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King James Version of the Bible

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Maybe Jack Shaftoe is right about remembering his version of the Bible as having lots of buggery in it...

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Community entry: King James Version of the Bible

this entry edited from the Wikipedia entry of King James Version of the Bible

Kjv.png

Frontispiece by Rob't Barker

Frontispiece to the first edition of the King James Bible of 1611

The King James Version or Authorized Version of the Holy Bible was translated into English for the benefit of the Church of England at the behest of King James I of England. First published in 1611, it was the authorized version for use in the Church of England and became perhaps the most influential English version in America.

The King James Version or Authorized Version of the Holy Bible was translated into English for the benefit of the Church of England at the behest of King James I of England. First published in 1611, it was the authorized version for use in the Church of England and became perhaps the most influential English version in America.

Starting the project

Its development began when King James I called a conference at Hampton Court in 1604. It is no longer in copyright in most parts of the world but has a special position in the United Kingdom, relating in part to the established religion. Eventually seven different editions of the King James Version were produced, the most recent of which was produced in 1769, and it is this edition which is most commonly cited as the King James Version (KJV).

The motivation behind the KJV translation was in large part due to the Protestant belief that the Bible was the sole source of doctrine (see sola scriptura) and as such should be translated into the local venacular. By the time that the King James Bible was written, there wa already a tradition going back almost a hundred years of Bible translation into English, starting with William Tyndale. At the time of the King James Bible, the authorised version of the Church of England was the Bishops' Bible. The Bishops' Bible, however, enjoyed little popular esteem, and its popularity was eclipsed by the Geneva Bible, whose marginal notes espoused a Protestantism that was too Puritan and radical for King James's taste.

Like the earlier English translations like Tyndale and Geneva, the King James Version was translated from Greek and Hebrew texts, bypassing the Latin Vulgate. The King James Version Old Testament is based on the Masoretic Text while the New Testament is based on the Textus Receptus as published by Erasmus. The King James Version is a fairly literal translation of these base sources; words implied but not actually in the original source are specially marked (either by being inside square brackets, as shown above, or as italic text).

One aspect of its style was originally due to grammatical uncertainty. At the time William Tyndale made his Bible translation, there was uncertainty in Early Modern English as to whether the older pronoun his or the neologism its were the proper genitive case of the third person singular pronoun it. Tyndale dodged the difficulty by using phrases such as the blood thereof rather than choosing between his blood or its blood. By the time the King James translators wrote, usage had settled on its, but Tyndale's style was familiar and considered a part of an appropriately Biblical style, and they chose to retain the old wording.

There are some differences from modern Bibles, which are based in part on more recently discovered manuscripts. Some conservative fundamentalist Protestants believe that the newer versions of the Bible are based on corrupt manuscripts and that the King James Version is more authentic than more recent versions.

The King James Version tends to be less sanitized than later versions. This can be seen in numerous verses, for example, 1 Samuel 25:22 and 34, Lamentations 1:17 and Revelation 1:13.