• “The KJV is the only Bible that isn’t copyrighted!”
• “Modern Versions are simply a greedy money game!”
• “The KJV is the only Bible that missionaries can make copies of for free!”
• ​”The only reason that versions other than the KJV even exists today is because publishers legally have to change a percentage of words in order for a copyright to make money, and modern version publishers only care about money.”

These and similar claims can be found in practically every piece of literature that claims to defend the KJV as the preserved word of God for the English-speaking people. Or just glance around the internet, here, here, here, here, or scores of other places. It seems almost par for the course to claim that the KJV is the “only English Bible not copyrighted” and that all other modern versions are thus inferior to the KJV for this reason. I remember hearing preachers while I was a teen railing about how this was because the KJV represented “God’s words” and all other Bibles were “man’s words.” One cannot copyright “God’s words,” of course. And that’s why the KJV is the only version not copyrighted. In fact, when I’ve taught on the KJV before, lines full of people have assembled, each taking their turn to inform me that I was wrong to suggest that the KJV is not perfect, and the basis for their rebuttal was that clearly I didn’t realize that it is the only English translation not copyrighted. How could I have missed this clear proof that the KJV is perfect? Such a sentiment about copyright is odd both because it would be irrelevant even if it were true, and, more importantly, because it is blatantly false.

An Example From A Trusted Source

R.B. Ouellette wrote what is, in my opinion, one of the best of the books defending the KJV. I respect him, and his work for the gospel, greatly. I quote him here because he’s in a different category than the kind of internet propaganda making such claims that one can find so easily. And I always believe in dealing with the best forms of an argument. That’s why I interacted with his work here, rather than with the scores of “crazies” that would have made easy targets. In fact, we used his book as a required text in Grad School at the Fundamentalist Bible College I attended. Many who defend the KJV are kind, gracious, well-meaning believers who love God. I count many of them my friends. But they often end up repeating the claims of a more radical wing of KJV defenders, without bothering to research whether such claims are true. They typically are not malicious – they simply have neglected their biblical responsibility to “prove all things” (I Thess. 5:19-22). I suspect this is one such example, where otherwise intelligent people are simply repeating absurd claims without bothering to check them out. My guess is that Ouellette is simply repeating here what he has read and assumed true, without really bothering to verify it. Ouellette writes, in a lists of “false statements,” these words about the KJV,  “False Statement: The King James Bible is copyrighted,” [Bold original] and then strangely, proceeds to contradict himself and show that his statement is actually not a false one, and that the KJV is in fact copyrighted. He claims that the copyright on the KJV is only to protect the text, and asserts that, “This entire approach is different from the copyrights held today on modern Bible versions. The modern versions are tightly controlled by secular publishing companies for the primary purpose of revenue” (R. B. Ouellette, A More Sure Word, pg. 149). But he is grossly mistaken at almost every point here.

First, as Oullette would construe it at least, Cambridge University Press has a copyright on the KJV (which we will examine below) which produces revenue. His language, intended to be pejorative, sets a double standard. Second, his statement about modern versions being tightly controlled for the primary purpose of revenue is an unforgivable generalization. He cannot see the motives of every publisher. He cannot even see the motives of any publisher. He is not God. Such incredibly sweeping statements are false and unwarranted accusations, being made without multiple evidences provided. Accusations such as this should not be made lightly. Biblically, one should not believe such a statement until documented evidence from every single modern version is produced (see Deut. 19:15). But beyond even these basic problems with his claims, standing behind them lies a serious ignorance of basic facts of history, to which we now turn.

The Greedy Printers Of The KJV

In fact, modern scholars of the KJV, who study the history of the English Bible as a career, generally agree that revenue and profit were major factors in why the KJV became the most widely used version for many years. David Norton and David Daniell have penned some of the most important works on the history of the English Bible to come about in the last several decades (perhaps even the last century). Daniell explains that it was the commercial ability of the KJV to reward its printer that led to its fame;

…contrary to what has been confidently asserted for several centuries, this version [the KJV] was not universally loved from the moment it appeared. Far from it. As a publication in the seventeenth century it was undoubtedly successful: it was heavily used, and it rapidly saw off its chief rival, the three Geneva Bibles, to become the standard British (and American) Bible. But that success was at first for political and commercial reasons, and largely a result of in-fighting between London printers. For its first 150 years, the KJV received a barrage of criticism.

– David Daniell, The Bible In English,  hereafter, BIE, pg. 429.

Robert Barker, the King’s printer, held the monopoly on printing Bibles (of any kind). And he incurred some serious money problems. Thus, he needed cash, and cash fast. But the KJV was far easier and cheaper to print than the Geneva Bible that was still the most loved Bible of the people, or the Bishop’s Bible, which was the officially accepted Bible of the clergy. Further, it could be claimed to have been the product of a royal enterprise (whether it was ever officially “authorized” is an open debate among scholars). The revision of the 1602 Bishop’s Bible that had been made in 1611, what we now call the King James Bible, wasn’t really loved more than the Geneva and Bishop’s Bibles. It may not even have been liked by comparison. But it was a great moneymaker, because it was far cheaper to produce and an easier sell. A dirty squabble over who would be able to profit from this cash cow immediately ensued upon its first printing. The details of the first few years are sparse, though Daniell notes, “…the business of the printing of the KJV became almost at once devious, and at times, vicious.” (Daniell, BIE, pg. 451). Serious legal battles, involving preposterous amounts of money, soon ensued. People were jailed, bankrupted, sued, countersued, etc. Daniell pointedly explains,

What was being fought over was the marketing of a new Bible in which interest was high, one that could, in fact, easily be reprinted. The market would be helped by it being said to be a royal enterprise, in a way that no previous English Bible had been. The tight group of spitting enemies, four men and one woman, (Christopher’s wife) were the only people allowed to print the the KJV, and they would be united only in the desire to keep profits as high as they could be…The fighting became total war…

– Daniell, BIE, pg. 455.

When Bookseller Michael Sparke began importing Bibles to avoid paying the high costs, and defeat the monopoly,  Robert Barker obtained a warrant to seize these Bibles. Printers who tried to get into the money making scheme had their equipment seized. This ugly “battle for the Bible” continued, but it was, ultimately, a battle for moneymotivated by avarice. Daniell summarizes, noting that the KJV as a new translation, “triumphed because it was commercially manoeuvred to do so, not because it was new. Perhaps enough has been said here to remove the idea of an automatic instant triumph of KJV based entirely on its ‘glorious beauty.'”

[The KJV] triumphed because it was commercially manoeuvred to do so, not because it was new.

– David Daniell

David Norton explains the same reality, sharing further details of the story. He is worth quoting at length here;

The last regular edition of the Geneva Bible was published in 1644. Thereafter, to buy a Bible meant to buy a King James Bible. Other versions continued in circulation, but gradually the commercial identity of ‘English Bible’ and ‘King James Bible’ became also a popular identity: with only one major version available, this was inevitable. In spite of the later perception of the KJB’s superiority, this publishing triumph owed nothing to its merits (or Geneva’s demerits) as a scholarly or literary rendering of the originals: economics and politics were the key factors. It was in the very substantial commercial interest of the King’s Printer, who had a monopoly on the text, and the Cambridge University Press, which also claimed the right to print the text, that the KJB should succeed. In the trial of the man principally responsible for suppressing the Geneva Bible, Archbishop Laud, (1573-1645), there is a report that because the KJB, described as ‘the new translation without notes’, was ‘most vendible’, the King’s Printer forbore to print Geneva Bibles for ‘private lucre, not by virtue of any public restraint [and so] they were usually imported from beyond the seas’. ‘Most vendible’ probably means most profitable to the King’s Printer, since Robert Baker had invested substantially in the KJB. The Geneva Bible appeared more marketable, and its continued importation was not just for sectarian reasons but because there was a popular demand.

Norton goes on to cite Laud and his argument that the Geneva was a threat commercially because it was a “better” Bible which could be sold more cheaply, “And would any man buy a worse Bible dearer, that might have a better more cheap?” He picks up the story with Michael Sparke:

The Puritan Michael Sparke, a London bookseller and importer of Bibles in defiance of the monopoly, publisher too of Laud’s opponent William Prynne, gives an identical picture in his attack on printing monopolies… He documents price rises, notes how much cheaper the imported Bibles are, and charges the King’s Printer with commercial exploitation of his monopoly. Like Laud, he writes in several places of the ‘better paper and print’ of the imports. Ironically, then, the KJB’s triumph over its rival came about in part because it was an inferior production: in fair competition it would probably have lost, but its supporters had foul means at their disposal.

– David Norton, A History of the English Bible as Literature, pg. 90-91.

Ironically, then, the KJB’s triumph over its rival came about in part because it was an inferior production: in fair competition it would probably have lost, but its supporters had foul means at their disposal.

– David Norton

One can consult Daniell’s chapter, “Printing the King James Bible,” or Norton’s breathtakingly detailed, “A Textual History Of The King James Bible” for more of the sordid story that makes up this soap opera. Or his two-volume, “History of the Bible as Literature.” Even purchasing his inexpensive condensed volume will give one some of the picture. But for now, it is enough to note that charges that modern publishers of modern versions, with the sole exception of the KJV, are driven by greed and avarice are in fact pointed in exactly the wrong direction. Such accusations are far more true of the printing of the KJV. Scholars of the KJV today agree that the KJV’s ultimate popularity and move from a disliked to a beloved Bible translation was in fact largely due to this greedy profit game.

Are All Modern Versions Really Just The Product Of Greedy Publishers Out For money?

How does the history of the KJV compare to modern versions? Are all modern versions really just a money game? Contrast the story above for example with the NET Bible, which was an endeavor of great cost, but is given “free for all, for all time.” Its intention was to be globally free, something the KJV is not now, and never has been. The editors explain in the preface,

In the second year of bible.org’s ministry (1995) it became clear that a free online Bible would be needed on the bible.org website since copyrighted Bibles can’t be quoted in a huge collection of online studies. The NET Bible project was commissioned to create a faithful Bible translation that could be placed on the Internet, downloaded for free, and used around the world for ministry. The Bible is God’s gift to humanity – it should be free. (Go to www.bible.org and download your free copy.) Permission is available for the NET Bible to be printed royalty-free for organizations like the The Gideon’s International who print and distribute Bibles for charity. The NET Bible (with all the translators’ notes) has also been provided to Wycliffe Bible Translators to assist their field translators. The NET Bible Society is working with other groups and Bible Societies to provide the NET Bible translators’ notes to complement fresh translations in other languages. A Chinese translation team is currently at work on a new translation which incorporates the NET Bible translators’ notes in Chinese, making them available to an additional 1.5 billion people. Parallel projects involving other languages are also in progress.

One can in fact print the entire NET Bible for free, anywhere in the world, and hand it out. One cannot do that in the UK with the KJV (and one could not do that anywhere else in the world, if the British Crown happened to rule the whole world). These godly editors of modern publishing houses (and many others like them) simply do not deserve the accusations of avarice that have been leveled against them by the generalizations of Ouellette and others.

Modern Internet Licenses

But beyond examples like the NET Bible ministry model, and other translations that are intentionally produced for free use, or made freely available, practically every single modern version has provided license to various internet sites to make the entire text of their version entirely free online. The NIV, NKJV, ESV, NET, NASB, HCSB, CSB, RSV, NRSV, GNT, LEB, NLT, The Message, and scores of other modern versions have given away their text digitally for free, despite all the high cost of production, so that the text can be freely accessible to anyone with internet access. Even the German Bible Society’s exorbitantly expensive Nestle-Aland text has been made freely available by the publisher online! Websites like BibleGateway.com, BibleHub.com, BlueletterBible.org, and others, as well as free Apps like YouVersion, make the texts of these versions free to all. In the face of such free access, it is hard to claim, as Ouellette has, that “modern versions are tightly controlled by secular publishing companies for the primary purpose of revenue.”

But besides even that point, as my friend Mark McDonnell has noted, where did anyonone get the idea that a publisher cannot, or should not, charge for their work producing a Bible? That’s not a biblical notion at all. Probably most of us who have a KJV Bible have in fact paid money for it (I’ve spent hundreds on some of my copies!). And Moses, Jesus, and Paul, all explicitly taught that, “The labourer is worthy of his reward,” and has a right to be paid for his work, even those spreading and propagating the very gospel message itself (1 Tim. 5:18, KJV See also Matt. 10:10; Luke 10:7; Lev. 19:13; Deut. 24:15; 1 Cor. 9:4, 7–14).

The KJV And Royal Patents

When the KJV was printed, the United States’ Constitution’s “copyright clause” did not yet exist. Copyright Law wasn’t a thing. But that doesn’t mean that pre-cursory rights equivalent to copyright didn’t exist. The first edition of the KJV was printed with the Latin words, “cum privilegio” or “with privilege” at the bottom of its title page for the New Testament (Viewable here, or see the image above). This was the common practice to identify the royal priviligia of printing. The Barkers as royal printers held the printing rights of the Crown or the “Privilege” of printing it, at least initially. And they had a financially beneficial monopoly on printing it. Alister McGrath explains,

The English book trade was regulated by the Stationers’ Company. As printing was permitted only at four centers—London, York, Oxford, and Cambridge—until 1695, regulation of the trade was not especially difficult. The printing of Bibles, however, was seen as a matter of particular importance, and was subject to additional regulations. Since the time of Henry VIII, Bibles printed within England by official sanction—such as Matthew’s Bible, the Great Bible, and the Bishops’ Bible—were subject to a trade monopoly. The monarch granted a “privilege” to favored subjects allowing them a monopoly on the production of certain types of Bible—an honor or favor usually indicated with the words cum privilegio on the title page of the Bible in question. The crown, in turn, received a proportion of the “royalty” paid to the holder of the privilege.
– McGrath, Alister. In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture, pg. 197-198.

He goes on to explain much of the same narrative that Norton and Daniell laid out above, noting that “Barker’s support for biblical translations appears to have been directly proportional to their profitability” (McGrath, p. 198). Ouellette, in his bold attempt to claim the KJV is unique among English Bibles, asserts that, “For the purposes [sic] of protecting the text, the King James Version of the Bible was originally copyrighted and still is in the United Kingdom” (Ouellette, pg. 149). But McGrath rather explains that, “…the use of the King’s Printer for this important new translation did not rest upon any perception that this would ensure a more accurate or reliable printing, but upon the belief that this was potentially a profitable project that would bring financial advantage to Barker and his partners” (McGrath, pg. 199). Costs were cut in every way. Proofreaders were minimized (which led to the numerous, infamous abundance of printing errors, detailed by Norton in the work linked above, like “The Wicked Bible“). And the rights of printing were fought over. Because the KJV was a profitable industry, and printing it was about making money.

The rights of printing it are still today held by the Crown, the same Crown that produced it. It was always, from its first printing in 1611, only allowed to be printed, “with privilege.” The royal patent was extended later to Oxford University Press, and Cambridge University Press. While there has been some vicious back-and-forth over the years, especially in the early years, both of these publishers still hold derived rights to print the KJV. Cambridge explains their royal right of printing (or patent) in what functions as the modern copyright to the KJV, which they have held since the first copy rolled off their presses in 1629. It states;

KING JAMES VERSION

Rights in The Authorized Version of the Bible (King James Bible) in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown and administered by the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press. The reproduction by any means of the text of the King James Version is permitted to a maximum of five hundred (500) verses for liturgical and non-commercial educational use, provided that the verses quoted neither amount to a complete book of the Bible nor represent 25 per cent or more of the total text of the work in which they are quoted, subject to the following acknowledgement being included:

Scripture quotations from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press.

When quotations from the KJV text are used in materials not being made available for sale, such as church bulletins, orders of service, posters, presentation materials, or similar media, a complete copyright notice is not required but the initials KJV must appear at the end of the quotation.

Rights or permission requests (including but not limited to reproduction in commercial publications) that exceed the above guidelines must be directed to the Permissions Department, Cambridge University Press, University Printing House, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS, UK (http://www.cambridge.org/about-us/rights permissions/permissions/permissions-requests/) and approved in writing.

(http://www.cambridge.org/bibles/about/rights-and-permissions)

Cambridge Press further explains at their website;

Rights in the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer

In the United Kingdom, rights in the Authorized Version of the Bible (AV), also known as the King James Bible or King James Version (KJV), are Crown copyright. Only a small number of publishers have entitlement to reproduce the KJV.  

Cambridge University Press is responsible for administering the Crown’s rights in the KJV in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Cambridge first published an edition of the Authorized Version in 1629 and has been publishing it ever since. The Latin term ‘cum privilegio’ is printed on the title pages of Cambridge editions of the KJV and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (BCP), to denote the charter authority or privilege under which they are published.

There have only ever been at any one time three bodies entitled to print the KJV and BCP in England: the university presses of Cambridge and of Oxford (who similarly have a charter which entitles them to publish and print as a Privileged Press) and the Royal Printer. In addition to its own privilege, Cambridge has also been the owner since 1990 of Royal Letters Patent as The Queen’s Printer: as such, Cambridge is entitled both to print and publish the KJV and the BCP, and also to control or license their publication on behalf of the Crown. The Scottish Bible Board has similar delegated authority in respect of the KJV in Scotland.

The primary function for Cambridge in its role as patent-holder is preserving the integrity of the text, continuing a long-standing tradition and reputation for textual scholarship and accuracy of printing. As a university press, a charitable enterprise devoted to the advancement of learning, Cambridge has no desire to restrict artificially that advancement; commercial restrictiveness through a partial monopoly is no part of our purpose. We grant permission to use the text, and license printing or the importation for sale within the UK, as long as we are assured of acceptable quality and accuracy. 

Oxford University Press notes their right, granted by the Crown, to print the KJV;

The University also established its right to print the King James Authorized Version of the Bible in the seventeenth century. This Bible Privilege formed the basis of OUP’s publishing activities throughout the next two centuries.

Copyrights In English Dictionaries

The OED defines “copyright” as “The exclusive right given by law for a certain term of years to an author, composer, designer, etc. (or his assignee), to print, publish, and sell copies of his original work.” For those who strangely prefer it, the Webster’s 1828 English dictionary defines, “Copyright” as,

COPYRIGHT, noun The sole right which an author has in his own original literary compositions; the exclusive right of an author to print, publish and vend his own literary works, for his own benefit; the like right in the hands of an assignee.

The patent or “privilege” that was granted to the KJV on its title page, and is still retained today by Cambridge, fits the definition of a “copyright” as listed in the Webster’s 1828. The KJV is and always has been a copyrighted work.

The KJV – An Un-American Bible?

There is a sense of course in which the KJV can be considered in the “public domain” in the U.S. As noted in legal journals here and here. But it must be noted that this is, historically, simply a function of America at the Revolutionary War choosing to ignore the crown and its laws. As Syn explains (pg. 12 at the above link) “In the United States, after the War of Independence of 1776, English patents were disregarded. This caused the Authorised Version – still protected by royal patents – to enter the public domain outside the United Kingdom.” Cohn likewise explains (pg. 52 at the link above) that, “upon winning the Revolutionary War in 1776, however, the United States disregarded all English patents, and everything under these patents, including the KJV Bible, fell into the public domain. When the Constitution was ratified, all the works in the public domain remained in the public domain.”

Perhaps some have imagined that the KJV was produced in America, and must therefore have an American copyright if that copyright is to mean anything. But it was not produced here, and we didn’t even exists as a nation yet in the age of its production. It is not an American book. Had it been, it would be copyrighted here, and someone would still retain that copyright. The fact that there is no U.S. copyright, and that the copyright is held in the U.K. rather than the U.S. (and is ignored in the U.S.) is a factor of the KJV not being an American production. This does not in any way shape or form make the KJV superior, or point to it alone being the Word of God in English. This doesn’t make the KJV God’s only words in English; it simply makes it un-American in its origins. In fact, its continual stress upon the Divine Right of King’s makes it still today stand in sharp contradiction to the very revolution that birthed America. That is, the KJV is not only not an American Bible in its origins – it could rightly be called an un-American Bible.

A Concluding Comment

Frankly, whether the KJV did or did not have a copyright is a rather irrelevant issue. It has literally nothing to do with the question of whether the KJV is a perfect translation, or a perfect text, or the preserved Word of God for English speaking peoples. But for some reason this issue keeps being brought up by people who think this somehow proves that the KJV alone represents “God’s words.” And this often happens along with slanderous broad-brush accusations being made against modern publishers, many of whom (not all, admittedly) are made up of good and godly men. These good men do not deserve to be so accused and attacked. Slander is sin. Anyone repeating this slanderous accusation should confess and repent of it.

The KJV is, and always has been, held under Copyright.

The KJV is, and always has been, held under copyright. That’s not a bad thing. It just means that the KJV, unlike the NET Bible and a few exceptions noted above, is in this respect like most other English Bibles. It may be a special and unique work. In fact, I think it is, and I often say that I think every English-speaking Christian should own and read a copy of the KJV (though I don’t think anyone should use only a KJV). But it is not unique or special on the basis of some alleged absence of a copyright. Here, it must blend into the crowd of other English versions, and stop pretending to stand head and shoulders above the rest.

Poll a host of English Bible readers, and many of them will assure you that the King James Version is the most literal translation of the Bible into English. It is a more exact translation than every failed contender. The KJV translators, unlike their modern successors, labored assiduously to choose exactly the most accurate word to express in English the words of the original text. In more extreme circles, some even claim that this exactness is such that the translation of the KJV is unassailable, the Translator’s choices for each word guided providentially by the Holy Spirit as he sought to “preserve” His Word into English.

Miles Smith, who served as Translator of the Prophets in the First Oxford Company during Stage 1 of the Creation of the KJV, also drafted the prefatory “The Translators To The Reader” in Stage 3.

But such a passion for exactness on the part of the KJV translators, when history is examined, turns out to be little more than an overblown myth. This is seen both on every page of their translation work, and in their own stated intentions. In their preface, The Translators To The Reader, they defended their work. And they make it plain that carefulness with words was not only not their M.O. – it was a model they eschewed in favor of a much more carefree approach. While Miles Smith was the Translator responsible for penning this work, in what we have referred to as the third stage of the creation of the Translation, he clearly intends to speak with the unified voice of all the Translators here, and we will take his words as such.

The KJV Translators On Why They Rejected Literal Exactness

I have elsewhere examined the overall argument of their preface at great length. We zoom in here on this latter section. I cite here and throughout from the NCPB printing, which is the best I’ve seen. A modern translation of the preface in condensed form is available here.

