew at age five and admitted to St. John's College, Cambridge at age fourteen. Skilled in both Hebrew and Greek.
* Lawrence Chaderton, D.D. - Fellow of Christ's College, Master of Emanuel College. Acquired a great reputation as a scholar in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Proficient in French, Spanish and Italian.
Rev. Terence H. Brown, former Secretary of the Trinitarian Bible Society of London wrote of the forty-seven translators of the KJV:
"No reasonable person imagines that the translators were infallible or that their work was perfect, but no one acquainted with the facts can deny that they were men of outstanding scholarship, well qualified for their important work, or that with God's blessing they completed their great task with scrupulous care and fidelity... They were indeed 'learned men' -- and their scholarship was recompensed by a deep conviction of the divine origin of the records which they were translating. Learning and faith went hand in hand to open the storehouse of God's word of truth for the spiritual enrichment of millions from generation to generation, over a period of more than three hundred years.
Their method of translation was "formal" or "verbal equivalence." Translations were meticulously made, word-for-word, by these scholars. Zane Hodges, Professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, describes this as the "continuous transmission of the original text from the very first." Testimony of God’s preservation of His pure Word can be seen in the continuous transmission of the Textus Receptus through the centuries into many languages and ultimately into the English Authorized King James Version, which was published sans copyright in 1611 A.D.
It is important to acknowledge that the Authorized Version of 1611 contained the Apocrypha, as did the English Bibles which preceded it: Tyndale's Bible (1525 A.D.), Coverdale's Bible (1535 A.D.), Matthew's Bible (1537 A.D.), Taverner's Bible (1539 A.D.), the Great Bible, (1539 A.D.), the Geneva Bible (1560 A.D.) and the Bishop's Bible (1568 A.D.). Apocryphal books were omitted from the AV in 1629 and by 1827 the Apocrypha was excluded permanently.
Landmarks of English Bible: Manuscript Evidence provides additional information about the Apocrypha with the following explanation pertaining to its inclusion in the Reformation Bibles:
"Many of the early English versions contained the Apocrypha for two basic reasons - because of the general acceptance of the Apocrypha during the Dark Ages, and/or (in case of the Authorized, King James Version) for Scriptural analysis. In each case, the Apocrypha were delineated either in an appendix and/or with an explanation showing them to be non-canonical."
The Oxford Movement
England vigilantly resisted the Jesuit strategy of persecution and infiltration of the Protestant Church until the 19th century when Cardinal Wiseman, an Englishman went to Rome to study under Cardinal Mai, editor of the Vatican Manuscript. Cardinal Wiseman would skillfully direct the Counter-Reformation, at first from Rome and later from within the United Kingdom. The remarkable success of this influential figure extended to the Angican clergyman who sat on the English Revision Committee:
"Wiseman had a desire to see England return to the fold at Rome . . . While in Rome, he was visited by several Neo-Protestants. He was instrumental in 'weaning' these men back into subjection to the Pope… (One) visitor was Anglican Archbishop Trench, who returned to England to promote a revision of the Authorized Version and even joined the Revision Committee of 1871. Still another was John Henry Newman. Newman was the brilliant English churchman who was a leader of Oxford University and the English clergy."
In 1845, John Henry Newman left the Church of England and formally joined the Roman Catholic Church, following the steps of another Oxford professor named Ward, who had written a book teaching the worship of Mary and ‘mental reservation.’ Mental reservation is the act, condoned by the Roman Catholic Church, of lying to keep from revealing one's ties to Rome… "Thus the author of Lead Kindly Light passed over to Rome, and within one year 150 clergyman and eminent laymen also had joined the Catholic Church."
"In 1836, three years following Newman and Froude’s visit, (Cardinal Wiseman) had moved to Ireland to supervise the Oxford Movement through his paper the ‘Dublin Review.’ Wiseman was described as, ‘a textual critic of the first rank,’ and assisted by the information seemingly passed on to him from the Jesuits, he was able to finish the facts well calculated to combat confidence in the Protestant Bible."
