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- The King James translation team was comprised of fifty-four godly men, and arguably the most scholarly men ever assembled for any similar endeavor. The company met together in 1607 to commence work on the translation and divided themselves into six committees: two met at Oxford, two at Cambridge, and two at Westminster Abbey.
www.fundamentalholybible.com/translatorskjv.htmThe Translators of the King James Bible - Fundamental Holy Bible
At least sixty men were directly involved in the translation of the King James Bible (hereinafter KJB). Most were Translators, while a few were project overseers, revisers and editors. Some served in several roles. Who were these men? What were their backgrounds? What did they share? In what ways were they different? They were a diverse group.
- COMMITTEE OF TWO
This was a pattern a number of his fellow Translators...
- COMMITTEE OF REVISERS
There were differing views as to whether the phrase "from...
- FIRST WESTMINSTER COMPANY
Andrewes was one of six students who, in 1571, were awarded...
- FIRST CAMBRIDGE COMPANY
A month later on July 31, 1604, Bancroft wrote his fellow...
- FIRST OXFORD COMPANY
The letter dated 31 July 1604 names three men who had...
- SECOND CAMBRIDGE COMPANY
John Duport was born in Shepshed, Leicestershire about 1550...
- SECOND OXFORD COMPANY
Thomas Ravis had a fine preparatory education at Westminster...
- SECOND WESTMINSTER COMPANY
On this team were many of the pre-eminent scholars of his...
- COMMITTEE OF TWO
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), 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.
Every man involved in the King James Bible translation believed in the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, all believed in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and all were men of prayer. Many were not only Biblical scholars and master linguists, but also God-called, Spirit-filled preachers.
This chapter focuses on the translators behind the translation and revision of the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible. Six companies — two in each of Westminster, Oxford, and Cambridge — were chosen to undertake the process of translation and revision: the First Westminster Company, charged with the translation of the Old Testament from ...
- Overview
- Background
- Preparation and early editions
- Reputation since the early 20th century
King James Version (KJV), English translation of the Bible, published in 1611 under the auspices of King James I of England. The translation had a marked influence on English literary style and was generally accepted as the standard English Bible from the mid-17th to the early 20th century.
The reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603) succeeded in imposing a high degree of uniformity upon the Church of England. Protestantism was reinstated as the official religion of England after the short reign of Mary I (1553–58), who had attempted to restore Roman Catholicism in the country. In 1604, soon after James’s coronation as king of England,...
Given the perceived need for a new authorized translation, James was quick to appreciate the broader value of the proposal and at once made the project his own. By June 30, 1604, James had approved a list of 54 revisers, although extant records show that 47 scholars actually participated. They were organized into six companies, two each working separately at Westminster, Oxford, and Cambridge on sections of the Bible assigned to them. Richard Bancroft (1544–1610), archbishop of Canterbury, served as overseer and established doctrinal conventions for the translators. The new Bible was published in 1611.
Not since the Septuagint—the Greek-language version of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) produced between the 3rd and the 2nd centuries bce—had a translation of the Bible been undertaken under royal sponsorship as a cooperative venture on so grandiose a scale. An elaborate set of rules was contrived to curb individual proclivities and to ensure the translation’s scholarly and nonpartisan character. In contrast to earlier practice, the new version was to use vulgar forms of proper names (e.g., “Jonas” or “Jonah” for the Hebrew “Yonah”), in keeping with its aim to make the Scriptures popular and familiar. The translators used not only extant English-language translations, including the partial translation by William Tyndale (c. 1490–1536), but also Jewish commentaries to guide their work. The wealth of scholarly tools available to the translators made their final choice of rendering an exercise in originality and independent judgment. For this reason, the new version was more faithful to the original languages of the Bible and more scholarly than any of its predecessors. The impact of the original Hebrew upon the revisers was so pronounced that they seem to have made a conscious effort to imitate its rhythm and style in their translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. The literary style of the English New Testament actually turned out to be superior to that of its Greek original.
In the early 20th century the King James Version fell into disfavour among many mainstream Protestant churches, which viewed it as antiquated. Beginning in the middle of the century, they increasingly turned to more-modern translations, such as the Revised Standard Version (1952), the New International Version (1978), and the New Revised Standard Version (1989). The King James Version, however, remained a popular source for the more famous Psalms and for the Gospels.
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English-speaking Roman Catholics used an authorized English Bible, the Douai-Reims (1609), which was produced from the Latin Vulgate by English Catholic exiles in France, who also worked from many of the same English sources used by translators of the King James Version. Yet among English Catholics the King James Version was widely accepted from the 18th century; moreover, when the Douai-Reims Bible was updated in the mid-18th century, the translator, Richard Challoner (1691–1781), a convert from Protestantism to Catholicism, largely worked from the King James Version. Both the King James Version and the Douai-Reims Bible were finally supplanted in popularity by the Jerusalem Bible (1966).
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Who were the translators that created the venerate KJV translation and what guidelines did they use? What "kind" of translation was intended and how is it generally categorized today?
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Aug 5, 2024 · The King James Version of the Bible, or KJV, originally released in 1611, is one of the bestselling and most popular Bible translations of all time.
