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114-913: The text (with the comma in italics and enclosed by brackets) in the King James Version of the Bible reads: For there are three that beare record [ in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. ] [ And there are three that beare witnesse in earth ], the Spirit, and the Water, and the Blood, and these three agree in one. In the Greek Textus Receptus (TR),

228-583: A descriptive phrase, is found being used as early as 1814. "The King James Version" is found, unequivocally used as a name, in a letter from 1855. The next year King James Bible, with no possessive, appears as a name in a Scottish source. In the United States, the "1611 translation" (actually editions following the standard text of 1769, see below) is generally known as the King James Version today. The followers of John Wycliffe undertook

342-651: A false London imprint. However, few if any genuine Geneva editions appear to have been printed in London after 1616, and in 1637 Archbishop Laud prohibited their printing or importation. In the period of the English Civil War , soldiers of the New Model Army were issued a book of Geneva selections called "The Soldiers' Bible" . In the first half of the 17th century the Authorized Version

456-566: A later date, according to a paper made by Philip B. Payne, the ink seems to match that of the original scribe. The Codex Vaticanus contains these dots around 1 John 5:7, which is why some have assumed it to be a reference to the Johannine Comma. However, according to McDonald, G. R, it is far more likely that the scribe had encountered other variants in the verse than the Johannine comma, which is not attested in any Greek manuscript until

570-655: A modern critical text have omitted the comma from the main text since the English Revised Version (1881), including the New American Standard Bible (NASB), English Standard Version (ESV), and New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). Several early sources that might be expected to include the Comma Johanneum in fact omit it. For example, Clement of Alexandria 's ( c.  200 ) quotation of 1 John 5:8 does not include

684-525: A number of other apparatus , including a table for the reading of the Psalms at matins and evensong , and a calendar , an almanac , and a table of holy days and observances. Much of this material became obsolete with the adoption of the Gregorian calendar by Britain and its colonies in 1752, and thus modern editions invariably omit it. So as to make it easier to know a particular passage, each chapter

798-581: A qualification that the translators would add no marginal notes (which had been an issue in the Geneva Bible ). King James cited two passages in the Geneva translation where he found the marginal notes offensive to the principles of divinely ordained royal supremacy : Exodus 1:19, where the Geneva Bible notes had commended the example of civil disobedience to the Egyptian Pharaoh showed by

912-496: A revision of the Authorized Version with acceptably Protestant explanatory notes, but the project was abandoned when it became clear that these would nearly double the bulk of the Bible text. After the English Restoration , the Geneva Bible was held to be politically suspect and a reminder of the repudiated Puritan era. Furthermore, disputes over the lucrative rights to print the Authorized Version dragged on through

1026-617: A roman typeface, which itself made a political and a religious statement. Like the Great Bible and the Bishops' Bible , the Authorized Version was "appointed to be read in churches". It was a large folio volume meant for public use, not private devotion; the weight of the type—blackletter type was heavy physically as well as visually—mirrored the weight of establishment authority behind it. However, smaller editions and roman-type editions followed rapidly, e.g. quarto roman-type editions of

1140-591: A translation of the New Testament. Tyndale's translation was the first printed Bible in English. Over the next ten years, Tyndale revised his New Testament in the light of rapidly advancing biblical scholarship, and embarked on a translation of the Old Testament. Despite some controversial translation choices, and in spite of Tyndale's execution on charges of heresy for having made the translated Bible,

1254-660: A translation that became known as the Geneva Bible . This translation, dated to 1560, was a revision of Tyndale's Bible and the Great Bible on the basis of the original languages. Soon after Elizabeth I took the throne in 1558, problems with both the Great and Geneva Bibles (namely, that the latter did not "conform to the ecclesiology and reflect the episcopal structure of the Church of England and its beliefs about an ordained clergy") became apparent to church authorities. In 1568,

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1368-602: A trinitarian gloss , explaining or paralleled by the second Greek variant. The appearance of the Comma in the manuscript evidence is represented in the following tables: The text is a mixture of readings from the Vetus Latina and from the Vulgate. The Codex Vaticanus in some places contains umlauts to indicate knowledge of variants. Although there has been some debate on the age of these umlauts and if they were added at

1482-670: Is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England , which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of King James VI and I . The 80 books of the King James Version include 39 books of the Old Testament , 14 books of Apocrypha , and the 27 books of the New Testament . Noted for its "majesty of style", the King James Version has been described as one of

1596-490: Is aware of eight Greek manuscripts that contain the Comma. The date of the addition is late, probably dating to the time of Erasmus. In one manuscript, back-translated into Greek from the Vulgate, the phrase "and these three are one" is absent. Both Novum Testamentum Graece (NA27) and the United Bible Societies (UBS4) provide three variants. The numbers here follow UBS4, which rates its preference for

1710-547: Is most commonly referred to as "The Bible without notes", thereby distinguishing it from the Geneva "Bible with notes". There were several printings of the Authorized Version in Amsterdam—one as late as 1715 which combined the Authorized Version translation text with the Geneva marginal notes; one such edition was printed in London in 1649. During the Commonwealth a commission was established by Parliament to recommend

