Truly (good Christian Reader) wee neuer thought from the beginning, that we should neede 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 principall good one, not iustly to be excepted against; that hath bene our indeauour, that our marke.1
Dr. Miles Smith’s often-quoted words above underline the important truth that the King James Version was not a new or unique translation in its time, but the culmination of a tradition of nearly a century of English Bible translating. With appropriate modernization we could use his words at the head of the next chapter on the making of the New King James as well. Indeed, the words are cited in the Preface to the latter version.
But let’s take Smith’s words in historical context. He was writing the Preface to the first edition of the Authorized, or as North Americans especially like to call it, the “King James” Version. But who was this King James, and why would anyone want to name a major Bible version after a secular monarch?
To answer these questions we must go back in time nearly four centuries to the early 1600’s. England was by then an established Protestant realm, and Bible-reading was not only no longer dangerous but even encouraged by king and clergy.
The Historical Setting
The year was 1603. Within four years the first permanent English settlement in North America would be established—Jamestown, Virginia—named after the same King as the Bible Version. Within seventeen years the first settlement in what is now called New England would be established at Plymouth, Massachusetts. Many of these colonists to the Bay Colony would be fleeing the religious repression of this very same King James.
Queen Elizabeth I, the so-called “Virgin Queen,” was ending her long and dazzling reign (1558–1603). On her deathbed she requested that her cousin, King James VI of Scotland, should come south to London and become King James I of England. James was unimpressive physically and personally, but he was a scholar.
One of the first and also most significant events of James I’s reign was the Conference at Hampton Court held in January of 1604. The Puritans had petitioned the new king for improved conditions in the church. Dr. John Reynolds, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and spokesman for the moderate Puritans, recommended that the king authorize a revision of the Bishops’ Bible. The king was receptive to the idea, and a letter was soon written to initiate the work. Though he was himself a learned man in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, there is no evidence that James had any part in the actual translation itself.
The Translation
Fifty-four prominent Greek and Hebrew scholars of the Church of England2 were selected and organized into six companies. Two companies were to meet at each of the three great centers of learning (Oxford, Cambridge, and Westminster), each company working on a separate section of the Bible. Forty-nine of the original scholars are known; five are now unknown. All the known ones were fine Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Aramaic scholars, or at least were proficient in two or three of these languages.
The Dean of Westminster, Dr. Lancelot Andrewes, edited Genesis through Second Samuel. His famous collection of devotions, Preces Privatae, is still cherished by many.
Translators’ Instructions
The first guideline was to change the Bishops’ Bible of 1568 “as little as the truth of the original will admit.”
Interestingly enough, detailed studies show that only four percent of the King James Bible is distinctively from that version. About two-thirds of the KJV is actually from Tyndale. This shows the wisdom and good taste of the committees.
The Geneva Bible, and even the Douai-Rheims, also made significant contributions to the final version.
Another important guideline was the rejection of any notes other than those explaining the Hebrew or Greek words. King James, although raised in strongly Presbyterian Scotland, was unhappy with the strongly Calvinistic notes of the Geneva Bible, not to mention the anti-Protestant annotations of the Douai-Rheims.
The Work of Translation
The King James Version continued in the method of translating by committees, a tradition begun by the team that produced the Bishops’ Bible. But safeguards were employed to assure quality and uniformity of treatment. Each company completed its work and submitted it to the other five for evaluation. When all questions were resolved the final readings were recorded in a master Bible at each university. This process took about three years.
Each university sent its master Bible to London for a review committee to decide the final form based on the readings in the three master copies. The final review committee consisted of two persons from each university and six bishops appointed by King James. Dr. Miles Smith and Dr. Thomas Bilson, Bishop of Winchester, then made a final review, adding headings and chapter-content notes. This work took almost one year. Finally, as we noted, Dr. Smith wrote the Introduction.
Literary Sources
Like the NKJV of over three centuries later, the KJV was a revision of previous outstanding translations, chiefly of William Tyndale. For the Old Testament, the translators used the rabbinic Hebrew Bibles of 1519 and 1525 and the Hebrew texts found in the Complutensian and Antwerp Polyglots. For the New Testament, printed Greek texts by Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza, and the Complutensian Polyglot were used. They also “diligently compared” and revised all of the available English Bibles, the Septuagint, the Vulgate, the Targum, and versions in other modern languages. In short, these learned men left no stone unturned to produce an accurate, beautiful, and complete Bible.
Part of this beauty, at least in the Psalms, may well be traced to England’s most famous poet and dramatist. Though not one of the translators, William Shakespeare was called in as a consultant on the poetry of the Psalms. In appreciation of his contribution, the translators decided to honor the poet in a unique yet cryptic way. If you turn to Psalm 46 in the King James and New King James Versions, then count down forty-six words, you will meet the word “shake.” Count up forty-six from the end and you will meet the word “spear.” Also, in February of 1611 when the King James Version was first published, Shakespeare (1564–1616) was forty-six years old. (He would turn forty-seven in April of that year.) The four forty-sixes are simply too many to be coincidental, so the story must be true.3
Christians and others who admire great literature have praised the Authorized Version with good reason. In the words of Dr. James D. Price, the Old Testament Editor of the NKJV, the work is “unsurpassed in excellence of language, rhythm, cadence, majesty, worshipful reverence, and literary beauty.”
