King James and His Translators

KingJamesI.jpg

Portrait of King James I of England.
Engraving (England, eighteenth century). (Prothro Port.)

King James I of England. Autograph signature.
Ink on vellum (early seventeenth century). (Prothro Port.)

In 1604, King James I of England (1566–1625), portrayed in this engraving, invited leading Anglicans and Puritans to Hampton Court to discuss their differences on worship and church administration. Late in the conference, John Reynolds, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, proposed “that there might be a new translation of the Bible, because those which were allowed in the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI were corrupt and not answerable to the truth of the Original.” The King took interest in Reynolds’ appeal and formed a royal committee of forty-seven Anglican and Puritan translators. They were charged not to “make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one,” but rather to make out of the “many good ones one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against.”

The translators initially worked independently as members of six committees assigned to particular sections of the Old or New Testament, with each of the six reporting to a supervisory committee. The guidelines stated that the translators should follow the Bishops’ Bible unless the original Hebrew or Greek required revision, in which case the revision was to be based on the earlier translations by Tyndale, Coverdale, and the Geneva Puritans.

Gift of Mrs. Elizabeth Perkins Prothro.

King James and His Translators