1824-486: Is unknown, scholars such as Mills, Küster and Allen have argued that it was a Greek New Testament manuscript. However, others such as Wettstein have proposed that this was instead a manuscript of the commentary of Bede (672/3 – 26 May 735). The comma is absent from an extant fragment of Clement of Alexandria ( c.  200 ), through Cassiodorus (6th century), with homily style verse references from 1 John, including verse 1 John 5:6 and 1 John 5:8 without verse 7,

1938-575: Is valid before two or three witnesses, before the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; before whom, as witnesses and helpers, what are called the commandments ought to be kept. This is seen by some as allusion evidence that Clement was familiar with the verse. Tertullian, in Against Praxeas ( c.  210 ), supports a Trinitarian view by quoting John 10:30 : So the close series of

2052-414: The ' Vulgar Latin ' , and then subsequently as found in the versions he terms "... the English translation made in the beginning of the reign of King James" , and "The Geneva French" (i.e. Olivétan ). Hobbes advances detailed critical arguments why the Vulgate rendering is to be preferred. For most of the 17th century the assumption remained that, while it had been of vital importance to provide

2166-637: The Bishops' Bible would serve as the primary guide for the translators, and the familiar proper names of the biblical characters would all be retained. If the Bishops' Bible was deemed problematic in any situation, the translators were permitted to consult other translations from a pre-approved list: the Tyndale Bible , the Coverdale Bible , Matthew's Bible , the Great Bible , and

2280-658: The Geneva Bible . In addition, later scholars have detected an influence on the Authorized Version from the translations of Taverner's Bible and the New Testament of the Douay–Rheims Bible . It is for this reason that the flyleaf of most printings of the Authorized Version observes that the text had been "translated out of the original tongues, and with the former translations diligently compared and revised, by His Majesty's special commandment." As

2394-768: The Pericope Adulterae , the reading "God" in 1 Timothy 3:16 and the " Book of Life " in Revelation 22:19. The "Johannine Comma" is a short clause found in 1 John 5:7–8. Erasmus omitted the text of the Johannine Comma from his first and second editions of the Greek-Latin New Testament (the Novum Instrumentum omne ) because it was not in his Greek manuscripts. He added the text to his Novum Testamentum omne in 1522 after being accused of reviving Arianism and after he

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2508-510: The Authorized Version was published by Robert Barker , the King's Printer, in 1611 as a complete folio Bible. It was sold looseleaf for ten shillings , or bound for twelve. Robert Barker's father, Christopher, had, in 1589, been granted by Elizabeth I the title of royal Printer, with the perpetual Royal Privilege to print Bibles in England. Robert Barker invested very large sums in printing

2622-567: The Great Bible ), 'They were not obedient;' the original being, 'They were not disobedient.' Thirdly, psalm cvi. 30 (also from the Great Bible), 'Then stood up Phinees and prayed,' the Hebrew hath, 'executed judgment.' Instructions were given to the translators that were intended to use formal equivalence and limit the Puritan influence on this new translation. The Bishop of London added

2736-473: The Hebrew midwives , and also II Chronicles 15:16, where the Geneva Bible had criticized King Asa for not having executed his idolatrous 'mother', Queen Maachah (Maachah had actually been Asa's grandmother, but James considered the Geneva Bible reference as sanctioning the execution of his own mother Mary, Queen of Scots ). Further, the King gave the translators instructions designed to guarantee that

2850-745: The New King James Version (1979), include the verse. In the 1500s it was not always included in Latin New Testament editions, though it was in the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate (1592). However, Martin Luther did not include it in his Luther Bible . The text (with the Comma in brackets and italicised) in the King James Bible reads: For there are three that beare record [ in heaven, the Father,

2964-621: The Prologue to the Canonical Epistles of Fuldensis, and appears in Old Latin manuscripts of similar antiquity. The earliest extant Latin manuscripts supporting the Comma are dated from the 5th to 7th century. The Freisinger fragment , León palimpsest , besides the younger Codex Speculum , New Testament quotations extant in an 8th- or 9th-century manuscript. The comma does not appear in the older Greek manuscripts. Nestle-Aland

3078-569: The Puritan faction of the Church of England. Here are three examples of problems the Puritans perceived with the Bishops and Great Bibles : First, Galatians iv. 25 (from the Bishops' Bible). The Greek word susoichei is not well translated as now it is, bordereth neither expressing the force of the word, nor the apostle's sense, nor the situation of the place. Secondly, psalm cv. 28 (from

3192-514: The historiated initial letters provided for books and chapters – together with the decorative title pages to the Bible itself, and to the New Testament. In the Great Bible, readings derived from the Vulgate but not found in published Hebrew and Greek texts had been distinguished by being printed in smaller roman type . In the Geneva Bible, a distinct typeface had instead been applied to distinguish text supplied by translators, or thought needful for English grammar but not present in