Reasons inducing us not to stand curiously upon an identity of phrasing

Another thing we think good to admonish thee of, gentle reader, that we have not tied ourselves to a uniformity of phrasing, or to an identity of words, as some peradventure would wish that we had done, because they observe that some learned men somewhere have been as exact as they could that way. Truly, that we might not vary from the sense of that which we had translated before, if the word signified the same thing in both places (for there be some words that be not of the same sense everywhere),³ we were especially careful, and made a conscience, according to our duty. But that we should express the same notion in the same particular word, as for example, if we translate the Hebrew or Greek word once by ‘purpose’, never to call it ‘intent’; if one where ‘journeying’, never ‘travelling’; if one where ‘think’, never ‘suppose’; if one where ‘pain’, never ‘ache’; if one where ‘joy’, never ‘gladness’, etc.; thus to mince the matter, we thought to savour more of curiosity than wisdom, and that rather it would breed scorn in the atheist than bring profit to the godly reader. For is the kingdom of God become words or syllables? why should we be in bondage to them if we may be free? use one precisely when we may use another no less fit as commodiously? A godly Father in the primitive time showed himself greatly moved that one of newfangleness called κράββατον, σκίμπους,⁴ though the difference be little or none; and another reporteth that he was much abused for turning ‘cucurbita’ (to which reading the people had been used) into ‘hedera’.⁵ Now if this happen in better times, and upon so small occasions, we might justly fear hard censure, if generally we should make verbal and unnecessary changings. We might also be charged (by scoffers) with some unequal dealing towards a great number of good English words. For as it is written of a certain great philosopher, that he should say that those logs were happy that were made images to be worshipped; for their fellows, as good as they, lay for blocks behind the fire: so if we should say, as it were, unto certain words, ‘Stand up higher, have a place in the Bible always’, and to others of like quality, ‘Get ye hence, be banished for ever’, we might be taxed peradventure with St James’s words, namely, ‘To be partial in ourselves and judges of evil thoughts’. Add hereunto that niceness in words⁶ was always counted the next step to trifling,⁷ and so was to be curious about names too: also that we cannot follow a better pattern for elocution than God himself; therefore he using divers words in his holy writ, and indifferently for one thing in nature,⁸ we, if we will not be superstitious, may use the same liberty in our English versions out of Hebrew and Greek, for that copy or store that he hath given us. Lastly, we have on the one side avoided the scrupulosity of the Puritans, who leave the old ecclesiastical words, and betake them to others, as when they put ‘washing’ for ‘baptism’, and ‘Congregation’ in stead of ‘Church’: as also on the other side we have shunned the obscurity of the Papists, in their ‘azymes’, ‘tunic’, ‘rational’, ‘holocausts’, ‘praepuce’, ‘pasche’, and a number of such like whereof their late translation is full, and that of purpose to darken the sense, that since they must needs translate the Bible, yet by the language thereof it may be kept from being understood. But we desire that the Scripture may speak like itself, as in the language of Canaan, that it may be understood even of the very vulgar.

___________

³ Πολύσημα.

⁴ ‘A bed’. Nicephorus Callistus, Ecclesiastica Historia, 8:42 (PG 146:165).

⁵ St Jerome, Commentarii in Ionam, 4:6 (CC 76:414; PL 25:1147). See St Augustine, Epistulae, 71:3:5 (PL 33:242).

⁶ Λεπτολογία.

⁷ Ἀδολεσχία.

⁸ Τὸ σπουδάζειν ἐπὶ ὀνόμασι. See Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, 12:8:4 (PG 21:968), alluding to Plato, Statesman (Politicus, 261e).

– David Norton, Ed., The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible with the Apocrypha: King James Version, Revised edition, xxxiv–xxxv. Hereafter NCPB.

Under the fifteenth and final heading of their preface, Reasons inducing us not to stand curiously upon an identity of phrasing, the translators explain their second and final specific note about procedure (their first note about procedure related to the use of marginal notes, as we explain here). Two issues are taken up. The first issue here is liberty with words, the bulk of the section. It addresses three aspects of this liberty; lack of consistency in how they render certain words and phrases, then, the partiality they showed to some words, and finally, the diversity of words they did choose. The second issue they take up is their choice to reject both Catholic obscurantism and sectarian (Puritan) innovation.

The First Issue – Shunning Consistency Of Rendering, Or Making, “Verbal And Unnecessary Changings”

To the first issue they note,

Another thing we think good to admonish thee of, gentle reader, that we have not tied ourselves to a uniformity of phrasing, or to an identity of words, as some peradventure would wish that we had done, because they observe that some learned men somewhere have been as exact as they could that way.

– NCPB, xxxiv.

Hugh Broughton And The Theological Case For Literal Translation

The Controversialist Hugh Broughton, by John Payne, print, 1620.

They may well have in mind here Hugh Broughton, generally regarded as perhaps the greatest Hebrew scholar of that age. He didn’t end up working on the KJV, (contrary to claims that the KJV companies contained all of the best scholars of the age). He felt that belief in the inspiration and infallibility of Scripture demanded the most literal translation possible. If a Hebrew word or phrase had one meaning, then it should be translated into English only one way, and consistently so throughout the translation. A phrase translated one way in one place should be translated the same way if it occurs in another, unless the intent is different. His concern was deep accuracy to the original text. He set out eight principles of translation in 1597 that he suggested translators should follow, for;

The holy text must be honored, as sound, holy, pure: heed must be taken that the translator neither flow with lies nor have one at all: prophecies spoken in doubtful terms, for sad present occasions, must be cleared by said study and staid safety of ancient warrant: terms of equivocation witty in the speaker for familiar and easy matters, must be looked unto, that a translator draw them not unto foolish & ridiculous senses: Constant memory to translate the same often repeated in the same sort is most needfull.

– Hugh Broughton, An Epistle to the Learned Nobilitie of England...

He was convinced that God had supernaturally preserved every single letter of the Hebrew text in the Masoretic Text (he would later be upset with the KJV translators, presumably partly for how often they emended the Hebrew text with the LXX and Latin Vulgate). The original text must not be trifled with by translators. God cared not only about the sense, and not only about the sentence, but about every single word. God’s text was perfect; “These being matters of Elegancy more than bare necessity, shew that no lesse watchfulness was over the words of sentences. Which thing should move us to hold the text uncorrupt.”

Against those who might maintain (like the KJV translators) that the text had been corrupted and needed restored via textual criticism, Broughton seemed convinced that to say this was to concede to Catholic arguments, “then would the papists earnestly triumph, that we Protestants confess the text to be corrupted: That will I never do, while breath standeth in my breast.” In fact, while the KJV translators would lean most heavily on the 1598 Greek text of Beza, Broughton was convinced Beza and his numerous text-critical notes (which largely shaped the KJV) were an attack on the preservation of the NT text. And to allow the kind of textual criticism that Beza employed was to give in to the Catholics, and to give up the faith altogether;

If the text of the New Testament be corrupt, it can not be from God. But Th. B. [Theodore Beza] spent sixty years to prove that it is most corrupt, & hath full many long speeches to prove that, and triumphet what infinite variety of copies he hath seen, and him you hold your chief…Therefore by this doctrine your New Testament should not be from God: for God would keep that which he gave, as our Hebrew to every yod.”

– Hugh Broughton, A Require of Agreement…1611.

He drew a theological connection between the inspiration and preservation of Scripture, and a literal translation of it. Because of his high views of the perfection of every sentence, word, and even letter of the text, he was passionate that the translator must be exactly literal with the text. He must be consistent in how he renders each word. In his fifth rule for translators, he noted; “The next point that I am to handle, is most pleasant: and the missing in it argueth not want of learning, but of leisure. It containeth constant memory to translate the same often repeated in the same sort: and the differing repetitions likewise with their differences.” Translators who weren’t always literal and consistent in translating the same phrases or words the same way were, for Broughton, traitors to the pure text of Scripture.

The Disagreement Of The KJV Translators

Yet the KJV translators explicitly disagreed. They do note that when their conscience compelled them they would be consistent; “Truly, that we might not vary from the sense of that which we had translated before, if the word signified the same thing in both places (for there be some words that be not of the same sense everywhere), we were especially careful, and made a conscience, according to our duty” (NCPB, xxxiv.).  But they simply didn’t feel the need for the kind of literalism with words that Broughton and others were advocating. They felt more liberty than that, and, ” asserted their freedom to use the target language, English, creatively, refusing to be ‘tied’ to any ‘uniformity of phrasing,’” as Wilcox notes.

They provided a few illustrative examples. But they chose as illustrations some of the mildest examples of a class which primarily includes far more extreme instances. Thus, while the heading refers to “phrasing” being varied, and while their practice shows entire sentences rendered differently, their provided examples all relate only to a single wordbeing translated with two different single words. Their actual liberties were much more drastic than this statement might lead us to believe.

“The Translators To The Reader” serves as the Preface to the KJB.

To note one line of evidence, F.H.A. Scrivener counted 8,422 marginal notes in the original 1611 KJV, of which 4,223 provide more literal translations (part of their regular acknowledgement that the text was not as literal as it could be), and 2,738 provide “alternate” translations to those provided in the text. And they are far from noting every such case in the margin. These humble whispers (explained in the prior section of the preface that we don’t cover here, listed out in the full exposition of the preface linked to above) assure us that the translators entertained no notion that the renderings of the KJV were the only accurate ones, or the most exact, or most literal, that could be made.

But that we should express the same notion in the same particular word, as for example, if we translate the Hebrew or Greek word once by ‘purpose’, never to call it ‘intent’; if one where ‘journeying’, never ‘travelling’; if one where ‘think’, never ‘suppose’; if one where ‘pain’, never ‘ache’; if one where ‘joy’, never ‘gladness’, etc.; thus to mince the matter, we thought to savour more of curiosity than wisdom, and that rather it would breed scorn in the atheist than bring profit to the godly reader.

– NCPB, xxxiv.

They believe that to “express the same notion in the same particular word” every time that notion occurs in Scripture would be to “mince the matter.” It would be a scrupulous over-attention to details. In their opinion, this would be to “savor more of curiosity than wisdom,” and such an approach they wholly reject. (The word “curiosity” is an archaic way to refer to scrupulousness.) They are speaking about “pedantry,” or “literalism.” In fact, they feel that to seek such literalism would cause the KJV to be scorned by atheists, and render less help to the Christian reader. They are not tied to uniform phrasing, but rather express the freedom and liberty which they felt with words. They are concerned to communicate the content and ideas of Scripture, not its exact words.

They draw an analogy from Paul’s words about Christian liberty in Romans 14. He argued that the Christian had liberty in issues like Jewish dietary laws. He could keep them or not. Christians shouldn’t fight about them, because we have liberty to do as we please, following only our own consciences. Paul advocated liberty, “for the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” The translators felt a like liberty to render words however they saw fit. No one should argue about precise verbal forms. That’s not the stuff the Kingdom is made of. They defend, “this apparently bold method—potentially tampering with the Word of God—in a series of rhetorical questions” (Wilcox), and so they ask;

For is the kingdom of God become words or syllables? why should we be in bondage to them if we may be free? use one precisely when we may use another no less fit as commodiously?

– NCPB, xxxiv.

Their point of course, as Wilcox explains, is that, “those preparing the new biblical version should not be bound or limited in ways that would reduce the power of the divine word; their text can express spiritual matters and achieve its impact through their exercise of discriminating linguistic taste.” They have and intend to use a greater freedom with language than many would consider appropriate when dealing with the word of God, should precision be the highest goal. But for them, “Mere precision of language is set against the greater value of ‘fit’ words and the choice of ‘commodious’ English vocabulary—that is, those words most likely to profit the reader’s soul.”

Historic Examples When Liberty With Words Caused A Stir

They then provide two examples from church history where liberty with words in translation had caused quite a stir. Their point is to show that the objections against them for not being scrupulously literal are nothing new, and are to be expected. They are well aware that people get somewhat emotionally attached to the Scriptures in a certain verbal form and, as they mentioned earlier, “cannot abide to hear of altering.” They know they will be accused of “meddling with men’s religion” by all the liberties they take with the original text. In the two examples they provide, minor and insignificant verbal changes had caused a stir. The stir about their even greater liberty with words is thus to be expected.

First comes an example from a Bishop Triphyllius in the late IV century, who had substituted a different word in an exposition of Mark 2:9. The phrase “take up thy bed and walk,” using the word krabbaton for bed, had apparently been presented in an exposition using instead the word skimpous for bed. They have a slightly different nuance, but the same basic meaning. However, according to the story as recounted in Nicephorus, St. Spyridon had harshly rebuked the Bishop for not being exact with the words of Scripture. Or, in the words of the translators, “A godly Father in the Primitive time showed himself greatly moved, that one of newfangledness called krabbaton, skimpous, though the difference be little or none…”  They regard the rebuke of St. Spyridon as unnecessary.

Second comes a more well known example from the Latin Vulgate of Jerome. The translators refer in the margin both to a text in Jerome’s commentary on Jonah that mentions the incident and to Augustine’s epistle to Jerome which recounts it. The Old Latin texts, translated from the Greek LXX, had apparently used the word “cucurbita” or “gourd” for the description of the plant in the text in Jonah 4:6. But when Jerome produced his revision of the Latin, going back to the Hebrew, he had determined that the Hebrew word more properly was hedera or “ivy.” Augustine had described the situation in his letter to Jerome;

St. Augustine, by Sandro Botticelli.

“A certain bishop, one of our brethren, having introduced in the church over which he presides the reading of your version, came upon a word in the book of the prophet Jonah, of which you have given a very different rendering from that which had been of old familiar to the senses and memory of all the worshippers, and had been chanted for so many generations in the church. Thereupon arose such a tumult in the congregation, especially among the Greeks, correcting what had been read, and denouncing the translation as false, that the bishop was compelled to ask the testimony of the Jewish residents (it was in the town of Oea). These, whether from ignorance or from spite, answered that the words in the Hebrew manuscripts were correctly rendered in the Greek version, and in the Latin one taken from it. What further need I say? The man was compelled to correct your version in that passage as if it had been falsely translated, as he desired not to be left without a congregation,—a calamity which he narrowly escaped.”

– Augustine, Epistle 71.3.5

Or, in the translators’ words, “…and another reporteth, that he was much abused for turning Cucurbita (to which reading the people had been used) into Hedera.” They conclude that their own “verbal and unnecessary changings” will of course meet similar opposition, “Now if this happen in better times, and upon so small occasions, we might justly fear hard censure, if generally we should make verbal and unnecessary changings.”  This is what they claimed to have done. They have changed the words of the text in places where change was not needed. And they are aware that some will oppose this. David Norton, expert historian of early English Bibles, explains that, “In this the translators were following the example of their predecessors and also reflecting a certain looseness in the spirit of the age. Variety of translation is at one with the tendency to inconsistent phrasing of quotations from the Bible evident in the preface itself and in a number of seventeenth-century writers.” But as he notes, “a large number of scholars came to think, with Broughton, that inconsistency was a mistake. The preface to the RV NT calls it ‘one of the blemishes’ in the KJB, and the RV followed the opposite policy.” He goes on to provide an illuminating example;

An example will help to demonstrate this. One of the KJB’s most famous lines, ‘consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin’ (Matt. 6:28), is also rendered, ‘consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not’ (Luke 12:27). The second version is little known and inferior as English. As translations, they render different Greek verbs with the same English word, ‘consider’. The first variation (‘lilies of the field’, ‘lilies’) exactly reflects a difference in the Greek: the resonant phrase exists because of literal translation. The last part of the sentence is identical in the Greek of both gospels… but the KJB in one instance produces the memorable cadence of ‘they toil not, neither do they spin’ and in the other more accurately reflects the structure of the Greek in the staccato pair of parallel phrases, ‘they toil not, they spin not’. Thus three aspects of the KJB translators’ work can be seen in this one example: failure to distinguish between different words in the original, literal translation happily producing a phrase of memorable quality, and varying translations in one case producing another such phrase. There is no way of knowing if the last variations were produced for literary reasons, or even, if they were, which version the translators actually considered the better: they could have argued for the parallelism of Luke’s version.

The fact that the translators deliberately adopted this policy of inconsistency (even if only because of precedent) is the only evidence that shows a sense of responsibility towards the English language. However, the passage from the preface does not show genuinely literary motives, even if it lays open the way for choice of vocabulary on literary grounds. The concern is still with precision. ‘Fit’, as has been shown, does not carry aesthetic connotations, and ‘commodiously’ is used in the sense of usefully or beneficially for conveying sense. A similar point is made by Ward Allen about the final phrase quoted: ‘by niceness Dr Smith means the domination of thought by words rather than the domination of words by thought, or exactness’ (Translating for King James, p. 12).

– Norton, David, A History Of The English Bible As Literature, pp. 68-69.

Some Examples Of Liberty With Words

It may be instructive to examine a few examples from their work of what they mean by the “verbal and unnecessary changings” which they have made (I am indebted to Bishop Ellicott for many of these examples);

OT Passages Rendered Inconsistently In The NT

Many examples could be provided here. Gen. 15:6 is quoted (probably from the LXX) three different times in the NT (Rom. 4:3; Gal. 3:6; James 2:23), always with identical wording (only the word order differs). But each time, the translators have slightly varied the way they translated it;

– “Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.” (Jam 2:23)

– “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” (Gal 3:6)

– “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” (Rom 4:3)

Deut. 32:35 is quoted twice in the NT (Rom. 12:19; Heb. 10:30), probably from the LXX, (the form is different still from the Hebrew MT, and the KJV translation of it), both times in the same words in the Greek text, but rendered differently both times in KJV;

– “For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord.” (Heb 10:30, KJV)

– “For it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” (Rom 12:19, KJV)

Psalm 95:11 is quoted (from the LXX) by the author of Hebrews twice, and the text is verbally identical both times (3:11 and 4:3).  But the translators made the choice to render the same quotation in two different ways.

– “So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.” (Heb 3:11, KJV)

– “As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest…” (Heb 4:3, KJV)

The English reader who does not understand the liberty they have taken with words might think these quotation to have occurred in two different forms. Yet this is not the case. When KJVO folks challenge me to prove “even one error of translation in the KJV” I usually point them to these two passages. We have here exactly the same Greek text, yet KJV translators translated the exact same text in two totally different ways in two different passages. Nor could one claim that different authors are interpreting the text in two different ways, for the author and context is identical. Since the KJV renders both passages differently, if literal and exact translation is the standard of measure, then they are undeniably mistaken in at least one of these translations.

Intentionally Repetitious Language Rendered Variously

Numerous such passages exists. In Rom. 4, the same Greek lemma for “accounting” occurs 11 times, meaning the same thing in each case. Paul intends the repetition to show that the same “counting” that was given to Abraham is given to all who come to Christ by faith. But the translators chose three different words variously to translate it with here; sometimes as “counted,” other times, “reckoned,” others, “imputed.” Paul’s point is to build the connections between his use of the word – consistency is important to his meaning. Yet the English reader who was unaware of their liberties might think there to be three different Greek words here, and thus miss the connections Paul is making.

In Rom. 7:7-8, the verb for “covet” and its noun form is repeated by Paul to make a point. Yet it is translated variously as “lust,” “covet,” and “concupiscence” by the translators, ignoring the fact that it has the same meaning in each place. They have created variety where Paul intended to create repetition. The reader who was unaware of their liberties with words, or who took the words of their translation too seriously, might easily miss Paul here.

In I Cor. 3:17, Paul uses a play on words when he writes, “If any man destroy the temple of God, him shall God destroy,” using the same word twice. He even arranges the words next to each other in the sentence to highlight his wordplay. But the translators translated the first as “defile” and the second as “destroy.” Inconsistency is created where Paul intended consistency to make a point.

Throughout II Cor. 1 the pair of words for “comfort” and “affliction” are intentionally repeated and paired against each other numerous times by Paul. Yet the translators variously render these same two words as, “comfort,” “affliction,” “tribulation,” and “consolation” in the passage, creating variety where there was none in the original, and losing Paul’s rhetorical impact.

Mark used the adverb “immediately” some 42 times throughout his gospel, connecting the various narratives with a consistently vivid pace. But what Mark in most cases intends as a regular literary device, the KJV’s liberty with words has obliterated. It varies the translation of Mark’s adverb by variously translating with;

– “immediately” (commonly)

– “straightway” (Mk. 1:10, 18, 20-21; 2:2; 3:6; 5:29, 42; 6:25, 45, 54; 7:35; 8:10; 9:15, 20, 24; 11:3; 14:45; 15:1)

– “forthwith” (Mk. 1:29, 43; 5:13)

– “anon” (Mk. 1:30)

– “as soon as” (Mk. 1:42; 5:36; 11:2; 14:45)

The English reader unaware of the liberty with words that the translators took could easily miss Mark’s intentional repetition of the same word for literary effect. They have created a variety that the original text simply did not have.

Identical Gospel Parallels Rendered Inconsistently

One might also note parallel passages that occur in the gospels, where the wording between the Evangelists is identical in Greek, but where the KJV has translated the texts differently. These might give the mistaken impression to the English reader of greater variance between the gospels than actually exists in the Greek text being translated. A few examples (from hundreds) make the point;

– Mt. 4:6/Luke 4:10 – concerning/over

– Mark 1:17/ Matt. 4:19 – follow/ come ye after

– Matt. 10:14/Luke 9:5 – the dust/the very dust

– Matt. 10:22/ Mark 13:13 – he that endureth to the end shall be saved/he that shall endure the same shall be saved

– Matt. 17:19/Mark 9:28 – apart/privately

Various Other Inconsistencies

Consider the one Hebrew word sometimes translated, “face.” Strong’s lexicon lists only two basic definitions for the word with a variety of applications of those definitions;

(1) “The face (as the part that turns); used in a great variety of applications (literally and figuratively)”

(2) “also (with prepositional prefix) as a preposition (before, etc.)”

Modern lexicons like HALOT, with slightly more scholarly nuance, list some 15 basic meanings, with slight distinction among each. Yet this one word was rendered some 83 different ways by the KJV translators. Surely, in so many instances of this word in the Hebrew Bible, it has several different meanings, and good translation respects this. But there are clearly not eighty-three distinctly different meanings of the word. The English reader who wasn’t aware of the translator’s liberty with words might easily think some eighty different words to occur in the original text. But he would be mistaken. This is rather another instance of their taking liberty with words. We could raise a similar point with the example of the Hebrew word for “hand.”