Ultimately, the Oxford Movement would not only weaken the doctrinal foundation of the Church of England but also undermine confidence in the Authorized Version of the Bible:
"By the year 1870, so powerful had become the influence of the Oxford Movement, that a theological bias in favor of Rome was affecting men in high authority. Many of the sacred institutions of Protestant England had been assailed and some of them had been completely changed. The attack on the Thirty-nine Articles by Tract 90, and the subversion of fundamental Protestant doctrines within the Church of England had been so bold and thorough, that an attempt to substitute a version which would theologically and legally discredit our common Protestant version would not be a surprise."
The New Greek Text
In 1851, publisher Daniel Macmillan suggested to two Cambridge professors that they participate in an interesting and comprehensive "New Testament Scheme" that is, to undertake a joint revision of the Greek New Testament. Privately and without authorization of the Church of England, Fenton John Anthony Hort and Brooke Foss Westcott, who later became an Anglican bishop, proceeded to create, not a revision, but an altogether New Greek Text. According to Dr. Hort, the intention of the revisers was to radically alter the Traditional or Majority Text. "Our object is to supply clergymen generally, schools, etc., with a portable Greek Text which shall not be disfigured with Byzantine corruptions." The correction of "Byzantine corruptions" by Hort and Westcott was, in fact, the substitution of corrupt Alexandrian manuscripts for the Textus Receptus, the text which agrees with the majority of manuscripts extant today.
Secular historians, and also the sons of Drs. Westcott and Hort, have documented the unorthodox doctrines and occult affiliations of these two clergymen during the thirty year period in which they edited the New Testament Greek Text and guided the English revision Committee. Excerpts from The Letters of B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort present some of these extraordinary revelations which demonstrate the heretical bias of these men who served as Bible translators/revisers. Drs. Westcott and Hort were also pioneers of Spiritualist inquiry during The Nineteenth Century Occult Revival, having founded the Cambridge Ghost Society, which was the parent organization of the present day Society for Psychical Research.
The Westcott-Hort Theory
In 1853, Dr. Hort wrote, "He (Westcott) and I are going to edit a Greek text of the New Testament some two or three years hence, if possible. Lachmann and Tischendorf will supply rich materials, but not nearly enough; and we hope to do a good deal with Oriental versions." Karl Lachmann (1793-1851) was professor of Classical and German Philology in Berlin, and also a German rationalist and textual critic who produced modern editions of the New Testament in Germany in 1842 and 1850. Lachmann began to apply to the New Testament Greek text the same rules that he had used in editing texts of the Greek classics which had been radically altered over the years. Having also set up a series of several presuppositions and rules which he used for arriving at the original text of the Greek classics, he then began with these same presuppositions and rules to correct the New Testament which he assumed was hopelessly corrupted.
Lachmann’s theories laid the foundation for the German school of higher criticism which rejected the authenticity of the Gospels, particularly the miracles, and also the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith. The widespread acceptance of Lachmann’s work furnished the critical authority for Drs. Westcott and Hort in their formulation of a method of textual criticism known as the Westcott and Hort Textual Theory. Drs. Westcott and Hort hypothesized that that the original New Testament text had survived in near perfect condition in two manuscripts other than the Received Greek Text and that the early church used these manuscripts to edit the Textus Receptus. The Westcott-Hort Theory, which maintains that the true text of Scripture was lost by the true Church for approximately 1600 years, has since been discredited for lack of historical evidence.
Constantin Tischendorf (1815-74) was a German textual editor whom Dr. Frederick Scrivener of the English Revision Committee ranked "the first Bible Critic in Europe." Tischendorf traveled extensively in search of ancient documents and was responsible for finding the two manuscripts most relied upon in the Westcott-Hort Greek Text, the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. Tischendorf discovered (c. A.D. 1844) the Vaticanus B manuscript in the Vatican Library and Sinaiticus Aleph in a waste basket in a Catholic convent at the base of Mt. Sinai. Psalm 108:5 promises that God will preserve His Word "unto a thousand generations." For this reason, He would never allow it to be suppressed or withheld from His people as the Roman Catholic hierarchy did for 1400 years. It is reasonable to assume that God removed these manuscripts from circulation because they were not His Word.
Pursuing their self-serving revisionist hypothesis, Westcott and Hort used the Codex Vaticanus (B) and the Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph) manuscripts as the basis for their New Testament Greek Text, which in turn was the basis for the 1881 text adopted by the ERV revisers. Dean John Burgon, the brilliant textual scholar and Anglican clergyman who led the opposition to the English revision, described for his English readers the corrupt character of the manuscripts primarily used by Westcott and Hort -- not to revise the Textus Receptus -- but to create an altogether new Greek Text.