3306-431: The "New Translation" was the only edition on the market. F. F. Bruce reports that the last recorded instance of a Scots parish continuing to use the "Old Translation" (i.e. Geneva) as being in 1674. The Authorized Version ' s acceptance by the general public took longer. The Geneva Bible continued to be popular, and large numbers were imported from Amsterdam, where printing continued up to 1644 in editions carrying

3420-725: The "silent publication of [the text] in the Vulgate  ... gives the clearest proof that down to his time the genuineness of this text had never been disputed or questioned." Many Vulgate manuscripts, including the Codex Fuldensis , the earliest extant Vulgate manuscript, include a Prologue to the Canonical Epistles referring to the Comma: If the letters were also rendered faithfully by translators into Latin just as their authors composed them, they would not cause

3534-529: The 100 years since the first edition of the Authorized Version, and all printers in the market were introducing continual piecemeal changes to their Bible texts to bring them into line with then current practice—and with public expectations of standardized spelling and grammatical construction. Over the course of the 18th century, the Authorized Version supplanted the Hebrew, Greek and the Latin Vulgate as

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3648-464: The 14th century. No extant Syriac manuscripts contain the Johannine Comma, nevertheless some past advocates of the inclusion of the Johannine comma such as Thomas Burgess (1756-1837) have proposed that the inclusion of the conjuctive participle "and" within the text of 1 John 5:7 in Syriac manuscripts is an indication of its past inclusion within the Syriac textual tradition. It is known that Erasmus

3762-590: The 1662 Book of Common Prayer , the text of the Authorized Version finally supplanted that of the Great Bible in the Epistle and Gospel readings —though the Prayer Book Psalter nevertheless continues in the Great Bible version. The case was different in Scotland, where the Geneva Bible had long been the standard church Bible. It was not until 1633 that a Scottish edition of the Authorized Version

3876-455: The 17th and 18th centuries was "our English translation" or "our English version", as can be seen by searching one or other of the major online archives of printed books. In Britain, the 1611 translation is generally known as the "Authorized Version" today. The term is somewhat of a misnomer because the text itself was never formally "authorized", nor were English parish churches ever ordered to procure copies of it. King James' Version, evidently

3990-410: The 17th century, so none of the printers involved saw any commercial advantage in marketing a rival translation. The Authorized Version became the only then current version circulating among English-speaking people. A small minority of critical scholars were slow to accept the latest translation. Hugh Broughton , who was the most highly regarded English Hebraist of his time but had been excluded from

4104-598: The 18th century, the Authorized Version was effectively unchallenged as the sole English translation in then current use in Protestant churches, and was so dominant that the Catholic Church in England issued in 1750 a revision of the 1610 Douay–Rheims Bible by Richard Challoner that was much closer to the Authorized Version than to the original. However, general standards of spelling, punctuation, typesetting, capitalization and grammar had changed radically in

4218-550: The 19th century, this version of the Bible had become the most widely printed book in history, almost all such printings presenting the standard text of 1769 , and nearly always omitting the books of the Apocrypha. Today the unqualified title "King James Version" usually indicates this Oxford standard text. The title of the first edition of the translation, in Early Modern English , was "THE HOLY BIBLE, Conteyning

4332-420: The 2nd year of our reign of England, France, and of Ireland, and of Scotland xxxvii. The six committees started work towards the end of 1604. The Apocrypha committee finishing first, and all six completed their sections by 1608. From January 1609, a General Committee of Review met at Stationers' Hall, London to review the completed marked texts from each of the committees, and were paid for their attendance by

4446-592: The Authorized Version (and indeed the English language) entirely. Walton's reference text throughout is the Vulgate. The Vulgate Latin is also found as the standard text of scripture in Thomas Hobbes 's Leviathan of 1651. Hobbes gives Vulgate chapter and verse numbers (e.g., Job 41:24, not Job 41:33) for his head text. In Chapter 35: ' The Signification in Scripture of Kingdom of God ' , Hobbes discusses Exodus 19:5, first in his own translation of

4560-415: The Authorized Version were notably less careful than the 1611 edition had been—compositors freely varying spelling, capitalization and punctuation —and also, over the years, introducing about 1,500 misprints (some of which, like the omission of "not" from the commandment "Thou shalt not commit adultery" in the " Wicked Bible ", became notorious). The two Cambridge editions of 1629 and 1638 attempted to restore

4674-565: The Barker and Norton printing dynasties, while each issued rival editions of the whole Bible. In 1629 the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge successfully managed to assert separate and prior royal licences for Bible printing, for their own university presses—and Cambridge University took the opportunity to print revised editions of the Authorized Version in 1629, and 1638. The editors of these editions included John Bois and John Ward from

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4788-421: The Bible in 1612. This contrasted with the Geneva Bible, which was the first English Bible printed in a roman typeface (although black-letter editions, particularly in folio format, were issued later). In contrast to the Geneva Bible and the Bishops' Bible , which had both been extensively illustrated, there were no illustrations in the 1611 edition of the Authorized Version, the main form of decoration being