The First Edition
This version took seven years to complete. The first edition was issued in February of 1611 in a folio volume with black letter type for the main text. Roman type was used for supplied words (what is now printed in italics). It replaced the Bishops’ Bible in the churches and was accepted as the authorized Bible because of the king’s involvement in its production. “The 1611 version,” writes F. F. Bruce, is “commonly called the Authorized Version, but it was never formally authorized by any competent body either in church or state.”4
Some devotees of the King James Version today are shocked to find out that, like its predecessors, the 1611 Version included the Apocrypha between the Old and New Testaments. But unlike its predecessors, which clearly stated that the apocryphal books were not part of the canon of Scripture, the 1611 Version contained no comments about the canonicity of the Apocrypha, thus leaving the question open. The Puritans requested that copies be printed without the Apocrypha, but to no avail. In 1615 Archbishop Abbott prohibited the issue of Bibles without the Apocrypha. It was not until 1629 that the King James Bible was available both with and without the Apocrypha.
In spite of its impressive origins, the Authorized Version received “mixed reviews” at first. Many of the Puritans, Calvinists, and other strict Protestants were not satisfied with it, and continued to use the Geneva Bible, which remained in print until 1644. It is worth noting that the colonists who founded New England took the Geneva, not the King James Version, with them to the New World. They felt the latter reflected “high church” tendencies. Weigle writes regarding the reception of the new version:
For eighty years after its publication in 1611, the King James Version endured bitter attacks. It was denounced as theologically unsound and ecclesiastically biased, as truckling to the king and unduly deferring to his belief in witchcraft, as untrue to the Hebrew text and relying too much on the Septuagint.5
Ultimately the competition died out, the opposition subsided, and the King James Bible took its place in the hearts of the English-speaking peoples. To this day, over 380 years later, it still remains the most widely-sold6 English Bible in North America; though each year it declines slightly in popularity because of the constant changes in our spoken and written language.
Later Revisions
Occasionally one sees a sign in front of a church building reading: “We use only the 1611 Authorized King James Version.” These churches mean well in seeking to maintain a great tradition. However, regarding “the 1611 version,” they are in error. If such readers were to be handed a copy of the real 1611 KJV (or the reprint of the same in Roman type), most of them would be unable to follow the archaic spelling and punctuation. Many would probably be offended to find the Apocrypha included as well.
What they are really using is the 1769 revision (or a later Americanized edition of the same from the Bible Society). Quite frankly, we should rejoice that they are! It is enough of a hurdle for young people to grope for God’s message “through a glass darkly” of 1611 diction. The obsolete spelling and punctuation of the real 1611 edition are very discouraging obstacles to modern reading.
The NKJV is simply the most recent in a series of conservatively revised editions of the Authorized Version. The previous ones were as follows:
The Cambridge Revision of 1629
The King James Bible had been sharply—even viciously—attacked, especially by a certain Hugh Broughton. While Mr. Broughton was a competent scholar, his irascible personality had kept him off the original translation committee. Translators have enough to do with untangling difficulties in translation without having to put up with hard-to-handle committee members. Careless printing and irresponsible editing had left the text of the translation in a poor state, hence a complete revision of the text was undertaken at Cambridge University. The unknown revisers repaired much of the damage done in previous years. They made many changes and corrections of their own, most of which were very valuable.
The Cambridge Revision of 1638
The text was again carefully revised for the second Cambridge edition of 1638. This revision seems to have completed the intent and purpose of the preliminary work of 1629. One of the revisers was Mr. John Boise, one of the original translators who had served in the second Cambridge company. He had later been transferred to the first Cambridge company to help finish their section.
The Planned Revision of 1653–1657
In 1653, scarcely more than forty years after the first issue of the Authorized Version, the Long Parliament entertained a bill for a new revision of the Bible. The bill aroused a great deal of interest, and after some delay a subcommittee was appointed in 1657 to work out the details of the revision. However, when Parliament adjourned, the project was set aside. So this revision came to nothing.
The Cambridge Revision of 1762
The English language underwent many changes in spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, and grammar in the 150 years that followed the first edition of the King James Version. In order to restore the Bible to current literary English, a third revision was undertaken at Cambridge by Dr. Thomas Paris, Fellow of Trinity College. He meticulously corrected the italicized words7 and modernized and regularized both spelling and punctuation. He added 383 marginal notes, many cross references, and Bishop Lloyd’s chronological data.
Unfortunately this edition had very limited circulation because a large portion of the printing was destroyed by fire, and the revision was superseded by the Oxford revision of 1769.
The Oxford Revision of 1769
Seven years after the Cambridge revision Dr. Benjamin Blayney, Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, made a similar one. He worked for about four years, collating the then current editions of Oxford and Cambridge with those of 1611 and 1701. Blayney wanted to restore the text of the English Bible to its original purity. He incorporated most of the revisions of Dr. Paris and made many more of his own. He further revised the punctuation and use of italics. This revision, as we noted, is the edition of the King James that most people possess today.
