John Alden and the King James Bible

For some background for this post, please see Bibles at the Pilgrim Hall Museum at Plymouth.

Some ubiquitous KJV critics think they have found the smoking gun to discredit Mayflower passenger John Alden and his King James Bible. My, my, did not only the Geneva Bible come over on the Mayflower! Urban myths tell us so. The Pilgrim Hall Museum allows that they cannot prove that any Bibles were on the Mayflower – in the sense that there exists no log or record of the items that were on the Mayflower. However, they are reasonably sure of two of them. “Among the books in Pilgrim Hall are four Bibles of unusual interest. One belonged to Governor William Bradford, the Pilgrim Governor, and one to John Alden. These are among the very few objects existing today which we feel reasonably sure ‘came over in the Mayflower.’” Those who have some expertise in this area of history are “reasonably sure” these Bibles came over on the Mayflower. Yet for the purpose of Bible version arguments some anti-KJVO people become unreasonably unsure and overly obstinate about Alden’s King James Bible not coming over on the Mayflower.

Anti-KJVO folks such as Rick Norris will argue that John Alden was not a Pilgrim, and also suggest that he did not bring the Bible with him. I guess they want to cover all bases. He didn’t bring the Bible with him, but ordered it later and had it shipped over. Even if he did (to the antis) it does not matter since he was not one of the Pilgrims.

Here are some facts about John Alden:

• He was hired as the ship’s cooper, a job of maintaining and repairing the ship’s barrels.
• He was initially a member of the ship’s crew rather than a New World settler.
• He became a signatory of The Mayflower Compact, signed while the travelers were still on the ship, November 1620.
• He was at the time of his death the last surviving signer of The Mayflower Compact.
• He signed a political and religious covenant, unto which the signers promised under God “all due Submission and Obedience.” From that time Alden would have been a part of the Pilgrim group.
• There is a surviving 1620 KJV Bible in the Pilgrim Hall Museum that belonged to John Alden – and the museum is reasonably sure it came over with him on the Mayflower.

Those who take the “and/or” argument (that Alden was not a Pilgrim and/or did not bring a King James Bible with him) eventually are impaled on the horns of their own dilemma. After signing The Mayflower Compact, John Alden at that point became a covenanted member of the Pilgrims. John Alden owned, used, and passed down in his family a King James Bible printed in 1620. Here are the two horns of their dilemma.

• Either

1. If John Alden brought this King James Bible with him initially as a “non-Pilgrim”, he did not throw away his 1611 translation when or after he became a Pilgrim.

• Or

2. If John Alden did not bring this King James Bible with him, then after he became a Pilgrim and as a Pilgrim John Alden ordered a 1611 translation and had it shipped over to him.

Understanding these two options takes the edge off the claim that the Pilgrims passionately hated the King James Bible and only used the Geneva Bible. This “separatists-hated-the-KJV” argument is broken down and needs to be taken out of service!