4902-553: The Bible in the Geneva Version, as small editions were available at a relatively low cost. At the same time, there was a substantial clandestine importation of the rival Douay–Rheims New Testament of 1582, undertaken by exiled Catholics. This translation, though still derived from Tyndale, claimed to represent the text of the Latin Vulgate. In May 1601, King James VI of Scotland attended the General Assembly of

5016-503: The Church of England and all except Sir Henry Savile were clergy. The scholars worked in six committees, two based in each of the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, and Westminster . The committees included scholars with Puritan sympathies, as well as high churchmen . Forty unbound copies of the 1602 edition of the Bishops' Bible were specially printed so that the agreed changes of each committee could be recorded in

5130-438: The Church of England responded with the Bishops' Bible , a revision of the Great Bible in the light of the Geneva version. While officially approved, this new version failed to displace the Geneva translation as the most popular English Bible of the age, in part because the full Bible was printed only in lectern editions of prodigious size and at a cost of several pounds. Accordingly, Elizabethan lay people overwhelmingly read

5244-566: The Church of Scotland at Saint Columba's Church in Burntisland , Fife , at which proposals were put forward for a new translation of the Bible into English. Two years later, he ascended to the throne of England as James I. The newly crowned King James convened the Hampton Court Conference in 1604. That gathering proposed a new English version in response to the perceived problems of earlier translations as detected by

5358-576: The Comma in brackets and italicised) in the Greek of the Novum Testamentum omne reads: ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες [ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ πατήρ λόγος καὶ πνεῦμα ἅγιον καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσι ] [ καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ ] πνεῦμα καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ αἷμα καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν. There are several variant versions of the Latin and Greek texts. English translations based on

5472-405: The Comma. Among the earliest possible references to the Comma appears by the 3rd-century Church Father Cyprian (died 258), who in Unity of the Church 1.6 quoted John 10:30: "Again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, 'And these three are one. ' " However, some believe that he was giving an interpretation of the three elements mentioned in the uncontested part of

5586-399: The Coverdale Bible was included in the Great Bible of 1540 and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer beginning in 1662, and in all editions of the U.S. Episcopal Church Book of Common Prayer until 1979 . The place of publication of the 1535 edition was long disputed. The printer was assumed to be either Froschover in Zürich or Cervicornus and Soter (in Cologne or Marburg ). Since

5700-426: The English Church authorities: The first had been the Great Bible (1535), and the second had been the Bishops' Bible (1568). In Switzerland the first generation of Protestant Reformers had produced the Geneva Bible which was published in 1560 having referred to the original Hebrew and Greek scriptures, which was influential in the writing of the Authorized King James Version. The English Church initially used

5814-527: The Father in the Son and the Son in the Paraclete makes three who cohere, the one attached to the other: And these three are one substance, not one person, (qui tres unum sunt, non unus) in the sense in which it was said, "I and the Father are one" in respect of unity of substance, not of singularity of number. While many other commentators have argued against any Comma evidence here, most emphatically John Kaye's, "far from containing an allusion to 1 Jo. v. 7, it furnishes most decisive proof that he knew nothing of

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5928-449: The Greek New Testament , Bruce Metzger (1975, pp. 716–718) traces in detail the history of the passage, asserting its first mention in the 4th-century treatise Liber Apologeticus , and that it appears in Old Latin and Vulgate manuscripts beginning in the 6th century. Modern translations as a whole (both Catholic and Protestant, such as the Revised Standard Version , New English Bible , and New American Bible ) do not include them in

6042-412: The Greek or Hebrew; and the original printing of the Authorized Version used roman type for this purpose, albeit sparsely and inconsistently. This results in perhaps the most significant difference between the original printed text of the King James Bible and the current text. When, from the later 17th century onwards, the Authorized Version began to be printed in roman type, the typeface for supplied words

6156-403: The King James Bible without authorization from the Crown. To avert prosecution and detection of an unauthorized printing they would include the royal insignia on the title page, using the same materials in its printing as the authorized version was produced from, which were imported from England. Coverdale Bible The Coverdale Bible , compiled by Myles Coverdale and published in 1535,

6270-437: The New Testament was translated from Greek , the Old Testament from Hebrew and Aramaic , and the Apocrypha from Greek and Latin . In the 1662 Book of Common Prayer , the text of the Authorized Version replaced the text of the Great Bible for Epistle and Gospel readings, and as such was authorized by an Act of Parliament. By the first half of the 18th century, the Authorized Version had become effectively unchallenged as

6384-402: The New Testament. Despite its absence from these manuscripts, it was contained in many printed editions of the New Testament in the past, including the Complutensian Polyglot (1517ad), the different editions of the Textus Receptus (1516-1894ad), the London Polyglot (1655) and the Patriarchal text (1904ad). And it is contained in many Reformation -era vernacular translations of the Bible due to

6498-503: The Old Teſtament, AND THE NEW: Newly Tranſlated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Tranſlations diligently compared and reuiſed, by his Maiesties ſpeciall Cõmandement ". The title page carries the words "Appointed to be read in Churches", and F. F. Bruce suggests it was "probably authorised by order in council ", but no record of the authorisation survives "because the Privy Council registers from 1600 to 1613 were destroyed by fire in January 1618/19". For many years it

