“Were the KJV Translators KJV-Only?” is a skewed question as a means to an end. The better question is, “What did the KJV translators claim they accomplished?”
Here is what the translators (represented by Thomas Bilson & Miles Smith) write.
There are infinite arguments of this right Christian and Religious affection in your Majesty: but none is more forcible to declare it to others, than the vehement and perpetuated desire of the accomplishing and publishing of this Work, which now with all humility we present unto your Majesty. For when your Highness had once out of deep judgment apprehended, how convenient it was, That out of the Original sacred tongues, together with comparing of the labours, both in our own and other foreign Languages, of many worthy men who went before us, there should be one more exact Translation of the holy Scriptures into the English tongue; your Majesty did never desist, to urge and to excite those to whom it was commended, that the work might be hastened, and that the business might be expedited in so decent a manner, as a matter of such importance might justly require.
Truly (good Christian Reader) we never thought from the beginning, that we should need to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one, (for then the imputation of Sixtus had been true in some sort, that our people had been fed with gall of Dragons instead of wine, with whey instead of milk:) but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against; that hath been our endeavor, that our mark. To that purpose there were many chosen, that were greater in other men's eyes than in their own, and that sought the truth rather than their own praise.
What did the translators mean by what they wrote?
“A faithful student of the word of God looks up all kinds of words. The one’s they think they know, the ones they know, and the ones they do not know. Looking up ‘false friends’ falls within one of these three categories.” Peter Van Kleeck, Jr. to Mark Ward
The translators were called on to establish out of the previous translation one principal translation for the use of the English-speaking people. That was their goal they focused on accomplishing.
