Correcting Impressions

Christopher Yetzer posted the following article (see below) on the Facebook group Textus Receptus Academy, December 5, 2022. Brother Yetzer is a Baptist missionary, a native Ohioan, preaching in Milan, Italy. In addition to his missionary work, he is doing excellent research and writing concerning the traditional texts and King James translation of the Bible. The writing below is from Brother Christopher Yetzer, posted with his permission.

At one time it was common to hear that when the “Authorized Version of the Bible made its debut in 1611, the reading public’s reaction to the new translation was hardly a positive one.” (“A New Set of Spectacles,” 1995. Dean George Lampros). Others had claimed that there was a ban on the printing and sale of the Geneva Bible in 1616 which helped the KJV get a footing.

Contrary to the 1616 claim of a ban, Kenneth Fincham notes, “there is no proof of this and indeed there is evidence against the idea.” (Fincham, Kenneth. “The King James Bible: Crown, Church and People,” in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2018. p. 17.)

Recent studies into the printing, sales, and the general book trade concerning Bibles in the early 1600s show “the sheer number of editions indicates strong demand to own a copy... If we put the rapid sale of the smaller formats of the King James bible against the slow and uneven dissemination of folio or church bibles, then it may well be that for many the new translation became familiar in the home before it was heard in church, and that its broad acceptance by 1640 owed as much to personal use as it did to hearing it in public worship.” (Fincham, Kenneth. “The King James Bible: Crown, Church and People,” in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2018. pp. 15-16.)

From his study of sermons and quotations, Feingold concludes, “scholars and the reading public more widely began engaging seriously and approvingly with the KJV from the start.” See M Feingold (ed.), Labourers in the Vineyard of the Lord: Scholarship and the Making of the King James Version of the Bible. Scientific and Learned Cultures and Their Institutions, Brill, Leiden, p. 27.

By 1618 we see the international fame the translation had already earned with its attention at at the Synod of Dordt where it was called, “honorifica accuratissimæ translationis Anglicanæ”. [That is, “the honor of mentioning the most accurate English translation,” rlv]

It is also clear that before 1640 the use of the KJV was widespread and had already become the standard Bible in England. With the changes in politics in England around 1640 there was now the capability of putting commentary to the KJV. Some editions of the KJV were printed with the Geneva notes, then Diodati’s Italian annotations were translated and printed in 1643 followed the English doing a set of their own Annotations in 1645. In that 1645 preface it says, “the people complained that they could not see into the sense of the Scripture so well as they formerly did by the Geneva Bibles because their spectacles of annotations were not fitted to the understanding of the new text, nor any others supplied in their stead.” It seems some of the popularity of the Geneva was not the translation, but footnotes. Either way, we should correct our impressions of the immediate reception of the KJV to reflect the current data. [bold emphasis mine, rlv]

Scan from “The Preface” of Annotations Upon all the Books of the Old and New Testament