The Story of Our King James Bible Other early editions

There were 2 exceptions to Barker’s monopoly The University of Cambridge The University of Oxford Cambridge was the first to compete with the King’s printer (Robert Barker)

There was some legal wrangling In 1534, Henry VIII had granted a charter to Cambridge to print But in 1623 the king’s privy council refused permission to Cambridge to print Bibles With the ascension of Charles the I (1628), he restored the 1534 charter

The first Cambridge edition was published in 1629 It was much higher quality than Barker’s It made 200+ changes to the text

Many of these changes standardized names –The 1611 used “Sem,” and “Shem,” “Caldees,” and “Chaldees,” for example Most of the other changes dealt with grammar: singular and plural forms of words –Song of Solomon 4.6 had mountains, and hill –The Cambridge made both singular

The only revision of a verse… Is Job 4.6 Which was redrafted 3 times Until the form in which we have it, which dates to the second Cambridge edition, 1638 –Which is viewed as the best Bible of the 17 th century Bibles –With the exception of Acts 6.3, in which “ye” was changed to “we”

Oxford obtained permission in 1632 But accepted payments in lieu of printing for 40 years So the first Oxford Bible wasn’t printed until 1673 The 1679 Oxford used an unusual dating system: ”anno mundi”-numbering years consecutively from creation.

In 1701 the chronology changed again: James Ussher’s was used He dated creation as Saturday, October 22, 4004 BC (on the Calendar then in use) By 1683 Oxford was the largest printer of Bibles in England

The reception of the KJV Puritans were generally happy, but disliked the Apocrypha In the early 17 th century, Bishop’s Bibles were replaced with KJV’s in Churches Opposition to the KJV generally took the form of buying another translation- Geneva After 1644 it was no longer printed or imported

The Civil war (1649) saw little impact Some KJV’s were printed with Geneva’s notes There was a Parliamentary call for a revision of the KJV –Some wanted to review the translation –Others wanted to deal with the misprinted editions –Nothing ever came of it

By 1660 (the Restoration) Most attacks on the KJV had ended All the Protestant factions accepted it