Overview
This is something I had wanted to not only read, but study through for quite some time. Much can be learned about the King James Bible and it's seemingly peculiar way it reads to us today in the modern world by reading from the words of translators themselves. The thing to understand is that the men doing the translation were not only the best and brightest Bible scholars of the day, but they also had a deep reverence for the Scriptures. So important was it NOT to err away from the Word, that often a literal translation was made from the original Hebrew or Greek, rather than the method of "textual criticism" as it was known in areas like Alexandria, where many false doctrines started. Though not often printed in most King James Bibles today typically in an effort to save space, we can still find the preface the translators included not only to the King, but to the reader. They include 15 different points they address that can explain why and how they did what they did. Below each section I have put my own notes on what they have said.
This often omitted preface, can be found online here:
http://thekingsbible.com/Library/Preface
Here is a short summary and my own notes on each of these sections as I read through them. They cover a lot of ground, going back to the earliest times.
I. The best things have been calumniated (slandered)
- They knew they were not going to please everyone
- Worthy men have been brought to an untimely death for the very things they are doing now.
II. The highest personages have been calumniated
- Constantine, while he openly professed his faith, there was some question to his sincerity, yet he was called wasteful by his peers for providing for the church.
- There is no new thing under the sun (ref. to Ecclesiastes 1:9)
III. His majesty's constancy
- King James knew full well the criticism he would get, but he was not discouraged
- Kings especially, should care for religion and to know and profess it zealously
- This is their glory before all nations (ref. I Samuel 2:30)
IV. The praise of the Holy Scriptures
- Love the Scriptures and wisdom will love thee (ref. Proverbs 4:6)
- The Scriptures is an armory of weapons for both offense and defense
V. Translation necessary
- I Corinthians 14:11 "Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me."
- Without a translation, the unlearned are like the children at Jacobs well with no bucket
VI. Translation of the Old Testament out of the Hebrew into Greek
- The Lord at first, would have His name great only in Israel, Hebrew was sufficient
- As time passed, God sent His son to be a reconciliation through faith in His blood not to the Jew only, but also to the Greek
- Ptolemy Philadelph, King of Egypt called for translating the Hebrew scriptures into Greek (eg. the Septuagint, approx 285 BC) also called the "translation of the seventy"
- The translation of "the seventy" did not satisfy the learned, especially the Jews. Hence, followed further translations of the Hebrew by Aquila, Theodotian, Symmachus
- The Apostles left the Septuagint when it left the Hebrew.
- Origen used these translations to collate what became known as the Hexapla
- These translations were not without fault. The KJV translators would go back to the original Hebrew of the Masoretic text.
VII. Translation out of Hebrew and Greek into Latin
- The first few hundred years after Christ, LAtin was a good language for translation since to many were provinces of Rome.
- There were too man Latin translations to be all good, and were not out of the Hebrew fountain, but the Greek, so Hierome (Jerome) translated from the Hebrew.
VIII. The Translating of the Scripture into the vulgar tongues
- Even in Jerome's time, the Scriptures had been translated into several languages.
IX. The Unwillingness of Our Chief Adversaries, That The Scriptures Should Be Divulged In The Mother Tongue
- One had to get a license in writing just to use them
- It's not he that has good gold that is afraid of the touchstone, but he that has the counterfeit. A touchstone is a stone to rub gold on for testing its purity)
X. The Speeches And Reasons, Both Of Our Brethren, And Of Our Adversaries Against This Work
- Many were asking why yet another translation, asking had the church been deceived.
- They (the translators) were not wanting to handle the Word of God deceitfully
XI. A Satisfaction To Our Brethren
- A Man would rather be with his dog than a stranger whose speech is unknown.
- The conference at Hampton court was appointed to hear the complaints of the Puritans
XII. An Answer To The Imputations Of Our Adversaries
- Even the "meanest" translations contained the Word of God.
- The Romanists(Catholics) judged them by only an example or two, referring to these earlier translations (eg. Wycliffe, Tyndale)
- They(the translators) knew they were being called herritiks
- The numerous iterations of work the translators were doing were being criticized, but this is the very thing they are charged with, that is to make a better translation
- The Catholics had themselves changed and corrected their own translations
XIII. The Purpose Of The Translators, With Their Number, Furniture, Care, etc
- They were not out to make a bad translation into a good one, but a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal one.
- Hierome (Jerome) translated not out of the Greek, but the Hebrew even though he was fluent in Greek, yet made no mention of the Greek.
- As others such as Hierome and Augustine had said, if a new translation should be done, it should use the Hebrew for the OT and Greek for the NT as their sources.
- Origen some say was the first to write commentaries upon the Scriptures, but he overshot himself many times.
- The work has taken 7x72x2 days and then some, compared to the Septuagint 72 days.
XIV. Reasons Moving Us To Set Diversity Of Senses In The Margin, Where There Is Great Probability For Each
- Some things are certain, namely the Gospel and the things concerning salvation, but there are other things and words that are not clear. These things are those that some men will make
- The variety of translations they were using, most likely referring to the numerous Greek translations, were to profit the finding out of the Scriptures.
XV. Reasons Inducing Us Not To Stand Curiously Upon An Identity Of Phrasing
- They did not want to vary from the sense of that which they had translated before(in another passage)
- God Himself had used diverse words in His Holy Writ.
- They were leaving the wording of the Puritans and the Papists
- Their desire is that the Scripture may speak like itself, that it may be understood even of the vulgar (non-Latin)
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