Or, from another direction, there are some 45 distinctly different Hebrew and Aramaic words, (and around 12 different Greek words) that are simply rendered with the single English word “destroy” in the KJV (see a full list here). This failure to be more precise obliterates the various nuances and distinctions that the original language texts employed between these words. Yet in other passages, the translators have used some 80 different English expressions to render these same Hebrew and Aramaic roots, so it is not as if they didn’t have a store of English words to present the distinctions of the original with. They were creating what they called, “verbal and unnecessary changings.” The English reader who didn’t understand the liberty they took with words might think every occurrence of “destroy” in its different forms to have meant the same thing to the original readers. But this would not be the case.

The Greek word elpis occurs fifty-four times in the Greek text of the KJV NT. It is rendered, “hope” fifty-three times. Yet in Heb. 10:23, it is inexplicably (mis)translated, “faith” (against all earlier English translations, and against all lexical sense). This is so absurdly inconsistent that it is usually concluded to be simply a printing mistake never corrected in the KJV (except in Scrivener’s CPB edition). But Norton in the NCPB retains the reading of the 1611 edition (“faith”) noting;

This could be a printer’s error because of ‘faithfull’ later in the verse, but the 1611 reading has been accepted by most editors.

Whether an accidental error that remains uncorrected in the KJV, or another example of their “liberty,” it nonetheless reflects their inexactness, which changes the meaning of the author’s text.

Gerald Hammond demonstrates at length that the KJV was far more consistent in such linguistic issues than the English translations that came before it (though less consistent than those that came after it). In fact he ultimately concludes that the KJV’s consistency of style is “why it kept so powerful a hold over English minds for the next three hundred and fifty years” (Gerald Hammond, The Making Of The English Bible, pg. 233). But even in a work positing such a bold thesis, he qualifies that, “We should not assume that the translators aimed for complete consistency” (pg. 199), noting that, “The Authorized Version makes no special attempt to maintain a complete consistency of rendering where one English word is, wherever contextually possible, used to translate one particular Hebrew word.” (pg. 201-202).

In each of these cases, and thousands more that we could list, it becomes clear that the KJV translators did not feel tied to a particular verbal form for their translation. They did not seek to be verbally exact or verbally consistent in their translation. They explained this from the very start so that no one would take the words of their translation too seriously. As Alister McGrath explains;

The translators also avoided what—at least, to them—seemed a wooden and dogmatic approach to translation, which dictated that precisely the same English words should regularly be used to translate Greek or Hebrew words. The preface sets out clearly the view that the translators saw themselves as free to use a variety of English terms…

This principle suggests that the translators saw variety as a means of enhancing the beauty of the text, by avoiding crude verbal repetitions. Yet it must be pointed out that this principle led to some quite puzzling consequences. The translation of Romans 5:2–11 reveals this concern to ensure variety. According to the King James Bible, Paul and his colleagues “rejoice in hope of the glory of God… we glory in tribulations… we also joy in God.” The same Greek verb—which would normally be translated as “rejoice”—is, in fact, being translated using different words (here italicized) in each of the three cases. There can be no doubt that this flexibility allowed the translators to achieve a judicious verbal balance that enhanced the attractiveness of the resulting work. Yet inevitably a price was paid for this in terms of the accuracy that some had hoped for.

– McGrath, Alister. In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture, pp. 193-194.

Election And Reprobation Of Language – “Unequal Dealings” With Words

Having explained their intention to make “verbal and unnecessary changings” they then take up in the preface the second issue in their liberty with words; the reason they often chose one English word or phrase but rejected another. Using an interesting analogy from a philosopher’s comment, they build a vivid picture. Imagining a forest of trees, the philosopher reflects on the fact that some of these trees will be shaped into idols by pagans to worship. But ironically, some of these very same trees will be turned into firewood to be burned. In a somewhat arbitrary choice, some trees have a destiny as worthless as firewood, and other of the exact same trees have a destiny as an object of worship. The translators draw an analogy to their sometimes arbitrary choice of one word over another. Perhaps from the doctrine of election, the translators suggest that they have been quite partial in “electing” some words to become part of biblical language, and “damning others” to remain only part of the common but not biblical vocabulary. They conclude by quoting James and asserting themselves as judges of words;

We might also be charged (by scoffers) with some unequal dealing towards a great number of good English words. For as it is written of a certain great philosopher, that he should say that those logs were happy that were made images to be worshipped; for their fellows, as good as they, lay for blocks behind the fire: so if we should say, as it were, unto certain words, ‘Stand up higher, have a place in the Bible always’, and to others of like quality, ‘Get ye hence, be banished for ever’, we might be taxed peradventure with St James’s words, namely, ‘To be partial in ourselves and judges of evil thoughts’.

– NCPB, xxxiv.

Freedom In Wording – Rejecting “Niceness In Words”

In the third aspect of the liberty they have taken with words, they point out the abundant store of linguistic vocabulary that has been furnished for them by God in English, and even the pattern He has set by varying in Scripture the language He uses to describe things, with an apparent indifference (they think) to the exact wording. In rejecting a focus on words that they consider, “trifling,” they believe they are actually following God’s example;

Add hereunto that niceness in words was always counted the next step to trifling, and so was to be curious about names too: also that we cannot follow a better pattern for elocution than God himself; therefore he using divers words in his holy writ, and indifferently for one thing in nature, we, if we will not be superstitious, may use the same liberty in our English versions out of Hebrew and Greek, for that copy or store that he hath given us.

– NCPB, xxxiv.

Thus, in this section dealing with their desire to “use the same liberty in our English versions” and to not tie themselves to a “uniformity of phrasing,” they have made it clear that they feel free to make “verbal and unnecessary changings.” They are “admonishing” the reader to be careful not to focus too much on the precise words of their translation; they certainly did not. They are more concerned with the message than the exact verbal form. They are not bound by exactness of words, and they don’t want the reader to be either.

For is the kingdom of God become words or syllables? why should we be in bondage to them if we may be free, use one precisely when we may use another no less fit, as commodiously?

– KJV Translators

The Second Issue – Creating A Vulgar Version, Or, Speaking in “The Language Of Canaan”

After explaining in three parts their liberty with words, they then take up briefly the second issue concerning their handling of words, which is the balance they sought between traditionalism and obscurantism. They sought to stand between tradition and innovation. For the most part, their translation will retain traditional and familiar language, eschewing any innovation, and trodding the already the well-worn verbal paths of prior English versions. But there are other ways in which they will blaze new trails with their work.

This Bible was new and at the same time not new, presented as the sacred word for the future and yet full of deliberate archaisms and links with previous versions. The KJB’s compromise between the given past and the ordained future may be seen in the detail of the revisers’ choices: the voices of Tyndale and Coverdale, the tones of the Roman Catholic Douai Bible, and phrases of the Protestant Geneva Bible are all to be heard within the verbal echo-chamber of the KJB, yet it has its own distinctive cadence and blend of vocabulary, particularly in areas of Jacobean theological controversy such as priesthood and the church. Ironically yet typically, the engraved title-page of the New Testament in the KJB is actually borrowed from the last edition of the old Bishops’ Bible (1602), asserting visually as well as verbally the new Bible’s acknowledged line of inheritance.

– Wilcox, The KJB In Its Cultural Moment

KJV NT title page, repurposing a woodcut from the 1602 Bishops Bible.

We won’t examine this section of the preface in detail here, though it is worth noting. They rightly understood that these are two sides of the same issue, and that wise translation should seek a medium between the two. Translation should be into the vulgar tongue, or the language of the common man. The goal should be to make the Bible understood. But a translator can find a ditch on either side, becoming either too novel or too obscure. All translation seeks to lessen the distance between the modern reader and the original one. Yet in our attempt to speak a contemporary word, we dare not speak a faddish one. They shun both what they consider sectarian (that is, Puritan) novelty, and Catholic obscurantism. They would rather avoid both extremes, and speak instead the language of the common man.

Lastly, we have on the one side avoided the scrupulosity of the Puritans, who leave the old ecclesiastical words, and betake them to others, as when they put ‘washing’ for ‘baptism’, and ‘Congregation’ in stead of ‘Church’: as also on the other side we have shunned the obscurity of the Papists, in their ‘azymes’, ‘tunic’, ‘rational’, ‘holocausts’, ‘praepuce’, ‘pasche’, and a number of such like whereof their late translation is full, and that of purpose to darken the sense, that since they must needs translate the Bible, yet by the language thereof it may be kept from being understood. But we desire that the Scripture may speak like itself, as in the language of Canaan, that it may be understood even of the very vulgar.

 – NCPB, pg. xxxiv–xxxv.

As Mark Ward has noted at length in “Authorized,” (and Noah Webster in his own work cited at that link), their translation today, however valuable, can no longer accomplish this, their ultimate stated goal in translation. Indeed, as I note in my review at that link, they probably missed that mark the very first and only time they drew their bow, however carefully they may have aimed for it.

Advocates for Literal Translation, Modern And Ancient

Contrary to what is sometimes alleged, the KJV does not represent a perfectly “literal” translation of the text with unflinching exactness. And this is not some accident, mistake, or failure on the part of the translators. Rather, the inconsistency of rendering was a stated intention of the KJV translators who took great liberty with words. Anyone who wants to insists today that every single word of the KJV represents exactly the way it “should” be rendered in English, or wants to argue about the exact phrasing or wording of the KJV will find the greatest objectors to be the Translators themselves. They would no doubt be saddened by those who have made the kingdom of God into words and syllables, and who have taken their words so seriously.

Contrary to what is sometimes alleged, the KJV does not represent a perfectly ‘literal’ translation of the text with unflinching exactness.

But if someone does oppose translators taking this kind of liberty with the text in translation, it is informative to note that some translations today do not take such license. The ESV, for example, in its passion for what its translation committee refers to as “essentially literal” translation, has rejected the precedent of liberty set by the KJV here. In their preface they explain;

The ESV is an “essentially literal” translation that seeks as far as possible to reproduce the precise wording of the original text and the personal style of each Bible writer….Every translation is at many points a trade-off between literal precision and readability, between “formal equivalence” in expression and “functional equivalence” in communication, and the ESV is no exception. Within this framework we have sought to be “as literal as possible” while maintaining clarity of expression and literary excellence. Therefore, to the extent that plain English permits and the meaning in each case allows, we have sought to use the same English word for important recurring words in the original; and, as far as grammar and syntax allow, we have rendered Old Testament passages cited in the New in ways that show their correspondence. Thus in each of these areas, as well as throughout the Bible as a whole, we have sought to capture all the echoes and overtones of meaning that are so abundantly present in the original texts.

Leland Ryken notes that this is one of the clearest differences between the KJV and the ESV. To be sure, the register of the English style, and the text-critical differences between the Greek text of the KJV and the Greek text of the ESV create the largest amount of what little difference there is between the two versions. But if one sets the text-critical advances behind the ESV to the side, it is the consistency of the ESV that appears as the starkest difference between the KJV and ESV;

The most obvious difference between the KJV and the ESV centers on the issue known today as concordance. Concordance in this case means using the same English word for a given Hebrew or Greek word every time (or nearly every time) it occurs in the Bible. Concordance was a high priority for the ESV translators. This was inevitable because of the commitment to verbal equivalence. The King James translators did their work at a moment in history when the English language was expanding at an unprecedented rate and when excitement about the burgeoning possibilities of language ran high. It was a time of lexical and linguistic exhilaration. This is the context for the famous statement about synonyms that appears in the preface to the KJV: [He then cites the passage we quoted above.] The decision to multiply synonyms reflects Renaissance exuberance over words and is not governed by fidelity to the biblical text. It is my impression that the decision of the King James translators to provide variety rather than consonance for a given Hebrew or English word makes the KJV a less literal translation.

The ESV parts company with the KJV on this issue. The goal of the translators was to maintain as much concordance as possible (only occasionally departing from it). The preface states, ‘We have sought to use the same English word for important recurring words in the original.’

There is a complex additional dimension to concordance, namely, making New Testament quotations from the Old Testament as parallel as the original text allows. The ESV translators strove for concordance on this matter also. In the words of the preface, “As far as grammar and syntax allow, we have rendered Old Testament passages cited in the New in ways that show their correspondence.

– Ryken, Leland. The ESV and the English Bible Legacy, pp. 103-104.

Whether Ryken and his translation philosophy is the best one is not the point here. That is a hotly contested issue in translation today. The point here is that if one believes that the most literal translation is automatically the besttranslation, then the ESV seems to have an upper hand over the KJV. In fact, every single one of the examples of inconsistency I’ve listed above, (and thousands of others I’ve not mentioned) is corrected in the ESV. Claims that the KJV is the “most literal” or “the most exact” are simply not accurate. In fact, this is a moniker that should go to an interlinear text rather than a translation to begin with. Beyond that, it should certainly go to woodenly literal translations like the Young’s Literal Translation of the TR, or at best works like the NASB, before it would go to the KJV. Broughton would be proud.

Personally, I am of the opinion that while literal translation has a distinctly important place in English Bible translation, we lose the value of a different kind of accuracy when we prioritize a literal approach over a more functional approach. We should value both. As NT Wright has well noted,

There are at least two sorts of accuracy. The first sort, which a good Lexicon will assist, is the technical accuracy of making sure that every possible nuance of every word, phrase, sentence and paragraph has been rendered into the new language. But there is a second sort of accuracy, perhaps deeper than this: the accuracy of flavour and feel. It is possible, in translation as in life, to gain the whole world and lose your own soul – to render everything with a wooden, clunky, lifeless ‘accuracy’ from which the one thing that really matters has somehow escaped, producing a gilded cage from which the precious bird has flown. Such translations – the remarkable Revised Version of the 1880s might be one such [he later lists an example from the KJV as another] – are of considerable use to the student who wants to get close to the original words. They are of far less use to the ordinary Bible reader who wants to be grasped by the actual message of the text.

– NT Wright, The Monarchs and the Message.

This is one reason why I don’t think anyone should only use the KJV, or only use any one translation. The wisest Bible readers read from different translations that come from opposing ends of the spectrum. But for those who prioritize literal translation, hopefully this note has shown that the KJV does not automatically hold the position of being most faithful to a literal translation philosophy.

Of course, modern scholars like Ryken are not the only ones who oppose the carefree approach of the KJV. As we noted above, Hugh Broughton had been advocating for a decade before the birth of the KJV that a translator must be literal and consistent. He wrote a letter to the translators during their work to provide them more advice. Norton summarizes;

It was perhaps his last attempt to influence the KJB, if only by opening the way for post-publication criticism… ‘We should’, he continues, ‘by common consent, for near tongues, express this variety, that the holy eloquence should not be transformed into barbarousness. By right dealing herein, great light and delight would be increased. The Hebrew would be in honour among all men when the inimitable style should be known how it expressed Adam’s wit’ (Works, III: 702). At the back of this lies an equation between literal translation and eloquence in translation: the translation would be eloquent not as English but as Hebrew and Greek in English….

Much of Broughton’s work was ignored. But however little the KJB translators responded to its detail, it contributed significantly to the intellectual atmosphere of the time by encouraging a reverence for the eloquence of the original without arguing for an equivalent eloquence in English, but above all by demanding the whole truth and arguing that it could only be revealed through the closest attention to the words and syllables of the perfect originals.
– Norton, David. A History, Page 60.

But the KJV translators shared neither Broughton’s view of the perfection of the original text, nor his conviction that such a view of the Bible required a meticulous consistency in rendering. And so they pressed on in the employment of their more carefree principles.

How did he feel about the final product? He read the the new translation, and immediately sent the King his conclusions. He raised ten points of contention against it; it weakened the doctrine of the deity of Jesus, failed to respect the purity of the original text, mistranslated portions, created contradictions in the text, etc. And so on he went, ironically, briefly employing many of the same objections raised against modern versions by some advocates of the KJV. (They would find an ally in his arguments, if not for the fact that the conclusion of their use of the arguments was the very object of his attack by them.) They had essentially broken every rule of translation he had been urging over the previous decades. They had failed—intentionally—to be fully exact with the original language text, which he felt was the true mark of faithful translation. He shared his final evaluation of the KJV in the strongest of words;

The late Bible, Right Worshipful, was sent me to censure [examine]: which bred in me a sadness that will grieve me while I breathe. It is so ill done. Tell his Majesty that I had rather be rent in pieces with wild horses, then any such translation by my consent should be urged upon poor Churches….Bancroft raved. I gave the Anathema. Christ Judged his own cause. The New edition crosseth me, I require it be burnt.

– Hugh Broughton, A Censure of the Late Translation, 1611.

Fortunately, not all copies of the KJV were burned when it appeared. Instead, it eventually became the standard English Bible, a place it held for some 200 years. As I have noted elsewhere, this was due less to its merit as a translation and more to the political and economical maneuvering of those who most profited from it. But nonetheless, it came to mark the English world, and had an influence on the English language second only to Shakespeare. It remains to this day a helpful translation that is still in use and still conveying the Word of God with beauty to many an English reader. In fact, it is quite likely the most elegant English translation that will ever be produced. I often suggest that every single English reader should own and use a copy of the King James Bible (though I don’t think anyone should only use a KJV).

But one can’t help but wonder – how much of the “strangeness” that makes the voice of the King linger in our ear, and in our hearts, is due to those “verbal and unnecessary changings” which the translators have made with such liberty? How much of their (arguably unintentionally) elegant and beautiful prose is a result of their inexactness of translation? Norton noted one example above (Matt. 6:28) where their less literal translation rendered the memorable and poetic line that has stuck with us far more than its more literal brother. How many more such examples could be provided?

Has their controversial linguistic liberty become the genius of their literary legacy?

In circles that defend the KJV as the preserved Word of God for the English speaking people, one occasionally sees claims that modern translations have “deleted” Acts 8:37 from the Bible. Ironically, the KJV is often claimed to be a “Baptist” Bible. It is sometimes then claimed that modern translations have removed the verse (hereafter vs.) to appease “the Vatican” or “baby sprinklers,” and to “remove Believer’s Baptism from the Bible,” (since without vs. 37 no confession of faith is explicitly required of the eunuch). Similar accusations abound (like here, here, here, and scores of other places). I won’t address a defense of Believer’s Baptism here. I have good and godly friends on both sides of that question. For most who defend the KJV, it can be assumed as a given. But what of such accusations?

R. B. Ouellette’s A More Sure Word is a more careful work. He avoids the egregious errors of many such accusations, a fact for which I am grateful. But Acts 8:37 in modern translations is still used as an example of, casting “doubt” on the “availability of Scripture.” He envisions a situation like this;

Another problem of doubt that stems from the use of modern Bibles is the doubt cast upon the availability of Scriptures. Imagine that you are in a church setting. The preacher, who is reading from a King James Bible, says to turn in your Bible to Acts 8:37. Imagine you are trying to follow along with him in a New American Standard Bible. Finally, you are able to find the passage. This particular vs. is relegated to a footnote at the bottom of the page and is not in the text…These are just a few of the scores of verses that are missing from the Critical Text, and subsequently from the translations that descend from it. When a layman reads statements like, ‘This verse is not found in the best manuscripts,’ doubt is placed in his mind as to the availability of Scripture. Also, the question of these being the ‘best’ manuscripts is a biased statement that is highly in question by those who study the facts.

(pg. 59-60)

Most modern translations do contain the vs., but in a footnote (as Ouellette’s story admits) due to its dubious textual support [1]. But is placing the vs. in a footnote like this really, “casting doubt upon the availability of Scripture,” as Ouellette alleges? Or is it just being honest with the data? He takes issue with a claim that Acts 8:37 (hereafter Ac.8:37) is not found in “the best” manuscripts (though see the ESV’s footnote to vs. 36, which is actually far more graciously worded). I have no doubt his objections come from a sincere heart. But the truth is, this vs. is not found in the majority of manuscripts (hereafter abbreviated MSS.). It’s not in the Byzantine MSS. [2]. It’s not present in any of the earliest MSS. In those that do have it, it’s sometimes only in the margin as a marginal comment. Further, its not in any of the MSS. that Ouellette himself would in other places identify as most important.

I set out the external evidence for the textual variant in Ac.8:37 in a chart, using standard abbreviations, and data from standard apparatuses. [4] The numbers in the “Greek” columns are standard GA numbers by which we refer to the Greek MSS. of the NT. (Don’t be scared of the word “Greek” – all actual Greek and Latin text will be restricted to the endnotes for this blog post. You’re Welcome.) Each number stands for one of our Greek MSS. of the NT. The other two columns represent its presence or absence in ancient translations of the NT (Vers.) and quotations of the NT by ancient writers (Pat.), which serve as secondary witnesses to the form of the text.

Note that the chart is divided into two basic parts; on the left side is evidence for the shorter reading, where the text goes straight from what we call vs. 36 to what we call vs. 38, not containing what we call vs. 37. But note that NT verse divisions didn’t exist until 1551 when Stephanus put them in his text, thus its not a matter of these MSS., “taking out a verse,” but rather of having a shorter as opposed to a longer form of the text.

On the right side of the chart is the evidence for the longer reading (including what we now call vs. 37). I have further divided this section into two parts, for a simple reason. Technically, instead of two sections, the chart should have 22 different sections examining the 22 different forms that Acts 8:36-38 is found in. But few would claim that vs. 37 is authentic, but that the KJV form of it is in error. So usually, there are only two forms of the text being defended – the KJV form, and anything that is not like the KJV form. While there is a variety of evidence that has some form of vs. 37 in the text, I have divided this evidence into that which supports the KJV/TR form, and that which would suggest that the KJV/TR is in error, or is too partial to be used to support the full TR form. See the details of the chart in the Excel file here.

The Greek Evidence For / Against The Verse

We have today some 5,874 extant Greek NT MSS. (counting the INTF’s official GA numbers – the actual number of MSS., when duplicates etc. are accounted for, is slightly lower). Most of them do not contain the entire NT. About 660 MSS. contain all or parts of the Book of Acts. Ac.8:37 is found today in only 64 of the later extant Greek MSS. of the book of Acts. With many variations, it is found in the text of;​

It is also found in a variety of different forms in the margins of minuscules 88, 221, 429, 452, 628, 1877, 1892, 2544, and 2816. Further, of these MSS. that do have it, it occurs in a total of 12 different basic forms, with a variety of minor variations between witnesses to each form. If minor differences like a single word count as a different form, then there are 22 distinct forms. [5]

The entire vs. is completely absent from the majority of extant MSS. of Acts. [6] More important to most textual critics (with some exceptions), the vs. is absent from the oldest MSS. (see the upper left corner of the chart) that are generally considered most important. Of the 660 MSS. of the Book of Acts extant, (minus those that don’t contain this section of Acts) the vs. is absent from;

Understand – the number of Greek New Testament manuscripts that contain the exact wording of the Textus Receptus of Acts 8:37 is precisely one.