"It matters nothing that all four are discovered on careful scrutiny to differ essentially, not only from ninety-nine out of a hundred of the whole body of extant MSS, besides, but even from one another. This last circumstance, obviously fatal to their corporate pretensions, is unaccountably overlooked. And yet it admits of only one satisfactory explanation: viz. That in different degrees they all five exhibit a fabricated text. . .We venture to assure [the reader] without a particle of hesitation, that Aleph, B, D, are three of the most scandalously corrupt copies extant: -- exhibit the most shamefully mutilated texts which are anywhere to be met with: -- have become, by whatever process (for their history is wholly unknown), the depositories of the largest amount of fabricated readings, ancient blunders, and intentional perversions of Truth, -- which are discoverable in any known copies of the Word of God."
The English Revised Version
In 1857, liberal churchmen petitioned the Government to revise the Authorized Version but were refused permission. A general distrust of revising the sacred text was prevalent and Archbishop Trench, later a member of the Revision Committee called the issue, "A question affecting . . . profoundly the whole moral and spiritual life of the English people . . . (with) vast and solemn issues depending on it." At length, however, the Southern Convocation of the Church of England was appealed to and consented to a revision.
The Revision Committee, was divided from its beginning in 1871, the majority of two-thirds being those in favor of applying German methods of higher criticism to the revision process. The first chairman, Bishop Wilberforce resigned, calling the work a "miserable business" and protesting the presence of a Unitarian scholar who had been surreptitiously elected to the committee. Dr. G. Vance Smith, who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, had nevertheless participated in a communion service at Westminster Abbey upon the invitation of Bishop Westcott just prior to the first committee meeting. Dean John Burgon reported that committee members were bound to a pledge of silence having received each a copy of the New Greek Text created by Westcott and Hort, which altered the Textus Receptus in 5,337 places: "…a ‘confidential’ copy of their work having been already entrusted to every member of the New Testament Company of Revisionists to guide them in their labours, -- under pledge that they should neither show nor communicate its contents to any one else."
The English revisionists also consulted a translation produced in 1865 by the American Bible Union, whose committee was chaired by ecumenist Philip Schaff. The facts surrounding English-American collaboration on the revision of the Bible are thoroughly documented in Thomas Armitage's History of the Baptists.
"The revisers commenced their work in June, 1870, and submitted the New Testament complete May 17th, 1881, the work being done chiefly by seventeen Episcopalians, two of the Scotch Church, two dissenting Presbyterians, one Unitarian, one Independent and one Baptist. A board of American scholars had co-operated, and submitted 'a list of readings and renderings' which they preferred to those finally adopted by their English brethren; a list comprising fourteen separate classes of passages, running through the entire New Testament, besides several hundred separate words and phrases. The Bible Union's New Testament was published nearly six years before the Canterbury revision was begun, and nearly seventeen years before it was given to the world. Although Dr. Trench had pronounced the 'installments' of the American Bible Union's New Testament 'not very encouraging,' yet the greatest care was had to supply the English translators with that version. During the ten and a half years consumed in their work, they met in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster each month for ten months of every year, each meeting lasting four days, each day from eleven o'clock to six; and the Bible Union's New Testament lay on their table all that time, being most carefully consulted before changes from the common version were agreed upon. One of the best scholars in the corps of English revisers said to the writer: 'We never make an important change without consulting the Union's version. Its changes are more numerous than ours, but four out of five changes are in exact harmony with it, and I am mortified to say that the pride of English scholarship will not allow us to give due credit to that superior version for its aid.' This was before the Canterbury version was completed, but when it was finished it was found that the changes in sense from the common version were more numerous than those of the Union's version, and that the renderings in that version are verbatim in hundreds of cases with those of the Union's version."
In 1881, the English Revision Committee cast upon the world a New Greek Text and an English Bible which, in the words of one reviser contained "between eight and nine changes in every five verses, and in about every ten verses, three of these were made for critical purposes." The English Revised Version is generally acknowledged to be the predecessor to the New International Version, the New American Standard Version and other modern translations.