An American Attempt (1833)
The King James Bible probably has had an even deeper impact on the United States and Canada than in its country of origin. The reason for this is that these North American nations were in their formative stages when that great volume first appeared and for the following century or two.
One of those who wanted to improve the King James Bible was the American lexicographer Noah Webster. Webster was a great success with his speller, grammar, and reader. His magnum opus, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), was the first English dictionary to give word origins (etymologies). He was also responsible for influencing Americans to adopt a slightly simpler spelling, such as risk for risque. He also restored the original Latin spelling to labor, armor, favor, etc., by dropping the silent “u.”
But Webster, a devout Christian, had another project that lasted nearly sixty years, and that was in the area he most cherished—the English Bible. He corrected grammatical errors and replaced obsolete terms in the Authorized Version with contemporary ones.
The nineteenth century was noted for a certain reserve among conservative people. In 1833, to meet the needs of this community Webster published his own edition of the King James Version. He changed all the words and expressions he found “indelicate.” They were not merely the sort of words that even today are considered vulgar (see Chapter 8, “Something Blue”), but often expressions that today seem quite harmless.8
By giving up his royalties, Webster was able to sell his Bible for only two dollars. Nevertheless Webster’s Bible was a failure. Today, even most informed Bible-lovers have never heard of it.
The Accuracy of the King James
The Scottish theologian Alexander Geddes paid the following high tribute to the accuracy and precision of the Authorized (King James) Version of the Holy Bible:
If accuracy and strictest attention to the letter of the text be supposed to constitute an excellent version, this is of all versions the most accurate.
Now if Geddes had been a member of the Kirk of Scotland, the Free Church, or some such group as the Baptists, this would not be a surprising quotation. But Geddes was a Roman Catholic theologian. Moreover he did not live in the modern ecumenical era when it is fashionable for differing religious groups to say nice things about one another. Quite the contrary, Geddes lived in the eighteenth century, a time when Catholics in Great Britain were not especially well treated. In short (as Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield would put it), he was “from the enemy camp.” Still, he was able to recognize the superiority of the King James tradition.
In recent years it has been common to cast stones at the KJV on the score of accuracy. Let me say, as one who has studied that grand old Bible in the light of the originals at Bible college, seminary, and graduate school, that the King James Version is very accurate. The seven years our NKJV teams spent producing the New King James Version kept us delving into its predecessor in minute detail, and always in the light of the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek originals.
Our Changing Language
“Why, then,” some may ask, “did you not just leave well enough alone and stick with the KJV?” The reason is well known, if not obvious: our language has changed a great deal in nearly 400 years. Things that were accurately rendered in seventeenth-century English may mean something totally different today.
While teaching the Greek text of Romans 5:11 years ago at seminary, I told my third-year class that here we had an example of one of the rare places in the KJV where we had an actual error. It reads here “by whom we have now received the atonement.” I pointed out that the Greek word there is katallagē, which definitely means reconciliation, not “atonement.”
Later I did some seventeenth-century English study. Encountering the expression “to be at one with” in Shakespeare, I then realized that “at-one-ment” used to mean “reconciliation.” The KJV was right, and I was wrong!
I apologized to my Greek class.
Many preachers make even worse mistakes than mine, I fear. Apologies are long overdue for careless assumptions that the KJV is wrong because it doesn’t match our current Anglo-American usage.
New Discoveries
Besides changes in English usage, today we know the meanings of some words and expressions, especially in Hebrew, that were just guessed at, or translated from the Septuagint or the Vulgate (sometimes guesses on the part of the ancients!).
While the King James Version is very accurate in the light of its time, we don’t believe that the KJV, the NKJV, or indeed any translation, is flawless! In the original Introduction the men who translated the KJV tell us in so many words that their work is not perfect. Notwithstanding its many virtues, the version surely needed updating, partly due to the changes in English usage and vocabulary since the seventeenth century, and partly due to new discoveries in archaeology and the original languages. Now, through newly discovered materials in such languages as Ugaritic, we are in a better position to know the exact meaning of certain words.
In the light of these two very important considerations—the many changes in English through the centuries and the new findings in linguistics and archaeology—the need for the New King James was a clear mandate.
Notes
1. Miles Smith, Introduction to the original 1611 edition of the Authorized King James.
2. All were members of the Church of England, but as a state church it contained quite a few varying beliefs.
3. This story was reported a few years ago by the British Broadcasting Corporation.
4. F. F. Bruce, The English Bible: A History of Translations, p. 99.
5. Luther A. Weigle, “English Versions Since 1611,” The Cambridge History of the Bible, p. 361.
6. It may not still be the most widely read, however. For award Bibles, graduation Bibles, bride’s Bibles, and gift Bibles for other very traditional events, it has been standard to give the KJV.
7. It is not always certain which supplied words are clearly implied by the original and which should be considered additions by the translators.
8. In Our Marvelous Native Tongue, Robert Claiborne lists some of Webster’s changes, which he obviously considers absurd (p. 174).