Incidentally, passages like this one (and hundreds of others we could look at) reveal that when someone claims that the KJV is based on “the majority of manuscripts,” or that “the majority of manuscripts support the KJV,” they are, quite simply, either ignorant, or dishonest. The number of Greek New Testament MSS. that contain the exact reading of the Textus Receptus of Ac.8:37 is exactly 1 – minuscule 1883 – dating from the 16th century. One doesn’t have to count well to see that “1”  is not a “Majority” of 660.

Much more could be said about secondary evidence in the chart for/against authenticity. It’s not my goal here to argue that issue. You can see a slideshow of my arguments for why it is not authentic here. There is some very early patristic support for some form of the passage (that is, places where church Fathers quote the text), in Irenaeus and Cyprian. James Snapp is one of very few textual critics who advocates for the verse today, primarily on the basis of the patristic evidence. His argument is cogent. He technically defends a form of the text different than that found in the TR, and thus would still conclude that the KJV is in error, as I understand him.

When I share the textual data with those defending the KJV, they universally defend the KJV reading. The evidence is, they say, clearly convincing in favor of the KJV. Usually, seeing the chart above, they tell me that it is Cyprian and Irenaeus that they find so compelling. Interestingly, in most passages they find the reading of the majority of MSS. compelling enough to ignore all data that opposes it, but in this case they find the text of these two solitary Fathers weighty enough to overturn the reading of the vast majority of both early and late manuscripts. The problem with such a procedure is that they don’t find Irenaeus or Cyprian to be such weighty witnesses anywhere else in their text.

In fact, ironically, in exactly every single place that Irenaeus or Cyprian disagrees with the KJV, they find them untrustworthy. And even when they both agree together, but against the KJV, their witness is suddenly suspect. For example, in Acts 4:12, the KJV reads, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” But both the Latin text of Irenaeus, and the text of Cyprian (according to the UBS 5 apparatus), in unity, omit the first clause, and only read, “For there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Here, just a few chapters before these twin writers become unimpeachable in Ac.8:37, every KJV defender would conclude that these two Fathers cannot be trusted, even when they speak in unity, and that the majority of Greek MSS. (which agrees here with the KJV) is clearly most important.

One could be forgiven for suspecting that it isn’t the weight of these two Fathers that actually compels their defense of Acts 8:37, but a willingness to champion exclusively whatever evidence supports the KJV. Whether they realize it or not, this suggests that the KJV itself is really the only textual evidence that counts, and that other witnesses will be championed, or ignored, based solely on whether they agree or disagree with the KJV.

How The Verse Was Added To The KJV

It might be quite instructive to see how the vs. got into the KJV. The 1611 KJV did not translate directly from Greek manuscripts. The 1611 KJV is a revision of the 1602 Bishop’s Bible, which is one of a number of revisions of Tyndale’s 1534 NT, which had translated the 1522 edition of the Greek/Latin diglot of Erasmus of Rotterdam, first printed in 1516.

The KJV of course doesn’t always follow the Erasmus text. It is an eclectic combination of readings from different texts. But the KJV form of the text here comes from the Greek/Latin text of Erasmus printed in 1516. By contrast, the Compultensian Polyglot printed in 1514 did not include the vs., [7] as it was not in the commonly used Greek manuscripts. Thus, in terms of the history of printedGreek texts, there is a longer history of not including it than there is of including it (which makes claims about it being the “preserved” reading all the more odd). Here’s Erasmus’ 1516 text, the first Printed Greek text to add the vs. to the text, Erasmus 1516 Text of Acts 8:37 (Click links for image). Here’s his annotation explaining with the text in 1516 that he didn’t know of any Greek MSS. which had it in the text, 1516 Erasmus Annotation. He notes that the vs. (consisting of two sections) “is not found in the Greek Manuscripts,” [8] but he thinks that the Greek scribes have accidentally left it out (since it is in the Latin Vulgate he is using as a base), and so he suggests, “However, I think the omission was the result of negligent scribes.” [9] He then notes, “On the other hand I did find the reading in a certain Greek Manuscript, but only in the margin.” [10] He additionally notes in his later editions (in response to criticism by Stunica and Lee) [11] that it’s not found in Chrysostom, and not in the Spanish edition, though it was added to the Aldine edition (which he does not realize is in fact simply his own 1519 Greek text reprinted by others). However, it was in the copy of the Latin Vulgate that Erasmus had. We even know the exact form of the Vulgate Erasmus used, since he printed it alongside his own Latin translation and Greek text in his 1527 edition. [12] In his edition of the Greek/Latin text of Erasmus for Acts, Brown notes of the vs.,

Erasmus did not find this verse in his [codex] 1 or 2815, but derived the wording [13] from the margin of [codex] 2816: see [his annotation], where he suggests that it was originally omitted by scribal error… Consequently, he inserted a caret mark at the end of vs. 36 in [codex] 2815, accompanied by a symbol in the margin, to indicate that an addition was required. The subject was further discussed in his [letter to Lee] LB IX, 207 CE. [14]

Thus, Erasmus added it to his Greek text, not on the basis of a single Greek manuscript (none of the ones he had access to had it in the text), but on the basis of its presence in the Latin Vulgate, which he felt was vindicated by its presence in the marginal note of a single Greek manuscript, (Minuscule 2816). The manuscript that Erasmus had which has the text in the margin is viewable here;

Note the absence of vs. 37 from the text, and its presence in the margin. Erasmus made a rather premature judgment that its omission in the few Greek MSS. that he had access to was an accidental scribal error. He should be forgiven for such a judgment, as he was working with less than 1% of the amount of manuscript evidence we have available today.

When Lee criticized him for including the vs. here, because it wasn’t the reading of the Greek manuscripts, Erasmus responded;

Here Lee inveighs against the Greek manuscripts for no reason whatsoever. I had pointed out that in some Greek manuscripts one or two lines are lacking, but I also state that in my opinion they were omitted by the carelessness of scribes and I added them [adieci] because I had found them written in the margin in another codex. What is Lee’s complaint here? Nothing is missing, not even in the first edition.

In other words, from his very first edition he gave both readings through the use of the annotation, so how can Lee complain? One or the other reading is surely right. This is the basic point of using marginal notes – to make sure the reader has the right reading either in the text or note.  He continues,

My annotation attests that some codices were defective, but that another came to the rescue. Is the fact that a corrupt passage is found in one or two manuscripts reason enough for not putting our trust in Greek manuscripts? Who would be so stupid as to trust one single codex in this kind of business? I am speaking as if it were an established fact that the Greek manuscripts are defective here. Yet the Greek exegete Chrysostom does not touch on the passage I have indicated is missing. I had published two editions before his commentaries provided me with support in preparing the third. But in the conclusion of this annotation Lee is more civil than he usually is in other passages. He says we must not trust Greek manuscripts unless we find that Jerome or one of the other old exegetes agrees with them. But that is the method I use in this whole work.

Erasmus often ignores the Greek MSS. on the basis of the Latin Vulgate or Patristic citations alone in constructing his text. He does this throughout his whole New Testament. He actually thinks it’s silly to demand that one follow only the Greek manuscripts. With one caveat: if the oldest copies of the Latin Vulgate agree with the readings of the Greek manuscripts, that combination is his most certain witness that the reading is correct. [16]

However, when Erasmus added the vs. to his text, since he added it in the form found in his copy of the late Latin Vulgate, not from the marginal note in 2816, he actually created a form of the text almost unknown in Greek. [18] This is the form that then became transmitted in the various editions of the TR, and then translated into the KJV. But as we saw above, this actual form of the text has only ever been found in 1 Greek manuscript, from the late 16th century, minuscule 1883 (and if one were technical about “every jot and tittle,” like the movable ν, then even 1883 differs from the TR form, which is then entirely unrepresented in any Greek manuscript). It does have some early support from Patristic citations and from some of the ancient versions (some Latin manuscripts, for example, as well as the later Armenian and Georgian versions), but the KJV/TR form of the vs. is not now and never was, so far as we can see from extant evidence, the common reading of the Greek manuscripts.

F. H. A. Scrivener (the man who edited the first printing of the Greek text behind the KJV in 1881) suggested long ago that it was likely simply a marginal explanatory note that was accidentally inserted into the text. He noted that often marginal notes could accidentally move into the text, like in I John 5:7. He explains;

A shorter passage or mere clause, whether inserted or not in our printed books, may have appeared originally in the form of a marginal note, and from the margin have crept into the text, through the wrong judgment or mere oversight of the scribe. Such we have reason to think is the history of 1 John v. 7, the verse relating to the Three Heavenly Witnesses, once so earnestly maintained, but now generally given up as spurious. Thus too Acts viii. 37 may have been derived from some Church Ordinal… [19]

Whether it is or isn’t original is not so much the point here. My point is that it is not a majority text reading, and that one should be consistent in invoking evidence. Further, one should be especially careful, when selectively presenting only evidence that favors one position, about making accusations. And even more, one should be careful of accusing someone of trying to “delete” a passage, when the accused are actually simply trying to present the evidence honestly. Moses required 2 or 3 witnesses to establish an accusation (Deut. 19:15), and there is wisdom in such a practice.

Baptismal Regeneration In The KJV

Erasmus The Roman Catholic – Editing The Greek Text To Affirm Infant Baptism

Erasmus Against Anabaptistism

Perhaps more pertinent to such accusations is a separate issue altogether; that of the duplicitous nature of such an claim. The notion that modern versions remove Ac.8:37 in order to remove Believer’s Baptism from the Bible is nothing short of absurd, and, frankly, has things backwards. Erasmus, the editor of the Greek text that essentially (though not exactly) lies behind the KJV, was a Roman Catholic Priest who believed firmly in Infant Baptism. His 1516 Greek text was dedicated to Pope Leo X, and when the Pope responded with a letter of commendation to Erasmus, he printed the Pope’s letter at the front of his 1519 and all subsequent editions (see letter here, or a snippet on the left – it is translated in CWE 3).

That Erasmus as a Roman Catholic Priest affirmed infant baptism should go without saying. But there are absurd claims that Erasmus “basically became a Baptist” floating around. For example, in Sorenson’s “Touch Not The Unclean Thing,” (pg. 191-193, the entire relevant section of which is absent a single primary source), the author claims that what Erasmus taught concerning baptism, “…is perilously close to, if not synonymous with, Fundamental Baptist theology. It certainly was Anabaptist doctrine.”) Thus, it should perhaps be demonstrated.

Erasmus himself argues against the Anabaptist practice of adult baptism in his commentary on Psalms 83. He asks, “Who is the evil genius who bewitches the wretched Anabaptists?” He goes on to explain that infant baptism stems from the Apostles. His argument is that Paul’s baptism of three families, (Crispus, Gaius, Stephanus, I Cor. 1:16; 16:15) and the Philippian Jailor and his whole family (Acts 16:32-24), plus Peter’s baptism of Cornelius and his whole household (Acts 10:24-48), surely included baptizing infants, since, “these families were likely to have a child or even several children.” [20] In a letter printed in his 1527 edition of the NT, Erasmus explained,

Above all we attest and desire that it be everywhere attested that we have never wished to detach ourselves by a finger or by a finger-nail from the judgment of the Catholic Church. If by any chance anything implying the opposite should be found, it was not said on purpose but involuntarily – for we are only human, and we wish that it should be considered retracted.

[21]

While Erasmus was more amenable to some Reformation thought than most Catholics of his day, he remained a committed, ordained, Roman Catholic priest up to the day of his death.

Erasmus Editing The Text

Further, Erasmus sometimes altered the text in support of his theology of baptismal regeneration and infant baptism. In I Pet. 2:2, Erasmus had to make a textual decision about the form of the text. The words, “into salvation” occur at the end of vs. 2 in some manuscripts, while they are absent in others. Erasmus of course only had a few MSS. of I Peter. The Vulgate had the additional words, as did 2816 which Erasmus had. But Erasmus’ text does not include them. He sided rather with Codex 1 and 2815 in omitting these words. One can see the absence of the words reflected in the KJV, “that ye may grow thereby,” and the ESV, “that by it you may grow up into salvation.”

Our concern here is Erasmus’ motive, not exegesis. He explains that he removed these last two words, despite their place in the Vulgate, partly because he felt that these two words would suggest that salvation was only possible for those who had gone on to maturity, which would preclude the salvation of infants by baptism. Erasmus believed that the baptism of infants granted them salvation. He argues that if the text has Peter connecting, “growing” with “into salvation,” then Peter would be suggesting that salvation is not possible for infants, but only for those who have gone on to maturity. He thus removes the words (see his annotation explaining here).  The editor of the ASD volume explains, “…he argues against the additional words, partly on the grounds that ‘infants’ may receive salvation even before they have grown into spiritual maturity.” [20] Here is a Roman Catholic Priest making a textual decision and altering the words of the Greek text that came to inform the KJV, in order to make it conform to his practice of infant baptism and his theology of baptismal regeneration.

Here is a Roman Catholic Priest altering the words of the Greek text that would undergird the KJV to make it conform to his practice and doctrine of infant baptism.

The Anglican KJV Translators – Translating The KJV To Affirm Infant Baptism

 Every one of the KJV translators was an Anglican (almost every one of them were Anglican priests), who all affirmed as their statement of faith “The 39 Articles” of the Church of England, which practiced infant sprinkling. That statement of faith, as worded in that age, had responded against the Anabaptists of the day in two points; first, in Article 38, in rejecting the communal living the Anabaptists urged, and second, in Article 27, in affirming the infant baptism which the Anabaptists had rejected. Here are those statements;

Article XXXVIII – The Riches and Goods of Christians are not common, as touching the right, title, and possession of the same; as certain Anabaptists do falsely boast. Notwithstanding, every man ought, of such things as he possesseth, liberally to give alms to the poor, according to his ability.

—-

Article XXVII – Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christian men are discerned from others that be not christened, but it is also a sign of Regeneration or New-Birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church; the promises of the forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed, Faith is confirmed, and Grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God. The Baptism of young Children is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ.

[Emphasis mine.]

Puritan translations had often departed from the traditional ecclesiastical language of the Catholic Church, like “baptism” which had long had connotations of Infant baptism. They preferred translations like “washings” or “immersions,” which signaled adult immersion, not infant sprinkling. Instead of, “Church” which had long had connotations of in institutional gathering only legitimized by a representative of the Pope, they preferred, “congregation.” But the KJV translators believed in infant sprinkling, and wanted this tradition retained. As they wrote in their preface (penned by Miles Smith), The Translators To The Reader,

Lastly, we have on the one side avoided the scrupulosity of the Puritans, who leave the old Ecclesiastical words, and betake them to other, as when they put washing for Baptism, and Congregation in stead of Church…

In this they are following the rules set out by Archbishop Bancroft, whom King James had appointed over the translation work. His third rule specifically stated, “The old ecclesiastic words to be kept, viz,: as the word ‘Church’ not to be translated congregation etc.” The Anglican Church still practices infant baptism by sprinkling, and the KJV translators intentionally made sure that the KJV would support this view. Every time one reads “baptism” in the KJV instead of “immersion,” they do so because the KJV translators specifically didn’t want their translation to endorse Believer’s Baptism by immersion.

Every time you read ‘baptism’ in the KJV instead of ‘immersion,’ it is because the KJV translators specifically didn’t want their work to endorse Believer’s Baptism by immersion.

KJV Translator Lancelot Andrews

For example, KJV translator Lancelot Andrews explained,

But all the faithful have one beginning in the fountain of regeneration, that is in baptisme, and are all nourished with one nourishment; for they are all baptized into one body by one spirit, and all made to drink of one spirit; therefore they are all one body, and consequently should live in unity one with another.

He further explains that only those who have come into the mystical, universal Body of Christ, can be saved, “So that if a man be out of the body, and be not a member of Christ’s body, he cannot be saved and so Christ himself tells us…” [22] and that this entrance is through Water Baptism and the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, without which a man cannot be saved. Scores of other such references can be found in his works.

KJV Translator John Bois – Editing The KJV To Affirm Infant Baptism

In His Practice

John Bois was one of the KJV translators. If you hear people talk about “child prodigies” working on the KJV who knew Greek and Hebrew as children, it is likely Bois they are talking about. His linguistic skills were the stuff of legends. His good friend, Anthony Walker, wrote a brief biography of his life. In showing the love Bois had for those in his congregation, he records an interesting story about a woman in John’s congregation. They could not locate the record of baptism from her infancy, since she came to the church as an older child. This distressed Bois to no end. Thus, he entreated the church, for decades, to be able to baptize her to make sure of her salvation (and to make her finally able to receive the Eucharist as a believer). They continued to refuse, concluding that she was too old for baptism. But John’s constant fight for her soul eventually won the day (Life of John Bois, vi-4).

In His Preaching

Bois of course defended baptismal regeneration against the Anabaptists of his day who disagreed. He preached regularly, and staunchly, against the Anabaptists (following quotes from, “The Works of John Boys”), calling their ideas, “the factious interpretations of schismatics…all which equal their own fantasies with the scripture’s authority” (pg. 146), and denouncing their anarchy (pg. 266-67), and their “heresy.” These “brethren of separation, as they betray in their name [rejecting baptism of infants], so manifest in their nature, that they want [lack] exceedingly love…howsoever they seem to be of ‘the household of faith,’ it is not likely that they be of the ‘family of love.” (pg. 541.)

As Christ was crucified between two criminals, so, too, “the church is crucified between two malefactors: on the right hand schismatics, on the left papists: the one do untie the bonds of peace; the other do undo the unity of the Spirit” (pg. 735). The Ark is not Christ, but the Church, and only those baptized into it are saved (pg. 274-75).

When preaching on the story of Nicodemus in John 3, he explained, “Except a man be born of water] Some few modern Divines have conceited that these words are not to be construed of external baptism…” He explains that they are mistaken, finally concluding,

that all the Ancients have construed this text, as our Church does, of external baptism….By Baptism then a man is made a member of Christ, a childe of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven: as our Church out of this place teacheth…as the spirit is an inward necessary cause, so the water is an outward necessary means of our regeneration…in this sense the Scripture terms baptism a bath of regeneration, whereby God cleanseth His Church, unto a remission of sins…

He notes that “..the Spirit in this new birth is instead of a father; the water instead of a mother; in this sense the Scripture terms baptism a bath of regeneration, Tit. iii.5, whereby God cleanseth his Church unto remission of sins…” and urges that, “If thou canst get baptism for thy child, despise not this blessed sacrament, for although it be not an immediate cause, yet it is a mediate channel of grace, whereby the mercies of God in Christ are conveyed unto us…” He goes on to explain that, “Baptism is therefore, in this chapter, put before faith; because it must always be before it…” (pg. 562).

He further explains in his sermon on Rom. 6:3 that initially this was done by immersion, but that now, “the minister at his discretion, according to the temper of the whether, and the strength of the child, might either dip it in the water, or pour water upon it. For charity and necessity may dispense with ceremonies, and mitigate the rigor of them in equity” (pg. 629). In preaching on the faith of the Canaanite Woman in Matt. 15, he notes that her faith brought salvation to her child, who hadn’t exercised faith, and allegorizes this to infant baptism, “Christ healed the child through the faith and invocation of the mother…Let no man doubt then but that the prayer and faith of our common mother availeth much in catechizing and baptizing children” (pg. 405). Scores of other such examples can be produced. Bois, like all the other KJV translators, despised the doctrine of the Anabaptists, and preached against it regularly.

In His Translation Work

Bois is further interesting in this regard because of the notes he took during the production of the KJV. When translating I Pet. 3:21 for the KJV, Bois notes that the translators settled on the translation, “answer” in the controversial passage in I Pet. 3:21 precisely because they accepted the interpretation of Tertullian in his treatise on Baptism (echoed by the notes of Erasmus), that while there is nothing magical in the water of the laver which cleanses the body that saves, the vow of baptism is what brings spiritual regeneration. Tertullian had written (ANF, 3, pg. 669-79);

“Happy is our sacrament of water, in that, by washing away the sins of our early blindness, we are set free and admitted into eternal life!”

and,

There is absolutely nothing which makes men’s minds more obdurate than the simplicity of the divine works which are visible in the act, when compared with the grandeur which is promised thereto in the effect; so that from the very fact, that with so great simplicity, without pomp, without any considerable novelty of preparation, finally, without expense, a man is dipped in water, and amid the utterance of some few words, is sprinkled, and then rises again, not much (or not at all) the cleaner, the consequent attainment of eternity is esteemed the more incredible.

And finally,

Thus, too, in our case, the unction runs carnally, (i.e. on the body,) but profits spiritually; in the same way as the act of baptism itself too is carnal, in that we are plunged in water, but the effect spiritual, in that we are freed from sins.

Bois explained that rather than the previous English renderings, like “request,” “promise,” “agreement,” or Tyndale’s, “consenteth,” the translators specifically choose to render the word, “answer” in order to propagate the interpretation that baptism saves at the response of the baptismal vow, and they felt that “answer” would naturally call this to mind. Allen points out how the note by Bois reveals this intention of the translators and explains,

The revisers [the KJV translators] had intended that the reader understand, by the answer [i.e., the thing that saves], the baptismal vow; and certainly the meaning is clear once it is pointed out. The subject of the verse is baptism, which ‘doth also now save us.’ The soul is not saved by ‘the putting away of the filth of the flesh.’ Answerthen, is obliged to refer to the baptismal vow.

[23]

Bois’s note explains that the KJV translators translated I Pet. 3:21 the way that they did specifically so that it would affirm baptismal regeneration.

The KJV translators translated I Pet. 3:21 the way that they did specifically so that it would affirm baptismal regeneration.

The Editors Of Modern Greek Texts

Most of the modern translations listed in the comparison charts in the memes/articles being shared of versions that allegedly “remove believer’s baptism” are translating the Nestle-Aland Greek text. Kurt Aland was the major editor for that text. But he also was one of the most ardent defenders of the position that Believer’s Baptism is the only kind recorded in the New Testament. He didn’t think that this fact by itself invalidated the practice – he was fine with practicing infant baptism; he was just concerned to point out that the NT can’t be used to defend it, sine the NT gives no evidence of the practice. While the standard academic work defending Infant Baptism as a practice in the early church was by Joachim Jeremias, Kurt Aland rose to answer him, and wrote in reply a defense of Believer’s Baptism, that has been for years a standard work defending Believer’s Baptism as the position that was held by the early church.

