Author:
Why this Message – on a 400 year-old Book? A simple answer: To inform, edify and provide for possible witness opportunities.
A Christian friend recently emailed me an article by Peter Hitchens of The Daily Mail about The Authorized Version. This article is a comment on the 400th anniversary of the 1611 Holy Bible, for which a special trust has been set up with HRH Charles the Prince of Wales as Patron.
Why this Story – about a 400 year-old Book? A simple answer: Because of its effect on: (1) the nation’s leaders; (2) the nation’s life; (3) the nation’s enemies.
(1) The nation’s leaders. e.g. HRH Charles, the Prince of Wales. This is an American Independent KJB Baptist pastor quoting The Daily Telegraph, Dec. 20, 1989, no. 41,832, his emphases.
We continue with an outline of how that glorious British Protestant Bible came into being. None can introduce better the overall incentive for the work than the learned men, the King James translators themselves, according to the preface to the 1611 Holy Bible, entitled The Translators To The Reader as the following extract shows:
With James having granted the Puritans’ petition, the next step was to choose the translators. The ones eventually chosen could be summed up as:
Two of James 1st’s most trusted advisers were Richard Bancroft, Bishop of London and later Archbishop of Canterbury and Robert Cecil, who became the Earl of Salisbury. The king charged them with appointing the men to compile the new bible and by the end of summer 1604 they had selected a total of 47 scholars for the work. As indicated, these 47 scholars were both high and low churchmen.
19th century historian Alexander McClure wrote this, his emphases: “As to the capability of those men, we may say again, that, by the good providence of God, their work was undertaken in a fortunate time. Not only had the English language…then ripened to its full perfection, but the study of Greek, and of the oriental tongues [including Hebrew], and of rabbinical [Jewish] lore, had then been carried to a greater extent in England than ever before or since. This particular field of learning has never been so highly cultivated among English divines [scholars] as it was at that day…All the colleges of Great Britain and America, even in this proud day of boastings, could not bring together the same number of divines equally qualified by learning and piety for the great undertaking.”
Briefly, what did they have to work with and how did they carry out their task?
As American researcher Norman Ward has said, “The translators of 1611 had substantially the same selection of readings from which to choose as did the revisers of 1881 [RV], 1952 [RSV], 1973 [NIV] and 1979 [NKJV].”
We move now briefly to consider the welter of criticisms that have been leveled at the 1611 Holy Bible.
The 1611 Holy Bible has received an avalanche of criticism in the last 400 years from a legion of critics, “My name is legion: for we are many” Mark 5:9. That Book and its critics are well described in a poem entitled: The Anvil Of God’s Word.
We now address our final question, what happened to the 1611 Holy Bible after 1611 and on to the present?
The question arises, was the Authorized Version ever officially authorized?
Dr Laurence Vance notes that Dr Miles Smith states in The Translators To The Reader that King James 1st “gave order for this Translation” that became the 1611 Holy Bible. Dr Vance concludes, rightly that the 1611 Holy Bible is indeed authorized because according to Ecclesiastes 8:4, “Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What doest thou?”
It is further interesting to look at the comments of men who were both for and against the 1611 Holy Bible.
This is from John Bunyan, The Immortal Dreamer, by W. Burgess McCreary: “A university man met Bunyan on the road near Cambridge. Said he to Bunyan, “How dare you preach, not having the original Scriptures?” “Do you have them – the copies written by the apostles and prophets?” asked Bunyan. “No,” replied the scholar. “But I have what I believe to be a true copy of the original.” “And I,” said Bunyan, “believe the English Bible to be a true copy too.””
We’ll now look briefly again at how closely the 1611 Holy Bible is part of our national life and how you can’t get away from that Book, no matter what you do.
The expression “God save the king!” is of course part of England’s national anthem and well-known as such. However, that expression comes straight from a 1611 Authorized King James Holy Bible. The words occur 5 times. They are found in 1 Samuel 10:24, 2 Samuel 16:16 twice, 2 Kings 11:12, 2 Chronicles 23:11 and they have stood there undimmed and unblemished for 400 years. They will stand there forever. That reading illustrates something about the 1611 English Bible for English-speaking folk who believe the Book. The Author of the Book said in Hebrews 13:5, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” And the Book is like its Author.
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