349. The King James Bible

Each translation of the Bible has a unique history of its own. Today on our journey back through the archives, Dr. Stephen Nichols visits the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, to take a look at the history of the English Bible.

Hello and thanks for listening to 5 Minutes in Church History. I’m Steve Nichols and I wanted to let you know that from now until the end of the year we’ll be taking a break from releasing new episodes on the podcast. But don’t worry, we’ll be hand-selecting some of our favorite episodes for you to enjoy before we’re back with brand new episodes next year. We hope you enjoy this journey back into the archives of 5 Minutes in Church History. 

Welcome to 5 Minutes in Church History, hosted by Dr. Stephen Nichols where we take a little break from the present to go exploring the past. Travel back in time as we look at the people, events, and even the places that have shaped the story of Christianity. This is our story, our family history. Let's get started.

Welcome back to another episode of_ 5 Minutes in Church History_. On this episode we are on location. We are in a great place. We are at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC. We are here to talk about the King James Bible. Now, if you were to go rooting through your grandma's attic and you were to come across what you thought would be a first printing King James Bible, how would you know? Well, all you need to do is go Ruth 3:15 and see how it ends. If that verse ends with he went into the city, you would know that you had an authentic 1611 first printing Bible. And, by the way, it would be worth a mint. But if it said she, well, that's not a 1611 Bible. Now, we'll get to that in a second.

What we have here in the Museum of the Bible is actually a visual and real representation of the history of the English Bible. It begins with Tyndale in the 1520s. Tyndale gave his life to bring the Bible into the language of the English people. Now we know Wycliffe, and Wycliffe was a translation of the Latin into the English. What we're talking about is translation of the original, the Greek New Testament and the Hebrew Old Testament so we start with Tyndale. Then, we come to 1535 and we have the Coverdale Bible, named for Miles Coverdale. It was largely the Tyndale translation. In 1537, we have the Matthew Bible. It was also a Tyndale associate who produced this Bible. His name was John Rogers but he gave himself pseudonym of Thomas Matthew and so it's known as the Matthew Bible. Then we come to 1539 and we have the Great Bible. It's the Great Bible because of its size. It was meant to be a lectern Bible and it is quite a specimen in its size.

And then we come to the Bible of the Puritans, the Geneva Bible. In the 1550s and 1560s these were the Puritan Exiles and Calvin's Geneva. Calvin believed that people should work and so these English scholars should work and they worked on an English translation, Geneva Bible. First Bible with notes and the first English Bible with versification based on a Greek testament that was published in 1551 called the Stephanos Greek text. There's a copy of that in the Museum of the Bible as well.

And then we come to the Bishop's Bible in 1568. This was a bit of a response to the Geneva Bible, which were the Puritans and the Dissenters. The Anglicans wouldn't be left out so we've got the Bishop's Bible. And then we come to an important date, 1604. King James had been officed for only a few months by the time we get to the February 1604. Over the course of three days, meetings were held with Puritans, Anglican Bishops, and the good King James overseeing it. One of the decisions that came out of the Hampton Court Conference of 1604 was the need for a new translation. Sure enough, seven years later the Authorized Version, authorized because it was authorized by the king himself, was published, the King James Version.

Now we get to Ruth 3:15. In the original, the very first printing of this Authorized Version by the authorized printer in the city of London, and you can look right at it because this version here at the Museum of the Bible is open right to Ruth 3:15. The ending has that and he went into the city, because the verse is sort of a go between with Ruth and Boaz, they're both subjects, both of those proper nouns occur in this verse. What is the pronoun? In the 1611 it's he. But the realization is in the Hebrew manuscripts, that were actually discovered between 1611 and 1633, that it's she, not he. That it's not a reference to Boaz but a reference to Ruth. In 1613 a printing of the 1611 was done and it's called the Great She Bible of 1613.

How do you know if that treasure you found at grandma's attic is indeed an original first printing 1611? Check the ending of Ruth 3:15. That's the King James version Bible.

I'm Steve Nichols on location at the Museum of the Bible. Thanks for listening to 5 Minutes in Church History.