The Translators of Modern English Translations

Further, when one goes so far as to claim that modern translators are intentionally removing Believer’s Baptism from the Bible, such allegations at some points amount to simple slander. Many of the ESV and NIV translators for example have contributed to standard works today defending Believer’s Baptism For example, Köstenberger and other ESV translators helped to write a major modern work in defense of the doctrine, seen at right. Note that such a work presents a well-reasoned, biblical defense of the Doctrine of Believer’s Baptism, and yet not one of its authors think that Luke wrote what we now call Ac.8:37. But the probably spurious vs. is not at all important to holding the doctrine, and is never invoked in the volume as support.

Conclusion

Allegations that modern translations are trying to remove the doctrine of Believer’s Baptism, while the KJV is trying to keep it, actually have the situation exactly backwards. Such allegations are simply not honest. One may certainly argue that the vs. is genuine if they so choose (note Snapp’s article above). But such accusations often don’t just argue that the vs. is genuine. They presume the vs. to be genuine, then make accusations and insinuations against modern translations and their translators for “removing” or “deleting” it, without close knowledge of the subject at hand. In some forms, this accusation is coupled with a claim that the intention is to remove Believer’s Baptism. In others, it is part of a claim that modern translations are causing “doubt” about “the availibity of Scripture.” I recognize that those that share such claims likely have good intentions. Especially in the case of Ouellette, who avoids some of the sharp edges of such accusations, for which I am grateful. I have noted before that I have great respect for him, and his service to the Lord. But as in so many other cases, he and others have likely read such claims in literature from a more extreme faction, and have shared them without bothering to check the actual data to see if they hold up. They believe they are spreading truth and supporting Scripture. But they have failed to “prove all things” as Paul commanded in I Thess. 5:20. Such accusations are based on misinformation, and are simply false. Spreading such an accusation is spreading not only misinformation, but in some cases, slanderous misinformation which is ultimately divisive. I implore them to delete the memes, articles, and any other form of such accusations, and to stop sharing them. There is no sin in ignorance or misinformation.

But a platform of ignorance and misinformation is a poor platform from which to make accusations against others.

ENDNOTES

[1] The CSB, the NKJV, and the MEV, for example, have the vs. in the text, with a footnote explaining its dubious textual support, much like Erasmus included it in 1516, but noted its dubious support.

[2] A printed Greek text used by the Greek Orthodox Church does contain the vs. It would be a mistake to assume from its presence in that text that it was a Byzantine reading, which it is not. The Greek orthodox Church is well aware that the text they currently use is not truly the “Byzantine” text which they would venerate as inspired, and requested years ago that the INTF would produce a Byzantine text actually based on the available Greek manuscripts. Currently, the INTF has only completed the gospel of John (an early electronic edition is available here http://www.iohannes.com/byzantine/index.html).

[4] Standard apparatuses are those in the NA28, UBS5, CNTTS, and the Greek data comes from the more extensive, Text und Textwert.

[5] The Text Und Textwert volume divides these into 12 basic different forms, if one doesn’t count the minor differences between the sub-forms (i.e., the presence/absence of a single word, difference in word order etc.).

[6] It is absent from the remainder of the some 660 continuous text Greek MSS. of Acts that are extant. The full list of each of these MSS. can be found in the TuT Volume, part 1, pg. 475-79.

[7] Interestingly, since the NT is a diglot presenting the text in Greek and Latin, and attempts to align the lines of text, it makes up for differences in the text length throughout the work by printing what appear to be a long series of consecutive “0”s to make up for the misaligned text. Since the Latin Vulgate text which it prints in the Latin column has the text, but the Greek text (following the Greek MSS. here) doesn’t, the Polyglot fills the section on the Greek side with these 0’s.

[8] non reperi in Graeco codice

[9] Quanquam arbitror omissum librariorum incuria

[10] Nam et haec in quodam codice Graeco asscripta reperi, sed in margine.

[11] See the edition by Hovingh, in Opera Omnia, Ordinis Sexti, Tomus Sextus, pg. 238-39, for brief discussion, who prints the full text of Erasmus’ annotation (with the later additions) as follows,  “Dixit autem Philippus: Si credis etc. vsque ad eum locum Et iussit stare currum non reperi in Graeco codice. Quanquam arbitror omissum librariorum incuria. Nam et haec in quodam codice Graeco asscripta reperi, sed in margine. [CJ Caeterum apud interpretem Chrysostomum haec non adduntur. [D] Nee in aeditione Hispaniensi. In Aldina fuit additum.”

[12] His edition of the late Latin Vulgate read, “Dixit aute Philippus: Si credis ex toto corde, licet. Et respondens, ait: Credo Filiu Dei esse Iesum Christu” which is the exact form he put into his Greek text, and the exact form which then came to be translated in the KJV (Erasmus, Novum Testamentum, 1527 “VVLG. Editio” column).

[13] Brown is actually slightly mistaken at this point, for it is clear that Erasmus derived the “wording” for his insertion from the Vulgate. What he derived from 2816 (in its marginal note) was the boldness to think the Vulgate reading had some basis.

[14] Brown, Andrew, Opera Omnia Desiderii Erasmi, Oridinas Sexti, Tomus Secundas, pg. 293.

[16] See edition of his response edited by Rummel, ASD IX-4, pg. 211.

[17] While 2816 in the marginal note reads, “εἶπε δὲ αὐτῷ, Εἰ πιστεύεις ἐξ ὅλης τῆς καρδίας σου, ἔξεστιν. ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ εἶπεν: Πιστεύω τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ εἶναι τον Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν,” Erasmus, putting into Greek the form found in his Latin Vulgate text, included the text in the form, “εἶπε δὲ ὁ Φίλιππος, Εἰ πιστεύεις ἐξ ὅλης τῆς καρδίας_____, ἔξεστιν. ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ εἶπε, Πιστεύω τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ εἶναι τὸν Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν.” Even had Erasmus followed the form in 2816 rather than the late Latin Vulgate form, that form is only found in two Greek manuscripts.

[18] Scrivener, A Plain Introduction, 4th ed., pg. 8.

[19] Brown, Erasmi Opera Omnia, VI-4, pg. 398.

[20] “Quis autem malus genius effascinauit infelices anabaptistas?…In his familiis probabile est fuisse nonnullos infantes aut pueros.” See full text in ASD V-3, pg. 311-12, linked above.

[21] I have quoted here the translation of the sentence by Menchi in Basil 1516: Erasmus’ Edition Of The New Testament, pg. 220. See the Latin sentence underlined in an original printing here.

[22] See here and in other examples of his works.

[23] Allen, Translating for King James, pg. 27-28.

In our last post we explained the types of marginal notes that were included in the 1611 KJV. A fun quiz testing knowledge of those notes can be taken here. We gave special attention to listing and explaining the marginal notes that related to NT textual criticism. Not everyone felt that such notes were needed, or helpful. Some feared they would cast doubt on the authority of Scripture. So here, we take up the KJV Translators’ own defense of their marginal notes, and break down what they said about them, and why they felt that they were necessary.

The Translators’ Defense Of Marginal Notes

In the third and final stage of preparing the King James Bible, Miles Smith penned the prefatory The Translators To The Reader included in the front matter of the King James Bible of 1611. While Smith penned the work, it clearly intends to set out the attitudes of the Translators as a whole (insofar as there could be unity between members of such a diverse group). In one of the final sections of this Preface, the Translators defended their use of marginal notes, under the marginal heading, “Reasons moving us to set diversity of senses in the margin, where there is great probability for each” (David Norton, Ed., The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible with the Apocrypha: King James Version, Revised edition., Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011, preface contained on pages xxxii-xxxiv). That Preface has been included in David Norton’s New Cambridge Paragraph Bible (described in the video below, by Mark Ward here, and by the editor in an interview now only available in the archive here). A modern summarized paraphrase of the Preface has been helpfully created by Mark Ward here. One of the best reprints of the Preface is that by Rhodes and Lupas here. After a helpful introduction to the Preface, they print the preface in three different forms; the original, in a photographic facsimile, a modern spelling reprint, and a modern English rendering. They also explain obscure references and translate Greek, Hebrew, and Latin phrases.

The Translators first raised the objection in their Preface that providing alternate translations in the margins would threaten the authority of Scripture. The fear on the surface seems reasonable. If the reader can “choose” translations, then the Bible isn’t really the final authority – right? If we give the reader a choice, then he becomes the authority – doesn’t he? Does uncertainty shake the authority of Scripture? They raised the objection; “Some peradventure would have no variety of senses to be set in the margin, lest the authority of the Scriptures for deciding of controversies by that show of uncertainty should somewhat be shaken.” They then decidedly disagreed; “But we hold their judgment not to be so be so sound in this point.” This is the textual absolutist framework that appeared earlier in the preface, simply in different dress. To suppose that the reader must be equally certain about every part of the biblical text is the same “all or nothing” approach to which they had previously objected. They wanted their translation to present uncertainty at some points for a simple reason – the text is uncertain at some points. They pointed out that historically, Christianity has maintained that the Bible speaks clearly in matters of faith and Christian practice (what they referred to here as “hope, charity, and salvation”). Thus, salvation is clearly witnessed to in Scripture. But the corollary some would build from this, that since the Bible is all equally the Word of God, we must have equal certainty about it in every place, did not follow in their minds.

A Complex Sentence

The next sentence, in which they refuted this idea, can appear somewhat convoluted, and this is possibly intentional. It is easily one of the most complex sentences in the entire Preface. Rhodes and Lupas paraphrased it into three separate sentences. It argues against the corollary they had just mentioned. The necessary things are plainly manifest, but “…it cannot be dissembled that…it hath pleased God…here and there to scatter words and sentences of that difficulty and doubtfulness…that fearfulness would better beseem us than confidence…[viz., we are certain of uncertainty, and thus say, with St. Augustine, that] it is better to make doubt of those things which are secret, than to strive about those things that are uncertain.” I give the sentence here as Norton has it;

For though ‘whatsoever things are necessary are manifest’, as St Chrysostom saith,¹ and as St Augustine, ‘In those things that are plainly set down in the Scriptures all such matters are found that concern faith, hope, and charity’:² yet for all that it cannot be dissembled that partly to exercise and whet our wits, partly to wean the curious from loathing of them for their everywhere plainness, partly also to stir up our devotion to crave the assistance of God’s Spirit by prayer, and lastly, that we might be forward to seek aid of our brethren by conference, and never scorn those that be not in all respects so complete as they should be, being to seek in many things ourselves, it hath pleased God in his divine providence here and there to scatter words and sentences of that difficulty and doubtfulness, not in doctrinal points that concern salvation (for in such it hath been vouched that the Scriptures are plain), but in matters of less moment, that fearfulness would better beseem us than confidence, and if we will resolve, to resolve upon modesty with St Augustine (though not in this same case altogether, yet upon the same ground), ‘Melius est dubitare de occultis, quam litigare de incertis’:³ it is better to make doubt of those things which are secret than to strive about those things that are uncertain.

____

1 Πάντα τὰ ἀναγκαῖα δῆλα. St John Chrysostom, In Epistolam II ad Thessalonicenses 2, Homilia 3 (PG 62:485).

2 St Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, 2:9:14 (CC 32:41; PL 34:42).

3 St Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, 8:5 (PL 34:376).

 – David Norton, Ed., The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible with the Apocrypha: King James Version, Revised edition., (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pg. xxxiii.

They marshaled Augustine and Chrysostom to make the point; “For though ‘whatsoever things are necessary are manifest’, as St Chrysostom saith, and as St Augustine, ‘In those things that are plainly set down in the Scriptures all such matters are found that concern faith, hope, and charity.’” The “necessary” things (the essentials, the doctrinal points important to “salvation”) are clearly “manifest” and “plainly set down.” The essentials of the faith are not in dispute due to ambiguity of translation or textual uncertainty. But this does not mean that all of Scripture is thus without such uncertainty. In fact, God has scattered throughout Scripture passages that are “of difficulty.” Some passages are hard to interpret or translate with any conviction. Translation can at times feel like the toss of a coin between various options.

[The marginal notes in the KJB] are a constant reminder both that translation is an inexact process and that the original texts are sometimes uncertain or obscure.

– David Norton

Further, God has allowed there to be here and there scattered passages of “doubtfulness.” Here they were perhaps referring to the form of the original text being in dispute at points. They were well aware that there are textual variants where the precise wording of the originals is in some dispute. As we demonstrated at length in the last post, they noted dozens of these variants in the margins of their text. God has allowed these things to be so, and this “cannot be dissembled [hidden].” Before we look at this sentence, we should look closer at this question of whether or not they reference text-critical issues here in the Preface.

Textual Criticism In The Preface?

Interestingly, Bancroft’s rules for the Translators would seem on the surface to prohibit the practice of raising doubts in marginal notes. His sixth rule had stated directly, “No marginal notes at all to be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek words, which cannot without some circumlocution so briefly and fitly be expressed in the text.” This was a concern raised by the King himself at the Hampton Court Conference in 1604. The all-too enthusiastic agreement of the King to the suggestion of John Reynolds for a new translation had hardly left his lips before he added a caveat aimed at what he thought were the dangerous concessions to treason in some of the Geneva notes. In the words of William Barlow, a Translator present at the conference;

…Marry, withal, he gave this caveat (upon a word cast out by my Lord of London) that no marginal notes should be added, having found in them, which are annexed to the Geneva translation (which he saw in a Bible given him by an English Lady) some notes very partial, untrue, seditious, and savoring too much, of dangerous, and traitorous conceits: As for example, Exod. 1. 19. where the marginal note alloweth disobedience to Kings. And 2. Chron. 15. 16. the note taxeth Asa for deposing his mother, only, and not killing her…

 – William Barlow, The Svmme and Svbstance of the Conference… Early English books online, spelling modernized, (London: imprinted by Iohn Windet and T. Creede for Mathew Law, and are to be sold at his shop in Paules Churchyeard, neare S. Austens Gate, 1604), pg. 46–47.

Yet they seemed to have interpreted his rules to allow for the addressing of at least some text-critical issues. Thus, when the rules were summarized to the Synod of Dort in 1618 on Nov. 20th, Tuesday, a little before noon (in a paraphrased form), one Translator, Samuel Ward, explained several of them and their relation to the varia lectio (variant readings) as follows,

Secondly, no notes were to be placed in the margin, but only parallel passages to be noted. Thirdly, where a Hebrew or Greek word admits two meanings of a suitable kind, the one was to be expressed in the text, the other in the margin. The same to be done where a different reading [textual variant] was found in good copies [manuscripts].

– A. W. Pollard, Records of the English Bible, pg. 339. (See the new critical edition of the Acta here).

While perhaps technically violating Bancroft’s rule by adding notes about textual variants, they clearly broadly interpreted the rule to allow it in at least some cases. Precisely because the summary at Dort specifically mentioned textual variants (and because, as we demonstrated in our last post, they directly raised text-critical issues in their marginal notes), we should expect that in at least some of their statements in this section of the Preface about marginal notes they had in mind both translation difficulties and textual doubts. It is in fact possible that they referred to both, respectively, when they referred to passages of “difficulty” and “doubtfulness” (note for example the regular use of the word in later discussion of textual variants in relation to the Thirty-Nine Articles which expressed the Translators’ own theology).

David Norton suggestively hints at how the marginal notes encourage recognition of textual uncertainty. In the brief section where he treats the marginal notes and how they were handled in the NCPB, he explains that the margin contained, “alternative translations or readings in the original [emphasis mine],” and that the marginal notes, “are a constant reminder both that translation is an inexact process and that the original texts are sometimes uncertain [emphasis mine] or obscure” (David Norton, A Textual History Of The King James Bible, pg. 163). Rhodes and Lupas, while not addressing the issue at length, seem to assume that text-critical issues are in view in this part of the Preface. In the few sentences where they summarize this and the next section of the Preface in their introduction, which address two matters of editorial policy, they explain;

The first concerned the use of marginal notes where there is uncertainty about the wording of the original text [emphasis mine] or about its interpretation. The translators were aware that some persons might fear that such notes would bring into question the authority of the Scriptures, but they were convinced that such notes are necessary. They argued that “God had been pleased in his divine providence to scatter here and there words and sentences that are difficult and ambiguous, [which] do not touch on doctrinal points that have to do with salvation,  but on matters of less importance,” and that in such instances “we should be diffident rather than confident, and if we must make a choice, choose modesty with St. Augustine, who recognized that, ‘It is better to be reserved about things which are not revealed, than to fight about things that are uncertain.’ “

– Rhodes and Lupas, The Translators To The Reader, pg. 3

It would seem then that what the Translators say in this section of the Preface dedicated to marginal notes applies not only to areas of difficulty in translation, but also to those of text-critical uncertainty, or textual doubt. That is, we are reading here the philosophy of the Translators both as translators and as textual critics.

What God Did

To move on to their complex sentence, we note that there are three basic parts to this complex sentence; first, why God has done what he did, second, what He did, and third, the results of Him having done what He did. We note first from the end of the sentence what it is that God has done that they wished to both defend and honor. What did he do? He scattered “words and sentences of that difficulty and doubtfulness” throughout Scripture. Note that they referred specifically both to individual words, as well as to sentences. It is not just an occasional word in isolation about which they were unsure (a conclusion the less-than-careful reader might deduce from their illustrations below). Sometimes it was whole sentences. They immediately qualified that none of these translation difficulties or textual doubts about words and sentences affected doctrine or salvation, but were about “matters of less moment.” Yet they refused to hide the fact that God had done this. It “cannot be dissembled” [hidden or concealed].

Why God Did It

But why did God do this? Why did he leave things uncertain? They provided four purpose clauses giving partial reasons to explain why God has so acted. First, “to exercise and whet our wits.” God gave us brains, and meant for us to use them. Difficulties in text and translation can stir up the curious and give them a desire to dig deeper into Scripture. Second, “to wean the curious from loathing of them for their everywhere plainness.” “Curious” is used in its obsolete sense here meaning, “expert” (OED, A.I.4.). God doesn’t want the sophisticated “experts” to loathe the Scriptures for being too simplistic and plain, so he has weaned them from this folly by placing difficulties and doubts within them. Third, to “stir up our devotion to crave the assistance of God’s Spirit by prayer.” Difficulties and doubts in the text of Scripture force us to rely on God’s Spirit in prayer, rather than our own abilities of understanding.

The fourth purpose clause is somewhat more complex. Fourth (and “lastly”), God did this to humble us. They express this humbling motive as showing itself in two practical results, which are intended to balance against each other. The first is that because of such difficulties in Scripture, we must humble ourselves and seek help from others by discussing Scripture with them. God so acted that we might, “be forward to seek aid of our brethren by conference.” The KJV Translators were convinced that no one should interpret the Bible in isolation from the community of faith. In fact, they were convinced, sometimes we even need the help of scholars to read the Bible well. And we must discuss Scripture, not just read and preach it. Bible readers need help, even from scholars and scholarly discussion.

But the second clause balanced this thought. On the one hand God has humbled the average reader, who needs the scholar. But he has also humbled the scholar. Thus, the second result humbled them that they, “might…never scorn those that be not in all respects so complete as they should be, being to seek in many things” themselves. That is, scholars can’t look down on those unlearned (who are “not in all respects so complete as they should be”). The difficulties of Scripture which they cannot definitively solve constantly remind them that scholars too are ignorant in many areas. Even scholars don’t know everything. All alike stand humbled before the Bible.

The KJV Translators were convinced that no one should interpret the Bible in isolation from the community of faith. In fact, they were convinced, sometimes we even need scholars.

The Results Of What God Did

Having taken up the what and the why of what God indisputably did, they then explained the results of what He did. The entire last section of the sentence, beginning with “that fearfulness…,” explains the end result of God’s action, and their required response to it, which is the whole point of the sentence. The result of God’s action is, “that fearfulness would better beseem us than confidence.” In places of translation difficulty and textual doubt, they refused to speak with unwarranted confidence. Having a text, without a margin, might give the appearance that they had a certainty about the text that they didn’t have. They want to be especially careful not to miscommunicate at this point. The truth is, they weren’t sure in many places which reading or translation to adopt. As their heading to this section made clear, “there is good probability for each.” Thus, they refused to make a firm choice between the two. In fact, they note that if they “will resolve [make a firm choice],” they will make only one such choice; “to resolve upon modesty…” They chose to remain uncertain.

They took as a model in this regard St. Augustine. As they “resolved” to be uncertain, they resolved so, “with St. Augustine.” They supported this with a quote from his unfinished work, On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, though noting that he is speaking in a different context (difficult interpretation of a hard passage, not difficult translation or textual variation). Nevertheless, he spoke, “upon the same ground,” so they quoted him, and translate his words, with which they so agree. For, “it is better to make doubt of those things which are secret, then to strive about those things that are uncertain.” About some passages they were not sure of the text or the translation. In harmony with Augustine, they explicitly wanted their marginal notes to “make doubt” about such places.

…it is better to make doubt of those things which are secret, then to strive about those things that are uncertain..

– St. Augustine

Two Illustrations

They then provided two illustrations of this point. It is interesting to note the kind of illustrations they chose. It is clear by their statements in this sentence, as well as the later sentences under this heading, that they referred to alternate readings, both of textual doubt and translation difficulty. Their summary to the Synod of Dort quoted above makes this even more clear. They referred specifically in the sentence just looked at to words and “sentences.” But in the two illustrations they provided of their practice, they mentioned only individual words, and only of the kind that might be regarded as the least significant of their notes. It is easy to get the impression that they were intentionally downplaying the scope of their marginal doubts.

Their first illustration was from the phenomenon known as “hapax legomenon,” or “words that be used only once.” They printed the Greek phrase in the margin here. While counts vary slightly by method and text, there are something like 686 of these in the Greek NT, and some 1,500 of them in the Hebrew OT (though only about 400 of these Hebrew words don’t have some relation to one another). These words pose a special difficulty for translators, because they typically determine what a word means by examining how it is used in different contexts, by different authors. When a word occurs only once, we have no other examples of its usage in the text (which the Translators referred to as the word, “having neither brother nor neighbor”).

