The Authorised King James Version of the Bible was first published on this day 400 years ago. The process of translation had commenced some 7 years previously. This was the third officially sanctioned English-language version of the Bible, following the Great Bible of 1539 and the Bishop’s Bible of 1568. Those earlier versions were perceived to contain inaccuracies, and accordingly King James convened a conference in 1604 to commission a new translation.
A team of 47 scholars set to work on the translation, working in six committees. The drafts produced by the committees were compared and revised for harmony with each other. All sections were completed by 1608, after which they were reviewed by a General Committee of Review, before the final text was sent to the King’s Printer, Robert Barker, for printing. Barker had been granted a perpetual patent for printing Bibles in England.
The New Testament translation was based on versions of the Greek text prepared by the French scholar Theodore Beza, who in turn based his work on earlier versions prepared by Robert Estienne and Erasmus, but also on an ancient 5th century Greek manuscript called the Codex Bezae and a 5th or 6th century manuscript called the Codex Claromontanus. However, the scholars who produced the King James English translation did not themselves consult any ancient manuscripts.