6612-556: The Reader , a long and learned essay that defends the undertaking of the new version. It observes the translators' stated goal, that they "never thought from the beginning that [they] should need 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 principal good one, not justly to be excepted against; that hath been our endeavour, that our mark." They also give their opinion of previous English Bible translations, stating, "We do not deny, nay, we affirm and avow, that

6726-400: The Rebaptism Treatise: the evidence of Cent. III is not exclusively negative, for the treatise on Rebaptism contemporary with Cyp. quotes the whole passage simply thus (15: cf. 19), "quia tres testimonium perhibent, spiritus et aqua et sanguis, et isti tres unum sunt" . The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1910 asserts that Jerome "does not seem to know the text", but Charles Forster suggests that

6840-405: The Stationers' Company. The General Committee included John Bois , Andrew Downes , John Harmar , and others known only by their initials, including "AL" (who may be Arthur Lake ). John Bois prepared a note of their deliberations (in Latin) – which has partly survived in two later transcripts. Also surviving of the translators' working papers are a bound set of marked-up corrections to one of

6954-420: The Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one" (KJV) found in older translations at 1 John 5:7 are thought by some to be spurious additions to the original text. A footnote in the Jerusalem Bible , a Catholic translation, says that these words are "not in any of the early Greek MSS [manuscripts], or any of the early translations, or in the best MSS of the Vulg[ate] itself." In A Textual Commentary on

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7068-532: The Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. ] [ And there are three that beare witnesse in earth ], the Spirit, and the Water, and the Blood, and these three agree in one. The text (with the Comma in brackets and italicised) in the Latin of the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate reads: Quoniam tres sunt, qui testimonium dant [ in caelo: Pater, Verbum, et Spiritus Sanctus: et hi tres unum sunt. ] [ Et tres sunt, qui testimonium dant in terra ]: spiritus, et aqua, et sanguis: et hi tres unum sunt. The text (with

7182-499: The Wycliffe Bible was translated from the Latin Vulgate , and because it also contained no heterodox readings, the ecclesiastical authorities had no practical way to distinguish the banned version. Consequently, many Catholic commentators of the 15th and 16th centuries (such as Thomas More ) took these manuscripts of English Bibles and claimed that they represented an anonymous earlier orthodox translation. In 1525, William Tyndale , an English contemporary of Martin Luther , undertook

7296-419: The bishops of the province of Cant.[erbury] signifying unto them, that we do well and straitly charge everyone of them ... that (all excuses set apart) when a prebend or parsonage ... shall next upon any occasion happen to be void ... we may commend for the same some such of the learned men, as we shall think fit to be preferred unto it ... Given unto our signet at our palace of West.[minister] on 2 and 20 July, in

7410-446: The city", where the second reads "she went into the city"; these are known colloquially as the "He" and "She" Bibles. The original printing was made before English spelling was standardized, and when printers, as a matter of course, expanded and contracted the spelling of the same words in different places, so as to achieve an even column of text. They set v for initial u and v , and u for u and v everywhere else. They used

7524-505: The context being water baptism and the precise wording being "et isti tres unum sunt" , the Matthew Henry Commentary uses this as evidence for Cyprian speaking of the heavenly witnesses in Unity of the Church. Arthur Cleveland Coxe and Nathaniel Cornwall also consider the evidence as suggestively positive, as do Westcott and Hort. After approaching the Tertullian and Cyprian references negatively, "morally certain that they would have quoted these words had they known them" Westcott writes about

7638-450: The discovery of Guido Latré, in 1997, the printer has been identified as Merten de Keyser , in Antwerp . The publication was partly financed by Jacobus van Meteren , in Antwerp, whose sister-in-law, Adriana de Weyden, married John Rogers . The other backer of the Coverdale Bible was Jacobus van Meteren 's nephew, Leonard Ortels (†1539), the father of Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598), humanist geographer and cartographer. Although Coverdale

7752-411: The early 19th century confirm the widespread use of this name on both sides of the Atlantic: it is found both in a "historical sketch of the English translations of the Bible" published in Massachusetts in 1815 and in an English publication from 1818, which explicitly states that the 1611 version is "generally known by the name of King James's Bible". This name was also found as King James' Bible (without

7866-545: The final "s"): for example in a book review from 1811. The phrase "King James's Bible" is used as far back as 1715, although in this case it is not clear whether this is a name or merely a description. The use of Authorized Version, capitalized and used as a name, is found as early as 1814. For some time before this, descriptive phrases such as "our present, and only publicly authorised version" (1783), "our Authorized version" (1731, 1792 ) and "the authorized version" (1801, uncapitalized) are found. A more common appellation in

7980-411: The first complete English translations of the Christian scriptures in the 14th century. These translations were banned in 1409 due to their association with the Lollards . The Wycliffe Bible pre-dated the printing press but it was circulated very widely in manuscript form, often inscribed with a date which was earlier than 1409 in order to avoid the legal ban. Because the text of the various versions of

8094-406: The first variant as { A }, meaning "virtually certain" to reflect the original text. The second variant is a longer Greek version found in the original text of five manuscripts and the margins of five others. All of the other 500 plus Greek manuscripts that contain 1 John support the first variant. The third variant is found only in Latin manuscripts and patristic works. The Latin variant is considered

8208-459: The forty Bishops' Bibles —covering the Old Testament and Gospels; and also a manuscript translation of the text of the Epistles , excepting those verses where no change was being recommended to the readings in the Bishops' Bible . Archbishop Bancroft insisted on having a final say making fourteen further changes, of which one was the term "bishopricke" at Acts 1:20. The original printing of

8322-544: The heavenly witnesses. He says, "This is He who came by water and blood"; and again, – For there are three that bear witness, the spirit, which is life, and the water, which is regeneration and faith, and the blood, which is knowledge; "and these three are one. For in the Saviour are those saving virtues, and life itself exists in His own Son." Another reference that is studied is from Clement's Prophetic Extracts : Every promise

8436-587: The inclusion of the verse within the Textus Receptus. In spite of its late date, members of the King James Only movement and those who advocate for the superiority for the Textus Receptus have argued for its authenticity. The Comma Johanneum is among the most noteworthy variants found within the Textus Receptus in addition to the confession of the Ethiopian eunuch , the long ending of Mark ,

8550-467: The long s ( ſ ) for non-final s . The letter or glyph j occurs only after i , as in the final letter in a Roman numeral , such as XIIJ. Punctuation was relatively heavy (frequent) and differed from modern practice. When space needed to be saved, the printers sometimes used ye for the (replacing the Middle English thorn , Þ, with the continental y ), set ã for an or am (in

8664-522: The main body of the text due to their ostensibly spurious nature. The comma is mainly only attested in the Latin manuscripts of the New Testament, being absent from the vast majority of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, the earliest Greek manuscript being 14th century. It is also totally absent in the Geʽez , Aramaic , Syriac , Georgian , Arabic and from the early pre-12th century Armenian witnesses to

8778-412: The margins. The committees worked on certain parts separately and the drafts produced by each committee were then compared and revised for harmony with each other. The scholars were not paid directly for their translation work. Instead, a circular letter was sent to bishops encouraging them to consider the translators for appointment to well-paid livings as these fell vacant. Several were supported by

8892-416: The merits of Tyndale's work and prose style made his translation the ultimate basis for all subsequent renditions into Early Modern English. With these translations lightly edited and adapted by Myles Coverdale , in 1539, Tyndale's New Testament and his incomplete work on the Old Testament became the basis for the Great Bible . This was the first "authorised version" issued by the Church of England during

9006-481: The most important books in English culture and a driving force in the shaping of the English-speaking world. The King James Version remains the preferred translation of many Protestant Christians, and is considered the only valid one by some Evangelicals . It is considered one of the important literary accomplishments of early modern England. The KJV was the third translation into English approved by

9120-777: The name "Rhemish Testament" for the Douay–Rheims Bible version. Similarly, a "History of England", whose fifth edition was published in 1775, writes merely that "[a] new translation of the Bible, viz. , that now in Use, was begun in 1607, and published in 1611". King James's Bible is used as the name for the 1611 translation (on a par with the Genevan Bible or the Rhemish Testament) in Charles Butler 's Horae Biblicae (first published 1797). Other works from

9234-640: The new edition, and consequently ran into serious debt, such that he was compelled to sub-lease the privilege to two rival London printers, Bonham Norton and John Bill. It appears that it was initially intended that each printer would print a portion of the text, share printed sheets with the others, and split the proceeds. Bitter financial disputes broke out, as Barker accused Norton and Bill of concealing their profits, while Norton and Bill accused Barker of selling sheets properly due to them as partial Bibles for ready money. There followed decades of continual litigation, and consequent imprisonment for debt for members of

9348-486: The new version would conform to the ecclesiology of the Church of England. Certain Greek and Hebrew words were to be translated in a manner that reflected the traditional usage of the church. For example, old ecclesiastical words such as the word "church" were to be retained and not to be translated as "congregation". The new translation would reflect the episcopal structure of the Church of England and traditional beliefs about ordained clergy. The source material for

9462-467: The number of 4 and 50, for the translating of the Bible, and in this number, divers of them have either no ecclesiastical preferment at all, or else so very small, as the same is far unmeet for men of their deserts and yet we in ourself in any convenient time cannot well remedy it, therefor we do hereby require you, that presently you write in our name as well to the Archbishop of York, as to the rest of

9576-483: The officially sanctioned "Bishops' Bible", which was hardly used by the population. More popular was the named "Geneva Bible", which was created on the basis of the Tyndale translation in Geneva under the direct successor of the reformer John Calvin for his English followers. However, their footnotes represented a Calvinistic Puritanism that was too radical for James. The translators of the Geneva Bible had translated

9690-623: The only English translation used in Anglican and other English Protestant churches, except for the Psalms and some short passages in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. Over the 18th century, the Authorized Version supplanted the Latin Vulgate as the standard version of scripture for English-speaking scholars. With the development of stereotype printing at the beginning of

9804-424: The original translators. This did not, however, impede the commercial rivalries of the London printers, especially as the Barker family refused to allow any other printers access to the authoritative manuscript of the Authorized Version . Two editions of the whole Bible are recognized as having been produced in 1611, which may be distinguished by their rendering of Ruth 3:15; the first edition reading "he went into

9918-417: The panel of translators because of his utterly uncongenial temperament, issued in 1611 a total condemnation of the new version. He especially criticized the translators' rejection of word-for-word equivalence and stated that "he would rather be torn in pieces by wild horses than that this abominable translation (KJV) should ever be foisted upon the English people". Walton's London Polyglot of 1657 disregards

10032-571: The peculiar and the most excellent sense, is the Holy Ghost, in which the Three are One, and therefore the whole union of those who agree in this belief (viz. that God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one), is named the Church, after its founder and sanctifier (the Holy Ghost). and De Baptismo : Now if every word of God is to be established by three witnesses ... For where there are

10146-459: The proper text—while introducing over 200 revisions of the original translators' work, chiefly by incorporating into the main text a more literal reading originally presented as a marginal note. A more thoroughly corrected edition was proposed following the Restoration , in conjunction with the revised 1662 Book of Common Prayer , but Parliament then decided against it. By the first half of

10260-487: The reader confusion, nor would the differences between their wording give rise to contradictions, nor would the various phrases contradict each other, especially in that place where we read the clause about the unity of the Trinity in the first letter of John. Indeed, it has come to our notice that in this letter some unfaithful translators have gone far astray from the truth of the faith, for in their edition they provide just

10374-534: The reign of King Henry VIII . When Mary I succeeded to the throne in 1553, she returned the Church of England to the communion of the Catholic faith and many English religious reformers fled the country, some establishing an English-speaking community in the Protestant city of Geneva . Under the leadership of John Calvin , Geneva became the chief international centre of Reformed Protestantism and Latin biblical scholarship. These English expatriates undertook

10488-457: The scriptures in the vernacular for ordinary people, nevertheless for those with sufficient education to do so, Biblical study was best undertaken within the international common medium of Latin. It was only in 1700 that modern bilingual Bibles appeared in which the Authorized Version was compared with counterpart Dutch and French Protestant vernacular Bibles. In consequence of the continual disputes over printing privileges, successive printings of

10602-501: The standard version of scripture for English speaking scholars and divines, and indeed came to be regarded by some as an inspired text in itself—so much so that any challenge to its readings or textual base came to be regarded by many as an assault on Holy Scripture. In the 18th century there was a serious shortage of Bibles in the American colonies. To meet the demand various printers , beginning with Samuel Kneeland in 1752, printed

10716-421: The style of scribe's shorthand ), and set & for and . In contrast, on a few occasions, they appear to have inserted these words when they thought a line needed to be padded. Later printings regularized these spellings; the punctuation has also been standardized, but still varies from current usage. As can be seen in the example page on the left, the first printing used a blackletter typeface instead of

10830-430: The three, namely the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, there is the Church which is a body of the three. have also been presented as verse allusions. The Treatise on Rebaptism, placed as a 3rd-century writing and transmitted with Cyprian's works, has two sections that directly refer to the earthly witnesses, and thus has been used against authenticity by Nathaniel Lardner, Alfred Plummer and others. However, because of

10944-697: The translation of the New Testament was the Textus Receptus version of the Greek compiled by Erasmus ; for the Old Testament, the Masoretic text of the Hebrew was used; for some of the apocrypha , the Septuagint Greek text was used, or for apocrypha for which the Greek was unavailable, the Vulgate Latin. James' instructions included several requirements that kept the new translation familiar to its listeners and readers. The text of

11058-420: The various colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, while others were promoted to bishoprics , deaneries and prebends through royal patronage . On 22 July 1604 King James VI and I sent a letter to Archbishop Bancroft asking him to contact all English churchmen requesting that they make donations to his project. Right trusty and well beloved, we greet you well. Whereas we have appointed certain learned men, to

11172-568: The verse reads thus: ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες εν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ πατήρ, ὁ λόγος, καὶ τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα· καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσι. It became a touchpoint for the Christian theological debate over the doctrine of the Trinity from the early church councils to the Catholic and Protestant disputes in the early modern period . It may first be noted that the words "in heaven, the Father,

11286-602: The verse". Georg Strecker comments cautiously "An initial echo of the Comma Johanneum occurs as early as Tertullian Adv. Pax. 25.1 (CChr 2.1195; written c. 215). In his commentary on John 16:14 he writes that the Father, Son, and Paraclete are one ( unum ), but not one person ( unus ). However, this passage cannot be regarded as a certain attestation of the Comma Johanneum. " References from Tertullian in De Pudicitia 21:16 (On Modesty): The Church, in

11400-478: The verse. The first undisputed work to quote the Comma Johanneum as an actual part of the Epistle's text appears to be the 4th-century Latin homily Liber Apologeticus , probably written by Priscillian of Ávila (died 385), or his close follower Bishop Instantius. The Comma is not in two of the oldest extant Vulgate manuscripts, Codex Fuldensis and the Codex Amiatinus , although it is referenced in

11514-432: The very meanest translation of the Bible in English, set forth by men of our profession, (for we have seen none of theirs [Catholics] of the whole Bible as yet) containeth the word of God, nay, is the word of God." As with the first preface, some British printings reproduce this, while most non-British printings do not. Almost every printing that includes the second preface also includes the first. The first printing contained

11628-522: The word king as tyrant about four hundred times—the word tyrant does not appear once in the KJV. Because of this, it has been assumed King James purposely had the translators of the KJV translate the word tyrant as either "troubling", "oppressor", or some other word to avoid people being critical of his monarchy. James convened the Hampton Court Conference in January 1604, where a new English version

11742-489: The words for three [witnesses]—namely water, blood and spirit—and omit the testimony of the Father, the Word and the Spirit, by which the Catholic faith is especially strengthened, and proof is tendered of the single substance of divinity possessed by Father, Son and Holy Spirit.77 King James Version The King James Version ( KJV ), also the King James Bible ( KJB ) and the Authorized Version ( AV ),

11856-412: The work proceeded, more detailed rules were adopted as to how variant and uncertain readings in the Hebrew and Greek source texts should be indicated, including the requirement that words supplied in English to 'complete the meaning' of the originals should be printed in a different type face. The task of translation was undertaken by 47 scholars, although 54 were originally approved. All were members of

11970-602: Was also involved in the preparation of the Great Bible of 1539, the Coverdale Bible continued to be reprinted. The last of over 20 editions of the whole Bible, or its New Testament, appeared in 1553. Coverdale based his New Testament on Tyndale's translation. For the Old Testament , Coverdale used Tyndale's published Pentateuch and possibly his published Jonah . He apparently did not make use of any of Tyndale's other, unpublished, Old Testament material (cf. Matthew Bible ). Instead, Coverdale himself translated

12084-523: Was aware of a codex from Antwerp which was presented to him at the Franciscan monastery. This manuscript was likely lost during the times of Napoleon , however it was said to have contained the Johannine Comma in the margin, as Erasmus mentions it in his Annotations. Nevertheless, Erasmus doubted the originality of that marginal note within the manuscript and believed that it was a recent addition within it. The exact nature of this manuscript from Antwerp

12198-408: Was changed to italics , this application being regularized and greatly expanded. This was intended to de-emphasize the words. The original printing contained two prefatory texts; the first was a formal Epistle Dedicatory to "the most high and mighty Prince" King James. Many British printings reproduce this, while most non-British printings do not. The second preface was called Translators to

12312-553: Was common not to give the translation any specific name. In his Leviathan of 1651, Thomas Hobbes referred to it as "the English Translation made in the beginning of the Reign of King James". A 1761 "Brief Account of the various Translations of the Bible into English" refers to the 1611 version merely as "a new, compleat, and more accurate Translation", despite referring to the Great Bible by its name, and despite using

12426-459: Was conceived in response to the problems of the earlier translations perceived by the Puritans , a faction of the Church of England. James gave translators instructions intended to ensure the new version would conform to the ecclesiology , and reflect the episcopal structure, of the Church of England and its belief in an ordained clergy. In common with most other translations of the period,

12540-434: Was headed by a brief précis of its contents with verse numbers. Later editors freely substituted their own chapter summaries, or omitted such material entirely. Pilcrow marks are used to indicate the beginnings of paragraphs except after the book of Acts. The Authorized Version was meant to replace the Bishops' Bible as the official version for readings in the Church of England . No record of its authorization exists; it

12654-637: Was informed of a Greek manuscript that contained the verse, although he expressed doubt as to its authenticity in his Annotations . Many subsequent early printed editions of the Bible include it, such as the Coverdale Bible (1535), the Geneva Bible (1560), the Douay-Rheims Bible (1610), and the King James Bible (1611). Later editions based on the Textus Receptus , such as Robert Young 's Literal Translation (1862) and

12768-598: Was printed—in conjunction with the Scots coronation in that year of Charles I . The inclusion of illustrations in the edition raised accusations of Popery from opponents of the religious policies of Charles and William Laud , Archbishop of Canterbury . However, official policy favoured the Authorized Version, and this favour returned during the Commonwealth —as London printers succeeded in re-asserting their monopoly on Bible printing with support from Oliver Cromwell —and

12882-534: Was probably effected by an order of the Privy Council , but the records for the years 1600 to 1613 were destroyed by fire in January 1618/19, and it is commonly known as the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom. The King's Printer issued no further editions of the Bishops' Bible , so necessarily the Authorized Version replaced it as the standard lectern Bible in parish church use in England. In

12996-507: Was the first complete Modern English translation of the Bible (not just the Old , or New Testament ), and the first complete printed translation into English (cf. Wycliffe's Bible in manuscript). The later editions ( folio and quarto ) published in 1537 were the first complete Bibles printed in England. The 1537 folio edition carried the royal licence and was therefore the first officially approved Bible translation in English. The Psalter from

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