Interestingly, these words were a much greater challenge to Greek translators in 1611 than they are today, as were many linguistic elements. In the early 17th century, many scholars thought that the Greek language of the NT was an entirely different language than the Greek of its own time, sometimes called, “Holy Ghost Greek.” One of the reasons for this was the high number of words used only in the NT, and so many used only once. However, we later discovered thousands of papyri from the same era, and Adolf Deissmann published his magisterial work, “Bible Studies” in 1895, showing by comparison of these thousands of papyri with the NT that this entire idea was flawed. The language in which the NT was written was not a unique language invented by the Holy Ghost specifically for biblical revelation; it was the common language of the everyday man. Nonetheless, such words, though much better understood today, were a great challenge to translators of the NT in the early 17th century. This is why the Translators noted that, “There be many words in the Scriptures, which be never found there but once, (having neither brother nor neighbor, as the Hebrews speak) so that we cannot be helped by conference of places.”

Their second illustration came from zoology and geology. In many cases, they just didn’t know what animal, precious stone, etc., was being referred to in a particular biblical text. Many ancient commentators were not particularly helpful, as they often said something with a show of certainty, but without the knowledge to back it up. While we have much advanced today in our understanding of geology and zoology in the biblical references, there was a great ignorance of such subjects in 1611. The Translators admitted this, and mentioned the specific problem this posed for them as Translators. They noted, “Again, there be many rare names of certain birds, beasts and precious stones, etc. concerning which the Hebrews themselves are so divided among themselves for judgment, that they may seem to have defined this or that, rather because they would say something, than because they were sure of that which they said, as S. Jerome somewhere saith of the Septuagint.” It is noteworthy again that both of the illustrations of marginal notes given by the Translators here (hapax legomenon and an admitted ignorance of natural history) make up only a small section, and perhaps the most insignificant section, of the marginal notes which they actually included with the text of the 1611.

Avoiding Presumption

Having given two illustrations (of the actually much broader) types of marginal notes they employed, the Translators then made their point, and explained their logic. They noted, “Now in such a case, doth not a margin do well to admonish the Reader to seek further, and not to conclude or dogmatize upon this or that peremptorily?” When one is not sure what they text says, or what the text means, it would be dishonest for the reader to draw a conclusion based on the Translators’ fallible translation peremptorily. It would be better that they not “conclude” or “dogmatize” upon the translation difficulties and textual doubts. Note that they presumed the presence of error in their work here. If they had felt that they had not made errors, it would not be preemptory to conclude and dogmatize, and there would be no need for the reader to “seek further.”

They then explained the reason why this was so. They clearly had in mind the broader type of notes they typically include, rather than just those relating to zoology, geology, and hapax legomenon; “For as it is a fault of incredulity, to doubt of those things that are evident: so to determine of such things as the Spirit of God hath left (even in the judgment of the judicious) questionable, can be no less then presumption.” When God has spoken clearly, and there are no difficulties of translation, and no textual uncertainties about what he said, it would be a sin to fail to believe what God said. It would be unwarranted incredulity, a blatant unwillingness to believe God. But in the same way, in some places the Spirit of God has left the meaning/translation of a text, or its textual veracity, “questionable.” In such cases to “determine;” to conclude or dogmatize; to speak with certainty when we simply don’t have certainty, is, “no less than presumption.” Where God has not given us certainty, it is presumption to pretend (or demand) that we have it.

…to determine of such things as the Spirit of God hath left (even in the judgement of the judicious) questionable, can be no less than presumption.

– KJV Translators

Augustine On The Wisdom Of Uncertainty

They then noted Augustine’s wise words to the same effect, directly applying their thought finally to the addition of marginal notes; “Therefore as S. Augustine saith, that variety of Translations is profitable for the finding out of the sense of the Scriptures: so diversity of signification and sense in the margin, where the text is not so clear, must needs do good, yea is necessary, as we are persuaded.” Augustine knew that there is no perfect way to translate much of Scripture. He had suggested that the wise reader always compare different translations to make sure that he understands the sense of Scripture, not just the interpretation of the translator. Our Translators quite agreed.

It is worth examining Augustine’s context and statement in more depth, since they assumed more knowledge of it than most readers today have. Augustine in his, On Christian Doctrine, explained the ambiguity of signs and idioms. He suggested that one thing that can help a student is to compare multiple different translations. He was not talking about marginal notes of course, but diverse Latin translations of the biblical text. The best thing one can do is to learn the languages. But if a student can’t do this, he should at least compare multiple translations;

About ambiguous signs, however, I shall speak afterwards. I am treating at present of unknown signs, of which, as far as the words are concerned, there are two kinds, For either a word or an idiom, of which the reader is ignorant, brings him to a stop. Now if these belong to foreign tongues, we must either make inquiry about them from men who speak those tongues, or if we have leisure we must learn the tongues ourselves, or we must consult and compare several translators… So great, however, is the force of custom, even in regard to learning, that those who have been in a sort of way nurtured and brought up on the study of Holy Scripture, are surprised at other forms of speech, and think them less pure Latin than those which they have learnt from Scripture, but which are not to be found in Latin authors. In this matter, too, the great number of the translators proves a very great assistance, if they are examined and discussed with a careful comparison of their texts. Only all positive error must be removed. For those who are anxious to know, the Scriptures ought in the first place to use their skill in the correction of the texts, so that the uncorrected ones should give way to the corrected, at least when they are copies of the same translation.

– Augustine of Hippo, St. Augustin’s City of God and Christian Doctrine, 1887, 2, pg. 542.

The Translators have made a strong case to say that when the text is not clear, a marginal note to “make doubt” is the honest way. However, they may have spoken somewhat facetiously here. They by no means notated all of the translation difficulties of which they were aware. And they touched only the tip of the iceberg of the textual doubts that they were aware of, versus what they noted in the margin. In Erasmus’ 1516 edition of the NT alone there were 1000 + annotations (by his own count), many of which dealt with textual variants. There were at least as many in the 1598 edition of Beza that they employed. Almost none of these made their way into the margins of the KJV. In the notes of John Bois, which reflect only one stage of the work, there are multiple textual variants dealt with or mentioned that did not end up in a marginal note. I suspect they noted what they could, perhaps limited somewhat by Archbishop Bancroft’s rule about marginal notes. We might guess that had they notated all places where they were unsure about the text or its translation, their notes could have overtaken the Geneva Bible for scope, and the King and Bancroft might even have censured them and their work. They also probably had little interest in giving great attention to text-critical issues, as the age as whole was less concerned with NTTC until Mills in 1707.

…variety of Translations is profitable for the finding out of the sense of the Scriptures…

– St. Augustine

Conclusion – Wisdom Refuses to Dogmatize In Areas Of Uncertainty​

They concluded this section with a note about Pope Sixtus V, and their disagreements, showcasing again the Protestant nature of their work. Sixtus had commanded that no marginal notes (and no Latin textual variants) be notated in the printed edition of the Latin Vulgate. They noted that the comparison is not identical, because his statement was about the Vulgate, but it is similar.  For, “We know that Sixtus Quintus expressly forbiddeth that any variety of readings of their Vulgar edition should be put in the margin (which though it be not altogether the same thing to that we have in hand, yet it looketh that way), but we think he hath not all of his own side his favourers for this conceit.” Even Catholics did not agree with such a decision, as Erasmus and Valla had shown. They had produced in their editions of the Latin Vulgate notes about textual variants and translational difficulties. If the Pope could truly have spoken ex cathedra as claimed, he of course could have given a final word about all translation difficulties and textual variants. “If they were sure that their high priest had all laws shut up in his breast, as Paul the second bragged, and that he were as free from error by special privilege as the dictators of Rome were made by law inviolable, it were another matter; then his word were an oracle, his opinion a decision.” But they knew this to be only a myth, and they were grateful to God that the Reformation had opened men’s eyes to such nonsense. The Pope is a fallible man – he bleeds. “But the eyes of the world are now open, God be thanked, and have been a great while; they find that he [the Pope] is subject to the same affections and infirmities that others be, that his skin is penetrable, and therefore so much as he proveth, not as much as he claimeth, they grant and embrace.”

They that are wise had rather have their judgements at liberty in differences of readings than to be captivated to one, when it may be the other.

– KJV Translators

The Translators’ concluding thought (if not the exact last words) of this section are, “They that are wise, had rather have their judgments at liberty in differences of readings, then to be captivated to one, when it may be the other.” If there is uncertainty, it is the greater part of wisdom to leave the reader’s judgment at liberty. This is better than to be captivated to one translation, or one decision about a textual variant of alternate translation, when it may well be the other. Their wisdom of respecting the difficulties and uncertainties of Scripture remains a model for all translators today.

 Addendum:

I have mostly shared the slightly modernized form of this section of the Preface from Norton’s NCPB above. Yet some do not like any modernization, while others would prefer more. In the interest of objectivity, the original 1611 section, with no modernization, can be viewed here, on page 15. On Kindle with original spelling it can be found here. And I quote here the full paragraph in the modern English rendering by Rhodes and Lupas. I might quibble at a few points, but for those who find the archaic English hard to get through, this might be helpful. And it’s only fair that the reader see a slightly different handling than I have given above. They render the section as follows;

Reasons for placing in the margin alternative readings having a claim to authenticity

Some persons perhaps would want to have no alternative readings or renderings placed in the margin, for fear that any appearance of uncertainty might undermine the authority of Scripture as definitive. But we do not consider their judgment to be prudent on this point. It is true that “everything that is necessary is obvious,” as St. Chrysostom says, and as St. Augustine says, “the things that are stated clearly in the Scriptures include everything having to do with faith, hope, and love.” And yet the fact cannot be disguised that partly in order to keep us alert and make us use our intelligence, partly to keep sophisticated people from looking down on the Scriptures as too simple for them, partly also to encourage us to pray for the assistance of God’s Spirit, and finally, to make us look actively to our brethren for help through discussion (not looking down on people who are not as educated as they might be, since we too are ignorant in many areas), God has been pleased in his divine Providence to scatter here and there words and sentences that are difficult and ambiguous. These do not touch on doctrinal points that have to do with salvation (because we know that in these the Scriptures are clear), but on matters of less importance. Therefore we should be diffident rather than confident, and if we must make a choice, to choose modesty as did St. Augustine, who said about a situation that was similar though not identical, “It is better to be reserved about things which are not revealed, than to fight about things that are uncertain.” There are many words in the Scriptures which are found there only once (with neither brother nor neighbor, as the Hebrews say) so that help cannot be gained by comparing passages. Again, there are many rare names for birds, animals, and gems, etc., which the Hebrews themselves are so uncertain about that they seem to have defined them one way or another, more because they wanted to say something, than because they were sure of what they said, as St. Jerome says somewhere about the Septuagint. In such cases a marginal note is useful to advise the Reader to seek further, and not to draw inferences or dogmatize rashly about this or that. For if it is the fault of incredulity to doubt what is evident, it can be no less than presumption to be definite about things that the Spirit of God has left (even in the judgment of the judicious) questionable. Therefore as St. Augustine says that alternative translations are profitable for finding out the meaning of Scriptures, so also we believe that alternative readings in a marginal note, where the text is not clear, must not only be good but even necessary. We know that Sixtus V specifically forbids any alternative readings to be put in the margin of their Vulgate edition (and although this is not precisely what we are discussing here, it is close), yet not all of his colleagues are in agreement with him in this. The wise would prefer a freedom of choice where there are differences of readings, rather than be restricted to one when there is an alternative. It would be different if they were made legally inviolate. Then his word would be an oracle, and his opinion a decision. But the eyes of the world are open now, God be thanked, and they have been a great while. They find that he is subject to the same feelings and weaknesses that others are, that he is human. Therefore they will recognize and accept only what he proves, not everything he claims.

– The Translators to the Reader: The Original Preface of the King James Version of 1611 Revisited, edited by Erroll F. Rhodes, and Liana Lupas, American Bible Society (November 1, 2000).

All translators are aware of the ambiguities of translating. No translator can always be sure he or she has correctly understood and correctly rendered the text. There is always interpretation involved. Marginal notes or comments of different kinds have for centuries been a way that translators could express at least some of the uncertainty of translation to the reader. Erasmus used them (as annotations that were like endnotes). Stephanus used them (in the first critical apparatus). Beza used them extensively. Tyndale used them. The KJV is no different. The 1611 KJV contained thousands of marginal notes. And this despite the King’s order against ideologically motivated marginal notes (since he hated the ones in the Geneva that questioned the authority of the monarchy). F. H. A. Scrivener explains;

One of the most judicious of the Instructions to the Translators laid down for their guidance by King James I., and acted upon by them with strict fidelity, prescribed that ‘No marginal notes at all be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek words, which cannot, without some circumlocution, so briefly and fitly be expressed in the text.’ It had by that time grown intolerable, that on the self-same page with the text of Holy Scripture, should stand some bitter pithy comment, conceived in a temper the very reverse of that which befits men who profess to love God in Christ.

– F.H.A. Scrivener, The Cambridge Paragraph Bible: Of the Authorized English Version, xxiv.

Why do they matter? David Norton, editor of the New Cambridge Paragraph Bible, explains;

For a student of the translators, the original notes have a special interest for what they reveal of their understanding of the text and their practice as translators. A general reader should also find them valuable for the closer contact they bring with the original texts. Moreover, they are a constant reminder both that translation is an inexact process and that the original texts are sometimes uncertain or obscure. Consequently they are preserved in The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible.

– David Norton, A Textual History Of The King James Bible, pg. 163

By Scrivener’s count (all the tallies below are his), there are 8,422 marginal notes in the original 1611 KJV, (6,637 OT, 1,018 Apocrypha, 767 NT), and 494 additional ones that were added by the various editors who produced later editions (in 1629, 1638, 1762, and 1769). One modern computer total differs slightly (giving 6,565 marginal notes in the OT, and 777 in the NT, for a total of 7,342 marginal notes, not counting the Apocrypha).

The kind of notes printed in the margin could be categorized several different ways. There are three different symbols (†, ||, *) used to express marginal notes that serve five basic functions. Thus, one could speak of three categories of notes (classifying by symbol or form, as Norton does), or five categories of notes (classifying by basic function). The 1611 in fact includes numerous inconsistencies and errors in its presentation of these symbols. For example, in Gen.17:4, one can see an * meant to indicate a marginal note not included, and while the text has || that indicate a note with an alternate translation or reading, the margin has a † that would indicate a more literal translation. They also often employ the symbols in a rather inconsistent way, and so categorizing by function seems the best track.

The marginal notes have been reprinted in the New Cambridge Paragraph Bible described by Mark Ward here, by myself in the video below, and by the editor in an interview that is now for some reason only accessible in the archive here. They have also been helpfully collected into a single site available here. Links are provided below to the relevant images of 1611 pages.

More Literal Translations

These are prefixed by the dagger sign “†” and then, “Heb.,” “Cal.” or “Gr.” noting a more literal translation of the original languages than was deemed suitable for the text. Scrivener counts 4,111 of these in the Old Testament, (77 of which relate to the Aramaic portions), and 112 in the NT.

For example, in Acts 12:20, the KJV text reads, “the † kings chamberlain.” The cross symbol alerts us to a marginal note, which reads, “† Gr. that was over the kings bedchamber.” The note is pointing out how, literally, the phrase τὸν ἐπὶ τοῦ κοιτῶνος τοῦ βασιλέως would be translated, “the one over the king’s bedroom.” Yet it is clearly an idiom being used as a title, that is, “the king’s chamberlain.” BDAG notes that the word normally meaning, “bedroom” or “bedchamber,” is being “used as part of a title…the one in charge of the bed-chamber, the chamberlain.”

Or, for example, in Acts 19:35, the text reads, “the city of the Ephesians is † a worshipper of the great goddess Diana.” But the † symbol points to a marginal note, which reads, “† Gre. the temple-keeper.” BDAG notes that the word means, “honorary temple keeper,” that is, “one who is responsible for the maintenance and security of a temple: ‘temple keeper.’”  This was in fact the reading of the Bishop’s text they revised. Yet the translators have for some reason chosen to translate the word less literally as “worshipper.”

To take another example, in 1 Peter 3:6 the text reads, “even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose † daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and mare not afraid with any amazement.” Yet the marginal note reads, “† Gr. children.” They are noting that the Greek text literally refers to “children” with the neuter word τέκνα. But they apparently don’t like the suggestion that a text calling for submission after the pattern of Sarah could apply to men, so they have, less literally, rendered the text in the feminine gender. Rather than hide, they alert us to this fact directly.

We could note Rom. 1:4; 6:7; 8:6-7 as other examples. In each of these and many other cases, the note signals not just an alternate translation that might be equally probable, but a more literal translation that they have opted against for various reasons.

Alternate Translations

These are in a sense one part of a larger category of notes dealing with “alternate readings.” These are prefixed by double vertical lines “||” and then, “Or,” noting that there is another equally probable way that the text may be translated other than that expressed in the text. Scrivener counts 2,156 of these in the OT, and 582 in the NT.

For example, in Deuteronomy 28:22 the text reads “sword.” But the double vertical lines “||” alert us to a marginal note, which reads, “|| Or, drought.” This is an alternate way to translate the text (or actually, a different way to point it). The ESV retains an identical note.

Or take 2 Kings 19:25. The KJV text reads, “Hast thou not heard long ago how I have done it, and of ancient times that I have formed it? Now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps.” But the marginal note explains that this could also be translated as, “Hast thou not heard how I have made it long ago, and formed it of ancient times? Should I now bring it to be laid waist, and fenced cities to be ruinous heaps?”

Scrivener noted of the origin of most of these;

Some of these, no doubt, are taken either from the text or margin of the Bishops’ Bible, which had been read in Churches for about forty years when the Authorized Version was made, and which King James had expressly directed ‘to be followed, and as little altered as the truth of the original will permit.’ But far the greater part must be traced to another source, to which adequate attention has not yet been directed. Of the several Latin translations of the Old Testament which were executed in the sixteenth century, that which was the joint work of Immanuel Tremellius [1510–80], a converted Jew (the proselyte first of Cardinal Pole, then of Peter Martyr), who became Professor of Divinity at Heidelberg, and of his son-in-law Francis Junius [1545–1602], was at once the latest and the most excellent.

– The Cambridge Paragraph Bible,  xxvi.

He further took up the allegation sometimes made, that the marginal note almost always provides a better translation than that which they include in the text. Yet he, (rightly) vindicated the Translators against such an extreme charge;

It would be indeed a conspicuous instance of bad judgment on the part of the Translators, if it could be justly maintained that where two or more senses of a passage were brought fairly before them, they mostly, or even frequently, put the worst into the body of their work. But no competent scholar who has carefully examined the matter will think that they have gone so far wrong.

– The Cambridge Paragraph Bible, xxv–xxvi.

Textual Variants / Alternate Textual Readings

These are also in a sense a smaller subcategory of “alternate readings” like the alternate translations above. They are likewise typically prefixed by double vertical lines || and then, “Or” noting that there is a textual variant in the passage, and an equally probable textual form that may better represent the wording of the original autographs. Sometimes instead of “Or,” they are introduced by the phrase, “Some copies read,” and occasionally by a combination of the two, in different orders. Occasionally (apparently by oversight) they are presented with the cross symbol as though an alternate translation. By Scrivener’s count, there are 67 of these in the OT (31 of which express the Masorah textual doubts), and 37 in the NT (15 more were added by the later editors in 1762 and 1769).

