LECTURE IV.
THE REVISION OF 1611—THE SO-CALLED AUTHORIZED VERSION.
At the accession of James I. the Genevan Bible and the Bishops’ Bible were, as we have seen, the Bibles in current use, the latter being the Bible upheld by ecclesiastical authority, the former the favourite Bible of the people at large. The Book of Psalms also in the version of the Great Bible survived, as it still does, in the psalter of the Prayer Book, and probably in some few parish churches old and worn copies of the Great Bible still maintained their place.
The state of religious parties at that date rendered it almost an impossibility that either of the two first-named versions should become universally accepted. The close connection of the Genevan Bible with the Puritan party, and the decidedly puritanic cast of some of its notes, created an insuperable prejudice against it in the minds of the more zealous advocates of Episcopal authority; while the inferiority[36] of the Bishops’ Bible as a version effectually barred its claim to an exclusive use. The need, then, for a new version was obvious, and a desire for it was probably felt by many of all parties.
Public expression was first given to this desire on the second day of the Hampton Court Conference, January 16, 1604, by Dr. John Rainolds,[37] the leading representative of the Puritans in that assembly. It was not brought forward as one of the matters which he had been deputed to lay before the Conference; it seems rather to have been mentioned by him incidentally in connection with certain suggested reforms in the Prayer Book. “He moved his Majesty that there might be a new translation of the Bible, because those which were allowed in the reign of King Henry VIII. and Edward VI. were corrupt, and not answerable to the Truth of the Original,”[38] referring in illustration to the renderings given of Gal. iv. 25,[39] Ps. cv. 28,[40] and Ps. cvi. 30.[41] It is somewhat curious that no direct reference was made to the Bishops’ Bible; the reason, probably, was that this Bible was not one of those which had been “allowed” by royal authority. Of the three mistranslations quoted by Rainolds, the first only is found in the Bishops’ Bible; the other two occur in the Prayer Book Psalter.
The suggestion of Rainolds met with no opposition. The king himself expressed his approval of it, not, however, without an ignorant and disingenuous fling at the Genevan version; and “presently after,” say the translators in their preface, the king “gave order for this translation” to be made. In the course of a few months a scheme for the execution of the work was matured, and in a letter to Dr. Richard Bancroft, then Bishop of London, the king informed him that he had appointed fifty-four learned men to undertake the translation. He even seems to have contemplated the possibility of securing the co-operation of all the biblical scholars of the country; and in a letter to Bancroft, dated July 22, 1604, directed him “to move the bishops to inform themselves of all such learned men within their several dioceses as, having especial skill in the Hebrew and Greek tongues, have taken pains in their private studies of the Scriptures for the clearing of any obscurities, either in the Hebrew or the Greek, or touching any difficulties, or mistakings in the former English translation, which we have now commanded to be thoroughly viewed and amended; and thereupon to write unto them, earnestly charging them, and signifying our pleasure therein, that they send such their observations to Mr. Lively, our Hebrew reader in Cambridge, or to Dr. Harding, our Hebrew reader in Oxford, or to Dr. Andrewes, Dean of Westminster, to be imparted to the rest of their several companies; that so our said intended translation may have the help and furtherance of all our principal learned men within this our kingdom.”[42] Directions to a similar effect were sent also to the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, who was empowered in the king’s name to associate with those already appointed any “fitt men” he might be acquainted with; and we may infer that a corresponding communication was sent to Oxford.
To what extent this comprehensive scheme was carried out we have no means of determining. The names of the fifty-four learned men referred to are not given, and we are consequently left in uncertainty whether those who ultimately engaged in the work[43] were all men included in that list, or whether other scholars, chosen by the universities or recommended by the bishops, formed part of the number.
The rules laid down for the guidance of the translators were as follows: