Bois-Casaubon translation correspondence, 1610

Nicholas J. S. Hardy has written interestingly on the correspondence between Huguenot scholar Isaac Casaubon and KJV translator John Bois. Casaubon also consulted with some other of the translators. All of this occurred after October 30, 1610, when he arrived in London from France. This suggests that the translation process was still ongoing at that time. As far as I know, there is not a fixed date of when the work was finalized. We know the new translation was printed in 1611. Based on the period letters, Hardy concluded, “...the letters confirm that serious, if not extensive, revision was still being undertaken at a very late stage of the whole process, and that this process of revision extended to the Apocrypha as well as to the canonical books of the Bible.” (Revising the King James Apocrypha: John Bois, Isaac Casaubon, and the Case of 1 Esdras, p. 3) [Note: this is Chapter 8 in Labourers in the Vineyard of the Lord: Scholarship and the Making of the King James Version of the Bible, Mordechai Feingold , editor. Scientific and Learned Cultures and Their Institutions, Volume 22. Leiden: Brill, 2018, pp. 266-327.]

The correspondence is undated. According to Hardy, none of the Bois-Casaubon correspondence could have occurred until after Casaubon arrived, and that these two met in person as well. Hardy determined the general dating based on the content of the letters – for example, the reference that he was in London, etc. Hardy writes, “The terminus post quem for this correspondence must be October 31, 1610” and “As for their terminus ante quem, the letters must predate Casaubon’s death on 12 July 1614.”

Since Richard Bancroft died on November 2, 1610 – only 3 days after Casaubon arrived – this, to me, also puts a question mark on the second hand reports of Bancroft making 14 changes after the translation process was completed.

Both might be explained harmoniously, such as the New Testament translation being complete, but not the Old Testament and Apocrypha. It seems that Bois was engaged to some degree in the translation of all three – OT, NT, and Apocrypha.