Scrivener lists each of the marginal notes which he judges to be raising text-critical issues in the NT, noting that almost all are derived from Beza’s text or notes. I list his references here, linked to 1611 images, and give Scrivener’s brief notes about their origins, when he provides them. I then include a small selection of the 1611 text and the marginal reading in brackets (mostly with modern spelling but not always). I offer these without comment:

• Matt. i. 11 – [KJV 1611 reads “And || Iosias begate Iechonias and his brethren.” The marginal note indicates, “|| Some read, Iosias begate Iakim, and Iakim begate Iechonias.”]
• Matt. vii. 14 – [KJV 1611 reads “|| Because strait is the gate” but the marginal note reads “|| Or, how.”]
• Matt. ix. 26 – “Perhaps αὐτοῦ of Codex Bezæ [D] is represented in the text: ‘the fame of this’ Bishops’”; [KJV 1611 text has “|| the fame,” but the marginal note reads “|| Or, this fame.”]
• Matt. xxiv. 31 – [KJV 1611 reads “with || a great sound of a trumpet,” while the marginal note reads “|| Or, with a trumpet and a great voice.”]
• Matthew xxvi. 26 – [KJV 1611 reads, “Jesus took bread and || blessed it.” But the KJV translators added the marginal note that reads, “|| Many Greek copies have, gave thanks.”]
• Mark ix. 16 – “αὑτούς Beza 1565, afterwards changed by him to αὐτούς”. [KJV 1611 reads “what question ye || with them?” The marginal note of the translators reads “|| Or, among yourselves.”]
• Luke ii. 38 – [In the text of the KJV 1611, the last words of verse 38 are “in || Jerusalem.” In the margin, the translators wrote, “|| Or, Israel.”]
• Luke x. 22 – “The words in the margin are from the Complutensian edition and Stephens 1550.” [In the text of the 1611, verse 22 begins, “|| All things are delivered to me of my father.” In the marginal note, the KJV translators wrote, “|| Many ancient copies add these words, And turning to the disciples he said.”]
• Luke xvii. 36 – [The KJV 1611 has this verse in the text, which reads, “|| Two men shall be in the field, the one shall be taken, and the other left.” Yet the KJV translators explain in a marginal note, “|| This, 36. verse is wanting in most of the Greek copies.”]
• John xviii. 13 – “The words of this margin, except the reference to ver. 24, are copied from the text of the Bishops’ Bible, where they are printed in the old substitute for italic type.” [The text of the KJV 1611 in John 18:13 reads “And led him away to Annas first, (for he was the father in law to Caiaphas) which was the high priest that same year. ||” The Marginal note uses the double line sigla to explain that verse 13 is expanded to contain the statement they have placed in verse 24 reading “|| And Annas sent Christ bound unto Caiaphas the high priest, ver. 24.”]
• Acts xiii. 18 – [The text of the KJV 1611 reads “and about the time of forty years † suffered he their manners in the wilderness.” The Marginal note once again introduces some doubt by the KJV translators, noting, “† Gr. ετροποφοπησεν perhaps for ετροφοφορησεν as a nurse beareth or feedeth her childe, Deut. 1:31. 2 macc 7.27, according to the Sept. and S. Chrysost.” Interestingly, this note is presented with the cross symbol and format as explained above, which might at first appear to be an alternate translation, though it is clearly a textual note.]
• Acts xxv. 6 – [The text of the KJV 1611 reads in the first part of the verse “And when he had tarried among them || more than ten days…” The Marginal note again notes the translators uncertainty by noting, “|| Or, as some copies reade, no more than 8 or 10 dayes.”]
• Rom. v. 17-18 – [The KJV 1611 text reads, “For if || by one man’s offense…” while the marginal note twice explains “|| Or, by one offense.”]
• Rom. vii. 6 – [The text of the KJV reads, “|| That being dead wherein we were held” while in the margins the translators noted, “|| Or, being dead to that.”]
• Rom. viii. 11 – [The text of the KJV reads “|| by his spirit” but the marginal notes states, “|| Or, because of his spirit.”]
• I Cor. xv. 31^{4 –} [The text of the KJV reads “I protest by || your rejoicing” but the margin notes “|| Some read, Our.”]
• II Cor. xiii. 4^{5 –} [The text of the KJV reads, “we also are weak || in him” but the margin notes, “|| Or, with him.”]
• Gal. iv. 15 –  [KJV text, “|| where is then.” Margin, “|| Or, what was then?” Scrivener’s TR includes in his text (purporting to underlie the KJV) the reading that the KJV translators put in the margin, since he felt the reading based in the Vulgate and refused to back-translate, so his text doesn’t match the actual Greek text behind the KJV.]
• Gal. iv. 17 – “ὑμᾶς Compl. Erasm. Steph. Beza 1565, ἡμᾶς Beza 1589, 1598.” [The text of the KJV reads, “they would exclude || you” but the margin notes, “|| Or, us.”]
• Eph. vi. 9 – (ὑμῶν καὶ αὐτῶν Compl.). [The text of the KJV has “|| your master” but the marginal note adds, “|| Some read, both your, and their master.”]
• I Tim. 4:15 – [KJV text, “appear || to all.” Margin, “Or, in all things.” That is, “that your progress might appear to all” meaning Paul wants Timothy’s growth to be seen by everybody, or, “that your progress in all things might be evident” meaning Paul want’s Timothy’s growth to be pervasive in extent. Once again Scrivener’s Greek text agrees with the margins not the text of the KJV, since he felt this was a Vulgate influenced reading.]
• Heb. iv. 2 – “συγκεκραμένους margin, with Compl. Vulg.” [KJV text, “|| not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.” Margin, “|| Or, because they were not united by faith to.”]
• Heb. ix. 2 – “ἅγια text, with Compl. Erasm. Beza: ἁγία marg. with Steph.” [KJV text “|| the Sanctuary.” Margin, “|| Or, holy.”]
• Heb. xi. 4 – “λαλεῖ text, with Erasm. Aldus, Vulg. English versions: λαλεῖται margin, Compl. Stephens, Beza⁶.” [KJV text, “|| yet speaketh.” Margin, “|| Or, is yet spoken of.”]
• James ii. 18 – “χωρὶς text, Colinæus 1534, Beza’s last three editions, Vulg.: ἐκ margin, Compl. Erasm. Stephens, Beza 1565, all previous English versions.” [KJV text, “show me thy faith || without thy workes.” Margin, “|| Some copies reade, by thy workes.”]
• I Pet. i. 4 – “ἡμᾶς Steph.” [KJV text “|| For you.” Margin, “|| Or, for us.”]
• I Pet. ii. 21 – “ὑμῶν Beza 1565, not in his later editions: this marginal note is also in the Bishops’ Bible.” [KJV text “For || us.” Margin, “|| Some reade, for you.”]
• II Pet. ii. 2 – “ἀσελγείαις marg. Compl.” [KJV text, “their || pernicious ways.” Margin, “|| Or, Lascivious ways, as some copies read.”
• II Pet. ii. 11 – “marg. as Vulg. Great Bible.” [KJV text, “|| against them.” Margin, “|| Some reade, against themselves.”]
• II Pet. ii. 18 – “ὀλίγον Compl. Vulg.” [KJV text “who were || clean escaped.” Margin, “|| Or, for a little, or a while, as some reade.”]
• II John i. 8 – “εἰργάσασθε … ἀπολάβητε marg. Vulg.” [KJV text, “which we have || wrought, but that we receive.” Margin, “|| Or, Gained, Some copies reade, which ye have gained, but that ye receive, etc.”]
• Rev. iii. 14 – “margin as Compl., all previous English versions.” [KJV text, “|| of the Laodiceans.” Margin, “|| Or, in Laodicea.”]
• Rev. vi. 8 – “αὐτῷ margin, with Compl. Vulg. Bishops’ Bible.” [KJV text, “|| unto them.” Margin, “|| Or, to him.”]
• Rev. xiii. 1 – “ὀνόματα margin, with Compl. Vulg. Coverdale.” [KJV text, “the || name.” Margin, “|| Or, names.”]
• Rev. xiii. 5 – “margin adds or prefixes πόλεμον to ποιῆσαι of the text, with Compl. Colinæus 1534, but not Erasm., Beza, Vulg. or Revelation English versions.” [KJV text, “given to || continue.” Margin, “|| Or, to make warre.”]
• Rev. xiv. 13 – “marg. ἀπάρτι λέγει ναὶ τὸ Πνεῦμα with Compl. Col.” [KJV text, “|| from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit.” Margin, “|| Or, from henceforth saith the Spirit, yea.”
• Rev. xvii. 5 – “marg. is from Vulg. and all previous English versions.” [KJV text, “THE MOTHER OF || HARLOTS.” Margin, “|| Or, fornications.”]

_____

He notes that the 1762 added fourteen more text-critical notes, and the 1769 added one more;

1762. S. Matt. vi. 1; x. 10; 25; xii. 27 (“† Gr. Beelzebul: and so ver. 24”) now dropped. S. Luke xxii. 42 (incidentally excluding παρένεγκε). Acts viii. 13. Heb. x. 2 (see Appendix E, p. ciii.); 17 (probably from the Philoxenian Syriac version, then just becoming known). James iv. 2, revived from the Bible of 1683 (φθονεῖτε Erasm. 1519, Luther, Tyndale, Coverdale, Great Bible, Geneva 1557, Bishops’, but perhaps no manuscript). 2 Pet. i. 1 (see Appendix E, p. c.). 2 John 12 (ὑμῶν Vulg.). Rev. xv. 3 (ἁγίων text, after Erasm., English versions: the alternative readings in the margin being ἐθνῶν of Compl., which is much the best supported, and ἁγίων of the Clementine Vulgate, of some of its manuscripts, and the later Syriac); xxi. 7 (margin ταῦτα Compl. Vulg. rightly); xxii. 19 (marg. ξύλου for second βιβλίου Compl. Vulg. rightly).

1769. S. Matt. xii. 24 taken mutatis mutandis from the marginal note of 1762 on ver. 27.

– Scrivener, The Cambridge Paragraph Bible, xxxi–xxxii.

Most likely, other examples could be found scattered among the marginal notes of the 1611. Scrivener for example catalogued only some 18 marginal notes in the KJV NT which he considered to be raising textual variants in his “Supplement” to the KJV in 1845, but then counted 35 in 1873 in the introduction to his Cambridge Paragraph Bible, and counted 37 by 1884 in his expanded work on the Authorized Edition. Such a trajectory suggests that even this is not an exhaustive list.

In any case, these represent places where the KJV expressed directly its doubts concerning the wording of the original text. As Nicholas Hardy notes about these marginal notes while arguing that both the KJV translators and its original readers employed a far more critical approach to the text than is often realized today, urging further study of the critical approach of the translators;

There is, moreover, plenty of reason to believe that contemporary readers thought about the King James Bible in a similar way to the scholars who produced it. Indeed, the Bible itself encouraged them to do so, with its paratexts addressing text-critical and other scholarly problems in ways that are still poorly understood.

– Nicholas Hardy, Revising The King James Apocrypha, pg. 311.

Miscellaneous information

There are three basic kinds of information given in this type of note. In the OT, 63 notes give the meaning of Proper names; 240 provide harmonizing information with a parallel text or explanations. In the NT, 35 marginal notes provide miscellaneous information relating to explanations or brief exposition. These can be introduced in almost any of the ways described for the types of notes listed above.

Cross References

These are prefixed with an asterisk (*) and then an abbreviated Scripture reference judged to be relevant to the present context. Scrivener completely redid these for the Cambridge Paragraph Bible, noting that many or most of those included in the 1611 were essentially worthless for the English reader, as they typically refer to the chapter and verse divisions of the Latin Vulgate rather than the chapter and verse divisions of the English Bible they were revising. Latin was the primary language of the translators, and it was in Latin that they read their Bibles, but the regular differences of versification (especially in Psalms) makes the use of Vulgate differences an obstacle for the English reader. He notes, “In fact, more than half the references contained in the edition of 1611 are derived from manuscript and printed copies of the Vulgate Latin Bible, and thus present to us the fruits of the researches of mediaeval scholars and the traditional expositions of the Western Church.” He goes on to explain;

As we cannot praise very highly the typographical correctness of the Bibles of 1611 in other particulars (see p. 8), so it must be stated that no other portion of the work is so carelessly printed as these parallel texts, each issue exhibiting errors peculiar to itself , but few leaves indeed being exempt from some gross fault com- mon to them both. The references to the Psalms direct us constantly to the wrong verse; namely, that of the Latin Vulgate from which they were first derived, not to that of the English Bible on whose pages they stand. The marks of reference from the text to the margin are so often mis- placed, that it would be endless to enumerate glaring errors in regard to them which have long since been removed.

– Scrivener, The Authorized Edition, Pg. 117-118.

Interestingly, Norton notes that when the text was redone for the NCPB, he chose not to investigate or update these marginal notes beyond the work of Scrivener, because of the incredible difficulty of such an enterprise, and because he felt Scrivener had done an inimitable job at the task. Thus the marginal notes of the NCPB are essentially the same as those of the original CPB (Norton, A Textual History, pg. 163-164).

Conclusion

Thus we can see that if we classify by function, there were five basic forms of marginal notes found in the original 1611 KJV. But what was their own attitude towards these notes? To that question we turn in our next blog post, accessible here.

The preface to the Greek Textus Receptus (TR) most commonly used today has been neglected and forgotten. The TR of F. H. A. Scrivener (1813–1891), originally titled, The New Testament in Greek According to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version, Together With The Variations Adopted In The Revised Version contained an original preface which may be read in full here or below. The preface appears to have been printed on Christmas, 1880, though not published till 1881. The text was first printed in 1881, 1883, 1884, 1886, and 1890, with a second edition printed in 1894, 1902, and 1908. Where did this text come from and what was it all about?

[Editor’s note – some updated material, images, and data, were added below updating and expanding the initial post after I obtained a copy of the 2022 TBS TR.]

Creating the Text

F.H.A Scrivener, By Samuel Alexander Walker, published 1874; Licensed for use from the National Portrait Gallery

This Greek text was first printed in 1881 by Cambridge University Press as a companion volume to the 1881 Revised Version, the official revision of the 1611 KJB or Authorized Version (AV). The Revision Company was instructed by Convocation in their General Principles (VIII.4) that “the text to be adopted be that for which the evidence is decidedly preponderating: and that when the text so adopted differs from that from which the Authorized Version was made, the alteration to be indicated in the margin” (Cadwallader, pg. 216). The company tasked Scrivener to “make a list of those places in which the original text approved by the Company differs from the text presumed to be used by the translators of the common version” (CUL MS Add. 6935, f. 34, cited in Cadwallader pg. 91 f.n.13). Scrivener headed the committee on marginalia for the RV and keeping this list was an “explicit task given to him alone by the Company” (Cadwallader pg. 91).

In order to comply with their instructions, as Palmer recorded, “Dr. Scrivener kept the record for the New Testament Revision Company of the readings which it adopted, and prepared the list of these readings which was communicated to the University Presses” (pg. viii). It was concluded that including all these variant readings “would often crowd and obscure the margin of the Revised Version” (see preface below). The University Presses also ended up not including the vast wealth of marginal scripture cross-references which Scrivener compiled, as these too would crowd the margins. See examples of the originally planned crowded marginal references with Scrivener’s numerous notes in page proofs of an early revision dated 1879, BL shelf-mark General Reference Collection 3054.c.1. The Syndics of CUP decided that the best way to comply with Convocation’s instructions was to separately print the continuous Greek text of the AV and set out in the apparatus at the foot of the page alternative readings adopted in the RV.

I John 4:18-5:9 in the 1881 Scrivener TR, bolding textual variants from the 1881 RV which are noted in an apparatus

Scrivener was chosen to edit this text. He couldn’t simply reprint the Greek text of the AV, because the text created by the KJB Translators’ textual choices had never actually been printed. He thus reverse-engineered the Greek text behind the AV. He started with Beza’s Greek NT as a base (the text they had most closely followed), and when the AV disagreed with Beza, substituted whichever form of the antecedent printed Greek texts they appeared to have followed. He then noted at the foot of the page every place where the RV committee made a different textual choice than had been made by the AV committee, causing a difference between their Greek texts, placing the relevant variant in thicker type in the text. The margins of essentially every single page of this TR were thus chock full of text-critical material, and this material was the express purpose of its existence. An example page showing I John 5:7 in thicker type can be seen in a Harvard copy here, or at the right.

Fellow Reviser Edwin Palmer followed a similar but reversed procedure in printing the Greek text of the RV in 1882 for Oxford University Press. He used Scrivener’s critical edition of Stephanus (see below) as a base and altered the text to match the Greek basis of the RV in every place the Revisers had disagreed with the textual basis of the KJB NT, listing in the apparatus:

• Readings of the AV matching Stephanus 1550 where revised by the RV
• Readings of Stephanus 1550 not followed in the AV
• Alternate readings included in the margins of the RV

Cadwallader seems to mistakenly think that Scrivener’s and Palmer’s were the same text, simply printed by the two different presses (pg. 91, f.n. 13), missing that one was the text of the KJB, the other the text of the RV. Palmer’s text of the RV was proof-read and approved by Scrivener, for which Palmer expressed gratefulness (pg. vii-viii).

Because the Translators of the AV sometimes rendered into English (or left in unrevised English) wording that had its source in the Latin Vulgate instead of any then-known Greek, and because Scrivener refused in such places to back-translate Latin or English into Greek, even Scrivener’s text does not exactly represent the text behind the AV. It is, however, the closest to it that has ever been printed.

The Preface Lost

Unfortunately, TBS later reprinted the text itself, from the 1894 edition, with a different (shortened) title. Even when citing the fuller title in a new preface they omitted the latter part explaining that it was printed “Together With The Variations Adopted In The Revised Version.” They omitted mention of its 1881 creation date, citing only 1894 and 1902 editions. These choices obscure its connection to the 1881 RV so clearly expressed in the original title. They entirely omitted Scrivener’s preface explaining the origins of the work. They omitted the apparatus which was the express purpose of the creation of the text; a purpose expressed in the very title of the original work. These are strange editorial choices indeed, which blur the original origins of this text and its connection to the 1881 RV. In a concluding statement in a new 2-page preface the unnamed editors explain:

The present edition of the Textus Receptus underlying the English Authorized Version of 1611 follows the text of Beza’s 1598 edition as the primary authority, and corresponds with “The New Testament in Greek According to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version,” edited by F. H. A. Scrivener, M.A., D.C.L., LL.D., and published by Cambridge University Press, 1894 and 1902.

This was the edition sold and used as the base text at my alma mater which professes that this text preserves, “the very words [God] inspired.” This has the unfortunate result of insulating students from reading the preface. The profession is more difficult to maintain when the full history and late Victorian origins of this text as revealed in the preface are known. Grange Press has printed a beautiful new edition of Scrivener’s text as a reader’s edition which will help students read the text. Sadly, rather than include Scrivener’s original preface they translate the preface to the much earlier 1633 edition of the Elzevir brothers.

A new edition in a beautiful calfskin leather (2022) has been produced by TBS with slightly improved prelims from their older editions, correcting some of the problems in the above paragraphs. For example, it now acknowledges the 1881 date of the original printing. A footnote has been added to the statement cited above now citing the full title. This is something for which all should be grateful. Strangely, this footnote cites the title of the 1902 edition in a format which seems to confuse the data from the CUL catalogue. The particular copy being referred to appears to be CUL BSS.130.F02. The “Uniform Title” in the catalogue for this copy (a technical entry which helps librarians locate an item across various catalogues) in the CUL catalogue, is “Bible. New Testament. Greek. 1902.” This is the title cited in the new footnote in the TBS edition, instead of the full title, which is presented as the title in the catalogue entry which also includes mention of Scrivener as editor. More strangely the format of the new TBS footnote cites both Scrivener and Beza as editors, perhaps misreading the “other entry” section of the CUL catalogue which has both for reference purposes, a choice that suggests a more ancient pedigree than the text actually has.

Oddities continue. The updated TBS preface now concludes not with the statement above, but with a new explanation (rationale?) for printing the text in its current form. The comments are worth citing in full, picking up after the mention of the 1894 and 1902 editions retained from the prior TBS edition (pg. iii):

These two editions differed from the 1881 Scrivener edition in two main ways—any differences that Scrivener purportedly identified Beza’s 1598 edition (and related to the other corresponding Greek editions and available versions, such as Stephanus 1546, in the Appendix found in both Cambridge editions) are not indicated in the actual text and thus it is not intended for textual study. Furthermore, the differences with the Greek underlying the Revised English Version of were not marked in bold type. This clean text (with any spaced type removed in the TBS edition) fits with the purpose of the Trinitarian Bible Society edition: to provide an edition of the Textus Receptus for use by translators, ministers, Bible students, and Christians around the world, rather than a textual study or comparison to the Revised Version or any other version.

A reader could be forgiven for not fully grasping what is said here. First, a minor point – the 1894 and 1902 printings of Scrivener’s AV text are not “two editions” but two identical printings of the same edition. The same CUL catalogue entry from which the TBS editors have apparently taken the Uniform Title and Beza as an editor describes the 1902 edition as:

An exact reprint of the edition of 1894, which was a revision of the Greek Testament with the same title published by Scrivener in 1881 (D. & M. 4915), in which he attempted to present the Greek text (in the main that of Beza) which presumably underlies the A.V. of 1611, and to record at the foot of each page the variations adopted by the Revisers of the Revised English Bible of 1881.

Second, the “two main ways” these two printings are said to differ from the 1881 need explanation. The 1894 edition added a note, printed Christmas 1893, which can be read in full at the bottom of this post, explaining two differences in this second edition. The first main difference is that in the first edition of Scrivener’s TR (1881 and later printings) the places where the Greek text of the KJB differed from that of Beza’s 1598 edition were marked out in two ways:

• An appendix listed each of them, material originally compiled for Scrivener’s work on the 1873 CPB (see below) and sketched out there in parts 1 and 2 of Appendix E. Notable differences reveal continuing work. (The entry on I John 2:23 matures for example.)
• In the text itself wherever one of these differences occurred, an asterisk * was added in the text itself.

In the 1894 edition (reprinted 1902, 1908) the asterisks were removed. The appendix was retained. However, TBS imparts a motive to this change distinctly different from that actually cited by the editors of the 1894 text. For TBS, this change means that this new edition “is not intended for textual study.” But quite the contrary, the original editors explained that this change was made because it was redundant. It was not “thought necessary” to retain the asterisks, because, “the Appendix, which is retained, sufficiently [shows] the passages in question.”

The second main difference between the two editions of Scrivener is that in the first edition (1881) textual variants between the KJB and ERV are marked out in two ways:

• An apparatus at the bottom of the page list each difference for that page.
• Each reading was placed in “thicker type” (essentially bold) within the text itself.

I John 4:18-5:9 in the 1894 Scrivener TR. Bolding has been replaced by spaced type which signals textual variants from the 1881 RV which are also noted in the apparatus.

In the second edition, the apparatus remains the same, untouched. In the text itself, “in lieu of using thicker type to indicate readings which have not been used by the Revisers,” the editors adopted “spaced type.” That is, within a word that is a variant from KJB to RV, there is now an added spacing between letters. This has the effect of still visually marking the variants within the text but more subtlely. This editorial move made sense. Bold type is visually jarring, and there is no need for it when a footnote in the text already links to a marginal note explaining each variant. Signaling the variant in the text itself with spaced text instead of thicker text removes the redundancy. These changes can be seen by comparing the page above from the 1881 with the same page at the left from the 1894 edition.

TBS however has, I think quite mistakenly, interpreted this as an attempt by Cambridge to print a “clean text,” which they claim was “not intended for textual study” and which thus “fits with the purpose of the Trinitarian Bible Society” to print a text “for use by translators, ministers, Bible students, and Christians around the world, rather than a textual study or comparison to the Revised Version or any other version.” That this is the purpose of the TBS text is obvious, and it is a noble goal. I am grateful they are filling it. However, that this was not the purpose of the 1894 CUP text is just as obvious. The appendix showing differences from Beza still remains. More importantly, every variation from the RV is still indicated, the stated purpose of this text, expressed in the very title, in a marginal apparatus, and even in spaced type representing every variant in the text itself. Most important, the original preface to the work, explaining its purpose, entirely omitted from the TBS editions, is still present in every edition of Scrivener’s text published by CUP.

Perhaps the most grievous mistake of the new TBS preface though is in an added section tracing the history of textual criticism from the Tudor to the Victorian eras. I cite one paragraph (pg. ii), which provides an example of the kind of misrepresentation of Scrivener I take up in the next section:

The editions of Stephanus, Beza, and the Elzevirs all present substantially the same text; the variations are not of great significance and rarely affect the sense. However, in the nineteenth century numerous scholars set out to produce Greek texts which would reflect new principles of textual criticism. The resultant texts differed increasingly from the long-accepted texts of previous centuries and resulted in a new English Version, the English Revised Version of 1881 (American version published 1901). Late in the century F. H. A. Scrivener went against this trend and in 1881 published an edition of the Greek using the earlier printed Greek texts with reference to the 1611 English Authorized Version.

Scrivener Misunderstood

Advocates for the KJB or TR have sometimes grossly misunderstood both Scrivener’s beliefs and his intentions in creating this text (quite possibly precisely because they lack the original preface to the text they use and endorse). R. B. Ouellette, for example, says of Hort and Westcott, in a blatant attempt to impugn their motives, “Men on their own committee such as Scrivener and Ellicott saw the superiority of the Greek Textus Receptus and questioned Hort’s true intentions. Scrivener, after the revision, edited his own Textus Receptus, choosing to have his name associated with what the churches recognized through the centuries rather than the apostasy associated with the new text” (Ouelette, R.B., A More Sure Word: Which Bible Can You Trust?​, pg. 108). Hardly a phrase in that statement is true. Scrivener highly respected Westcott and Hort, though he didn’t fully agree with their theories. He never once questioned their integrity or their motives. Indeed, in the third edition of his Intro to textual criticism (see below) he explained that he had stated his case against “opponents far my superiors in learning and dialectic power, and for whom, in spite of literary differences, I entertain deep respect and true regard.” He never defend the TR or the KJV as inerrant, having pointed out its manifest errors as early as 1845 (see below). Most importantly, he didn’t publish his TR because he thought it represented the original text. Nor did he have any intention in publishing it to disassociate himself from the RV. Indeed, his text was published as a companion volume to the RV. (The misappropriation of Ellicott in the above statement is even more egregious.)

Ouellette and others who latch onto Scrivener as a champion of the TR are spreading misinformation and historical revisionism, as Dan Wallace points out here. See a response of Maurice Robinson to Wallace’s article here, clarifying that it is primarily KJV/TR advocates, rather than Majority Text advocates, who are guilty of spreading this revisionist history. Though we should note that even as eminent a textual critic as D.C. Parker, in the ODNB entry which he edited (revising an older entry), writes what is at best imprecise, claiming that Scrivener, “inclined towards J. W. Burgon against B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort in favouring the textus receptus.”

Perhaps no group has a corner on the market of misunderstanding or misrepresenting Scrivener. Indeed, misrepresentation and misappropriation of Scrivener began during his own lifetime. Burgon had employed his name, and seems to at times even have “deliberately misapplied” some of Scrivener’s words in his own cause (Cadwallader, pg. 95). Hort, for his part, noted how odd it was that Burgon sought to claim Scrivener. In a letter Hort observed, “Burgon’s language about Scrivener is very strange, but cannot be taken as evidence in the teeth of Scrivener’s own writings, and especially the progress they have exhibited” (CUL MS Add. 6597, fol. 189, as cited in Cadwallader, pg. 95 f.n. 39). Though we should note that contemporary appropriation of Scrivener by Burgon is far more plausible than modern appropriation of Scrivener as defending the inerrancy of his own TR.

Scrivener the Textual Critic

The Stephanus Critical TR

Scrivener early on printed a critical edition of Stephanus’ TR, which reprinted the 1550 text of Stephanus in the text, while including an apparatus noting variants, not in Greek manuscripts, but from several major printed Greek texts for comparison. He continued to update this text throughout his career. Darlow-Moule considered this text to have four recensions:

1. The first in 1859, (reprinted in 1860, 1861, 1862, 1864, 1865, 1867, 1868, 1870, 1871, 1872, 1873, and 1875);
2. The second in 1876 (reprinted in 1877, 1878, 1879, 1881, 1883, 1884, and 1886), which “completed the list of Tregelles’ variants, and adapted Tischendorf’s variants to that editor’s edition of 1869, 72;”
3. The third in 1886, in which he “added the variants of Westcott and Hort and of the text supposed to underlie the English R. V” (reprinted in 1887, 1891, 1900 and 1902);
4. The fourth in 1906, “A careful revision,” posthumously prepared by E. Nestle.

The Revisers of the New Testament 1881; By and after Samuel Alexander Walker, 1881 (early-mid 1870s); Licensed for use from the National Portrait Gallery

This critical edition of Stephanus, Cadwallader notes, is what the Revision Committee did their own work from, “the starting point for argument, assessment, and decision,” the “base from which the Company began their work to establish the Greek text that they would adopt for the sake of English revision” (pg. 101), and “the primary point of reference for the establishment of the Greek text” (pg. 102). They compared copies of an early 1871 private printing of the Westcott-Hort text (pg. 104-105) and departed from Stephanus at numerous points. Contrary to what is sometimes claimed these “printed copies of Westcott and Hort’s Greek New Testament did not supplant Scrivener’s edition of Stephanus to become the text from which the Revisers worked” (Cadwallader, pg. 103). Indeed, as early as Ellicott and Palmer’s response to the misguided claims of Burgon that the Revisers had been wholly swayed by Westcott and Hort, they pointed out that the Revisers’ text only followed Westcott and Hort alone (that is, against all other printed Greek texts) in 64 places (pg. 41).

Early Textual Work

When Convocation issued its ruling to revise the KJB Scrivener had already labored for many years as an eminent textual critic. Some of his early textual works were:

• A Full and Exact Collation of about Twenty Greek Manuscripts of the Holy Gospels (Hitherto Unexamined), in 1853
• An Exact Transcript of the Codex Augiensis (with collations of fifty other manuscripts) was published in 1859
• Contributions to the Criticism of the Greek New Testament, 1859 (the intro to the Augiensis transcript printed separately)
• A collation of Codex Sinaiticus in Wordsworth’s New Testament (1856; 1859)
• A full collation of Codex Sinaiticus against the TR in 1864
• Bezae Codex Cantabrigiensis, being an Exact Copy, in Ordinary Type, of the Celebrated Uncial Graeco-Latin Manuscript of the Four Gospels and Acts of the Apostles … Edited with a Critical introduction, Annotations, and Facsimiles, in 1864

Later contributions include works like his slender, Codex S. Ceaddae Latinus (1887) comparing Codex L and Amiatinus in Matt. 1-Luke 3, his Adversaria Critica Sacra published posthumously in 1893 (Cambridge reprint here), and works with a less textual focus, like his Index to the Bishop of Lincoln’s Commentary (1871; 1876). His biographers note that:

Scrivener’s achievement did not go unnoticed: on 3 January 1872, he was granted a civil-list pension of £100 in recognition of his services in connection with biblical criticism and in aid of the publication of his works. He was created LLD of St Andrews in the same year, and DCL of Oxford in 1876. He took an important part in the revision of the English version of the New Testament (1870–82).

In 1876 he was made vicar of Hendon. The strain of his textual work (primarily on the 3rd edition of his Introduction) led to a paralytic stroke in 1884, though he pressed on in his labors, expanding material for the 4th edition. He died on 26 October 1891. 

Career Focus on the KJB

He had from the very beginning of his career paid special attention to the KJB. His very first publication, A Supplement to the Authorized English Version (see BL copy here) in 1845 centered around it. It noted his love and reverence for the KJB and used the Gospel of Matthew as a test case to set out many places it needed updating and correcting due to:

1. Textual errors (“errors of criticism”)
2. Translation errors (“errors of interpretation”)
3. Archaic language (“errors of expression”)

“It is the design of the present work to collect and review those passages of our authorized version of the New Testament, which a diligent collation with the original may show to be inaccurate or obscure…” he explained of the volume (pg. 3). His A Plain Introduction To The Criticism Of The New Testament became a standard work on textual criticism that heavily influenced the members of the revision committee, going through four major editions:

1. First, 1861, (or here, Cambridge reprint here)
2. Second, 1874
3. Third, 1883, with a dedication to Edward Benson, newly elected archbishop (Googlebooks)
4. Fourth, posthumously expanded/revised by Edward Miller, 1894(Vol. I here, Vol. II here)

Note that Miller, I suspect, slightly “Burgonized” the text in the fourth edition at points. As an example note the almost complete reversal (in the 4th ed., Vol. II, chapter VI) of the caution Scrivener retained almost verbatim about patristic citations in the 1st-3rd editions, explained as Miller’s own interpretive addition in a footnote on pg. 167.

F.H.A. Scrivener, in The Graphic, Saturday 10 July 1875. pg. 17.

Cambridge asked Scrivener to edit and publish a new edition of the Authorized Version (correspondence between him and the press remains here) which would restore its text to a more accurate form (accurate here meaning, closer to the form actually printed in 1611 than the wildly divergent printings that had come to be common) and make the text more readable and legible (set out in paragraphs, with modernized spelling, etc.). This volume was published in 1873 as The Cambridge Paragraph Bible, with an extensive introduction by Scrivener.

In 1875, mid-way through the course of working on the Revision, he published Six Lectures on the Text of the New Testament, a layman’s introduction to the principles of textual criticism. Westcott and Hort had apparently kindly given him a copy of their as yet unpublished Greek NT and permission to use it in crafting this introduction (Cadwallader pg. 93).

His introduction to the CPB was later (in 1884, and again in 1910) expanded into a full book specifically on the history and origins of the text of the Authorized Version, titled, The Authorized Edition of the English Bible (1611), Its Subsequent Reprints And Modern Representatives. The official reprint by Cambridge (which has oddly changed the title), is available here. He thus became something of the recognized expert of the day on the history and text of the AV, and especially of its NT.

Scrivener edited a triglot edition of the AV, its Greek text, and the RV, here (preface pg. xxiii-xxvi). The official reprint by Cambridge of the 1881 first edition of the AV Greek text may be purchased here (Cambridge) or here (Amazon). The preface section may be downloaded free from Cambridge here, included in its entirety below. The 2008 Logos edition may be purchased here, which, as I understand it, has been morphologically tagged by Maurice Robison.

View of the KJB and its Greek Text

Naturally, when the time came to edit and publish the Greek text behind the KJB NT in conjunction with the RV, Scrivener was the clear choice. “If anyone was familiar with the detail of the status quo for the AV, Scrivener was” Cadwallader explains (pg. 90). We should note that we thus have the Revisers and their integrity to thank for the printing of the Greek text behind the KJB NT. His own principles of textual criticism (which were somewhere between those of J.W. Burgon and Westcott/Hort; closer to Burgon of the two, by his own account) are clearly set out in his Introduction. Mark Ward in a fascinating lecture, traces Scrivener’s treatment of some famous variants using his Six Lectures as a guide.

Contrary to claims sometimes made by those who want to claim him as defending the TR as inerrant, his published Greek text does not represent his final judgment about the original text of the NT, but is, as he explains in its Preface, his attempt to set out the Greek text that underlies the 1611 Authorized Version. He had from the beginning to the end of his career pointed out, with a respectful and reverent attitude, the imperfections of the text of the AV and the need for continuing textual criticism to restore the text to its original purity. As Maurice Robinson wisely cautions: “Scrivener must be examined from a perspective which takes the entire scope of his writings into consideration. Further, one must consider the specific and overall context applicable to any excerpted quotation. Finally, one must be ever conscious of changes in opinion reflected in Scrivener’s writings, particularly with his most recent works.” That full examination of his method is beyond the scope of this post. Still, one can see in some representative statements below several notable factors:

1. Deep respect for Byzantine manuscripts/disapproval of disregarding them
2. A general appreciation for the KJB and TR editions
3. A clear sense that neither the TR nor KJB were perfect; both needed correction and revision
4. Textual criticism’s value for purifying the text and strengthening confidence in scripture

The leading principles by which my criticisms are directed may readily be gathered from the foregoing remarks. I would adhere as much as possible to the text of the editions of Stephens, Beza and the Elzevirs; not indeed because it is the received text (as Lachmann so unfairly insinuates); but because I believe it to bear, on the whole, a close resemblance to the best manuscripts, which have been used by the Greek Church from the earliest ages. The schemes both of Griesbach and of Lachmann I feel bound to reject, since their direct tendency is to overthrow the testimony of the vast majority of our critical authorities, on grounds too precarious to admit of satisfactory defence. By conceding some weight to internal evidence, and by following out Scholz’s hypothesis more consistently than he has done for himself, we may hope to purge the received text of its grosser corruptions, and to approach more nearly to the Apostolic autographs than any of the illustrious scholars whose attempts have passed under our notice.

– Scrivener,  A Supplement, pg. 31-32, 1845

I for one see nothing in the history or sources of the received text to entitle it, of itself, to peculiar deference. I esteem it so far as it represents the readings best supported by documentary evidence, and no further: if in my judgment the Elzevir text approaches nearer on the whole to the sacred autographs than that formed by Tischendorf, it is only because I believe that it is better attested to by the very witnesses to whom Tischendorf himself appeals; the MSS., the versions, the Primitive Fathers. I enquire not whether this general purity (for it is but general) arises from chance, or editorial skill, or (as some have piously thought) from Providential arrangement: I am content to deal with it as a fact…

– Scrivener, Augiensis, vi, 1859, emphasis original.

[The abundance of Greek NT Manuscripts] present us with a vast and almost inexhaustible supply of materials for tracing the history, and upholding (at least within certain limits) the purity of the sacred text: every copy, if used diligently and with judgement, will contribute somewhat to these ends. So far is the copiousness of our stores from causing doubt or perplexity to the genuine student of Holy Scripture, that it leads him to recognize the more fully its general integrity in the midst of partial variation….

The design of the science of Textual criticism, as applied to the Greek New Testament, will now be readily understood. By collecting and comparing and weighing the variations of the text to which we have access, it aims at bringing back that text, so far as may be, to the condition in which it stood in the sacred autographs; at removing all spurious additions, if such be found in our present printed copies; at restoring whatsoever may have been lost or corrupted or accidentally changed in the lapse of eighteen hundred years….Those who believe the study of the Scriptures to be alike their duty and privilege, will surely grudge no pains when called upon to separate the pure gold of God’s word from the dross which has mingled with it through the accretions of so many centuries.

          – Scrivener, A Plain Introduction, pg. 5-7, 1894 edition

Now it were unreasonable to suppose, that if our authorised version is so great an improvement on all that went before it, during the short space of eighty years, the current of improvement is here to stop, and that no blemishes remain for future students to detect and remove. More than two centuries have passed since that version (or, to speak more correctly, revision of former versions) was executed, and they have been centuries of great and rapid improvement in every branch of knowledge and science….In [the KJB Translators’ time] Scriptural criticism was but in its infancy. Few manuscripts had been collated in order to settle the original text; the Greek language, in particular, was studied rather extensively than accurately; the peculiar style of the writers of the New Testament was little understood.

          – Scrivener, A Supplement, pg. 2-3, 1845

This post however is about his neglected preface to the KJB NT. This preface, explaining the origins of his edition of the text of the KJB NT (with some highlights pulled out, and images added), follows in full;

Scrivener’s Preface To The TR

First Edition 1881
Reprinted 1881 (twice), 1883, 1884, 1886, 1890, 1894, 1908.

PREFACE

The special design of this volume is to place clearly before the reader the variations from the Greek text represented by the Authorised Version of the New Testament which have been embodied in the Revised Version. One of the Rules laid down for the guidance of the Revisers by a Committee appointed by the Convocation of Canterbury was to the effect “that, when the Text adoped differs from that from which the Authorised Version was made, the alteration be indicated in the margin.” As it was found that a literal observance of this direction would often crowd and obscure the margin of the Revised Version, the Revisers judged that its purpose might be better carried out in another manner. They therefore communicated to the Oxford and Cambridge University Presses a full and carefully corrected list of the readings adopted which are at variance with the readings “presumed to underlie the Authorised Version,” in order that they might be published independently in some shape or other. The University Presses have accordingly undertaken to print them in connexion with complete Greek texts of the New Testament. The responsibility of the Revisers does not of course extend beyond the list which they have furnished.

The form here chosen has been thought by the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press to be at once the most convenient in itself, and the best fitted for giving a true representation of the Revisers’ work. In their Preface the Revisers explain that it did not fall within their province to construct a continuous and complete Greek text. Wherever a variation in the Greek was of such a nature that it could properly affect the English rendering, they had to decide between the competing readings: but in most other cases they refrained from spending time on work not needed for the purposes of an English translation. It was therefore impossible to print a continuous Greek text which should include the readings certified as adopted by the Revisers, without borrowing all the intervening portions from some printed text which had not undergone their revision, and in which, to judge by analogy, they would doubtless have found many readings to disapprove. It is true that all variations in this unrevised part of the text must from the nature of the case be comparatively unimportant: but they include many differences of order and grammatical form expressive of shades and modifications of meaning which no careful reader would neglect in studying the Greek original. The Cambridge Press has therefore judged it best to set the readings actually adopted by the Revisers at the foot of the page, and to keep the continuous text consistent throughout by making it so far as was possible uniformly representative of the Authorised Version. The publication of an edition formed on this plan appeared to be all the more desirable, inasmuch as the Authorised Version was not a translation of any one Greek text then in existence, and no Greek text intended to reproduce in any way the original of the Authorised Version has ever been printed.

“…the Authorised Version was not a translation of any one Greek text then in existence, and no Greek text intended to reproduce in any way the original of the Authorised Version has ever been printed.”

– F. H. A. Scrivener

In considering what text had the best right to be regarded as “the text presumed to underlie the Authorised Version,” it was necessary to take into account the composite nature of the Authorised Version, as due to successive revisions of Tyndale’s translation. Tyndale himself followed the second and third editions of Erasmus’s Greek text (1519, 1522). In the revisions of his translation previous to 1611 a partial use was made of other texts; of which ultimately the most influential were the various editions of Beza from 1560 to 1598, if indeed his Latin version of 1556 should not be included. Between 1598 and 1611 no important edition appeared; so that Beza’s fifth and last text of 1598 was more likely than any other to be in the hands of King James’s revisers, and to be accepted by them as the best standard within their reach. It is moreover found on comparison to agree more closely with the Authorised Version than any other Greek text; and accordingly it has been adopted by the Cambridge Press as the primary authority. There are however many places in which the Authorised Version is at variance with Beza’s text; chiefly because it retains language inherited from Tyndale or his successors, which had been founded on the text of other Greek editions. In these cases it is often doubtful how far the revisers of 1611 deliberately preferred a different Greek reading; for their attention was not specially directed to textual variations, and they might not have thought it necessary to weed out every rendering inconsistent with Beza’s text, which might linger among the older and unchanged portions of the version. On the other hand some of the readings followed, though discrepant from Beza’s text, may have seemed to be in a manner sanctioned by him as he had spoken favourably of them in his notes; and others may have been adopted on independent grounds. These uncertainties do not however affect the present edition, in which the different elements that actually make up the Greek basis of the Authorised Version have an equal right to find a place. Wherever therefore the Authorised renderings agree with other Greek readings which might naturally be known through printed editions to the revisers of 1611 or their predecessors, Beza’s reading has been displaced from the text in favour of the more truly representative reading, the variation form Beza being indicated *. It was manifestly necessary to accept only Greek authority, though in some places the Authorised version corresponds but loosely with any form of the Greek original, while it exactly follows the Latin Vulgate. All variations from Beza’s text of 1598, in number about 190, are set down in an appendix at the end of the volume, together with the authorities on which they repsectively rest.

“It was manifestly necessary to accept only Greek authority, though in some places the Authorised version corresponds but loosely with any form of the Greek original, while it exactly follows the Latin Vulgate.”

– F. H. A. Scrivener

Wherever a Greek reading adopted for the Revised Version differs from the presumed Greek original of the Authorised Version, the reading which it is intended to displace is printed in the text in a thicker type, with a numerical reference to the reading substituted by the Revisers, which bears the same numeral at the foot of the pages. Alternative readings are given in the margin by the Revisers in places “in which, for the present, it would not” in their judgement “be safe to accept one reading to the absolute exclusion of others,” provided that the differences seemed to be of sufficient interest or importance to deserve notice. These alternative readings, which are more than 400 in number, are distinguished by the notation Marg. or marg. In the Revised Version itself the marginal notes in which a secondary authority is thus given to readings not adopted in the text almost always take the form of statements of evidence, and the amount of evidence in each instance is to a certain extent specified in general terms. No attempt however has in most cases been made to express differences in the nature or the amount of this authority in the record of marginal readings at the foot of the page. For such details the reader will naturally turn to the margin of the Revised Version itself.

The punctuation has proved a source of much anxiety. The Authorised Version as it was originally printed in 1611, rather than as it appears in any later edition, has been taken as a primary guide. Exact reproduction of the English punctuation in the Greek text was however precluded by the differences of grammatical structure between the two languages. It was moreover desirable to punctuate in a manner not inconsistent with the punctuation of the Reivsed Version, wherever this could be done without inconvenience, as punctuation does not strictly belong to textual variation. Where however the difference of punctuation between the two Versions is incompatible with identical punctuation in the Greek, the stops proper for the Authorised Version are given in the text, with a numerical reference, without change of type, to the other method set forth in the foot-notes. Mere changes in punctuation, not consequent on change of reading, are discriminated from the rest by being set within marks of parenthesis ( ) at the foot of the page. The notes that thus refer exclusively to stops are about 157.

The paragraphs into which the body of the Greek text is here divided are those of the Revised Version, the numerals relating to chapters and verses being banished to the margin. The marks which indicate the beginning of paragraphs in the Authorised Version do not seem to have been inserted with much care, and cease altogether after Acts xx.36: nor would it have been expedient to create paragraphs in accordance with the traditional chapters. Manifest errors of the press, which often occur in Beza’s New Testament of 1598, have been silently corrected. In all other respects not mentioned already that standard has been closely abided by, save only that, in accordance with modern usage, the recitative ὅτι has not been represented as part of the speech or quotation which it introduces, and the aspirated forms αὑτοῦ, αὑτῷ, αὑτόν &c. have been discarded. In a very few words (e.g. μαργαρῖται) the more recent and proper accentuation has been followed. Lastly, where Beza has been inconsistent, the form which appeared the better of the two has been retained consistently: as νεφάλιος not νεφάλεος, οὐκέτι not οὐκ έτι, ἐξαυτῆς not ἐξ αὐτῆς, ἱνα τί not ἵνατί but τὰ νῦν not τανῦν, δὶα παντὸς not διαπαντὸς, τοῦτʼ ἔστι not τουτέστι.

[The Triglot edition adds here – “Inasmuch as the ordinary English subscriptions to the Pauline Epistles have been retained in the Authorised Version, it has been thought necessary to set their Greek originals in the parallel columns, exactly as they stand in Beza’s edition of 1598, although these subscriptions are of late date, of no real authority, and several of them plainly erroneous.”]

[The 1894 adds a Note, “In this edition it has not been thought necessary to indicate variations from Beza by the mark *, the Appendix, which is retained, sufficiently showing the passages in question; moreover in lieu of using thicker type to indicate readings which have not been used by the Revisers, spaced type has been adopted.” Christmas, 1893]

ΠΑΣΑΓΡΑΦΗΘΕΟΠΝΕΥΣΤΟΣΚΑΙΩΦΕΛΙΜΟΣ.

[All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable]

F. H. A. S.
Christmas, 1880.