King James Bible

History of the King James Bible

The King James Bible is generally known as the King James Version because it was the idea of King James in 1604. He wanted a new English version of the bible because there were problems with the earlier translations which the Puritan factions of the Church of England detected. In order to make the King James Version as unbiased as possible, there were instructions that were given to the translators that they had to follow. Before the King James Version came to pass, there were not many Bibles printed in languages other than Latin.

Before the King James Version, the Bible was not read in many households because it was not understood in the foreign language of Latin. And it was extremely risky to those who wanted to reproduce the Bible in local languages for the general public, because there was the threat of death. King James abolished the ruling that implemented a death penalty on anyone who was caught translating the Bible into languages other than Latin. This allowed the Bible to be translated into the spoken language that anyone could understand.

Because there was such a variety of translations available, King James came upon the idea that there needed to be an overall translation that was in English, so as to be understood by the masses, as well as be unbiased of any Puritan influences. He assembled the Hampton Court Conference in 1604 and gave the specific instructions to the translators on how he wanted the work to be completed. He also had several requirements that included ways on how the translation was to remain familiar to both listeners and readers alike. He also supplied a list of other previous translations that the translators could reference if there proved any problems in translating the text from the Bishop's Bible, which served as the primary guide for the translators to focus on translating.

The translation was such a huge undertaking, that there were 47 different scholars who worked on it. They were broken down into six committees and two each worked at the University of Cambridge, Westminster and the University of Oxford. Each committee worked on different sections, and then the drafts were compared and reworked so that the whole of the translation would flow smoothly from one section to the next.

The King James Version is the first successful attempt at making a translation of the Bible into English that is unbiased in meaning and can be understood by a massive number of people, rather than just a handful of church and scholarly types. Because it was in response to the idea of King James, it was named in honor him. Before this translation there were not many Bibles that were translated into English or other local languages because of the threat of death to those who translated the Bible from its original Latin text.