The Holy Bible, That Is, the Holy Scriptures Contained in the Old and New Testament.
The links below are to scans of 17th-century printings of the Geneva Bible, published at Google Books and Archive.org. Some are partial, some have bad pages, etc. Nevertheless, they can be useful research tools.
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:
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.
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.
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!
A few facts about John Alden, who came over to North America on the Mayflower:
Arthur Leonard Farstad (1935-1998) was executive of the New King James Version, and co-editor (with Zane Hodges) of a Greek Majority Text New Testament. He was a theologian who taught at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. Additionally, he was a co-founder of the Majority Text Society, as well as editor of the Grace Evangelical Society journal.
“God has used many Bibles...And the Geneva, the people who founded America did not use the King James, they used the Geneva. They thought the King James was too ‘high church.’ It said, ‘Church’ instead of ‘congregation’ and ‘bishop’ instead of ‘overseers.’ The Pilgrims and Puritans of Plymouth Colony didn’t use the King James. The foundation of our country was on the Geneva Bible.”
Arthur Farstad, about the Geneva and King James Bibles on the John Ankerberg Show “The King James Only Controversy Revisited – Program 2.”
This statement by Art Farstad demonstrates how some of the Christian urban myths get spread. Leaving the case of what the Pilgrims used (for which, see my “Bibles at the Pilgrim Hall Museum at Plymouth”), let’s consider the reasons given for the “people who founded America” using the Geneva Bible instead of the King James Bible – the words “church” and “bishop.” This is easily falsified by actually looking at a Geneva Bible instead of just taking the word of an authority. These “people who founded America” would have had ready access to the 1599 Geneva Bible (but the same facts are true concerning the 1560 Geneva). An easy check is available at BibleGateway, though scans of the original are available online also. The word “church” and “churches” are used in 113 verses in the Geneva Bible New Testament (1 less than the KJV). “Congregation” only appears 3 times in the Geneva New Testament, two of which have nothing to do with the New Testament church. Bishop appears 5 times in the Geneva Bible, four in reference to a church office, and once in reference to Jesus (Philippians 1:1; 1 Timothy 3:1-2; Titus 1:7; 1 Peter 2:25). This compares to six times in the KJV. The Geneva Bible did not shy away from the words “church” and “bishop”!
No doubt Art Farstad believed this to be true. Most all of us – yes, even scholars – more readily tend to accept without proof that which we already believe. His believing it to be true does not make it so. Apparently he never checked! Sadly, such myths get spread around. “This must be true – some scholar said it!”
“Originally it was planned to use the Majority Text for the NKJV, not the TR used in the KJV. This was changed near the end of the project. Strangely enough, the one who talked Thomas Nelson into not using the Majority Text was Zane Hodges himself. (He was not, however, on the translation team.) Zane argued that a version should not be based on a Greek text that had not been on the market for a few years to allow time for scholarly appraisal. Also, many felt that this updating of the classic KJV should not introduce another Greek text, like the English Revised had done in 1881 before the Westcott-Hort text (also 1881) had a chance to be evaluated.”
Arthur Farstad. The above statement is found in “Why I Became a Majority Text Advocate,” which is an “Unpublished paper by Arthur L. Farstad when he was at Dallas Seminary.” It is posted on the Dean Bible Ministries website of Robert L. Dean, Jr. Dean earned a ThM and PhD at Dallas Theological Seminary (where Hodges & Farstad taught).
This statement by Arthur Farstad about the New King James translation suggests that the work on it began with the Majority Text as its textual basis, and then was changed to the Textus Receptus. It would be good to know more about this, and if Farstad discussed or wrote more about it elsewhere. That “start and change” could help explain some of the inconsistencies in the New King James translation.
William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1633–1645:
“by the numerous coming over of [Geneva] Bibles . . . from Amsterdam, there was a great and a just fear conceived that by little and little printing would quite be carried out of the kingdom. For the books which came thence were better print, better bound, better paper, and for all the charges of bringing, sold better cheap. And would any man buy a worse Bible dearer, that might have a better more cheap? And to preserve printing here at home . . . was the cause of stricter looking to those Bibles.”[3]
David Norton’s notes prior to this remark on Laud’s comment that “the King’s Printer forbore to print Geneva Bibles for ‘private lucre, not by virtue of any public restraint’” because Robert Barker (the King’s Printer) was heavily invested (that is, financially) in the new translation. Norton also mentions puritan bookseller Michael Sparke’s general agreement with Laud.
[3] “Works, IV: 263. An opposite, somewhat obscure account of imported Bibles is given by Thomas Fuller. He describes Bibles imported from Amsterdam and Edinburgh about 1640 ‘as being of bad paper, worse print, little margin’, and having ‘many most abominable errata’. These, he says, were complained about ‘as giving great advantage to the papists’ (Church History of Britain, 1655) 3 vols. (London, 1868), book XI, section 3, 29; III: 462-3). Fuller lived through this time, so the reader may choose between his account and that of two adversaries immediately concerned with the issue. Judgement of the Bibles of this time, in terms of their printing qualities, would be a complex matter, and Laud, Sparke and Fuller’s arguments are all shaped by other interests.”
The quotes above are from The History of the English Bible as Literature, David Norton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 91). Norton suggests that the early printing history of the King James Bible might be more complicated than arguing partisan “King James Onlyists” and “anti-King James Onlyists” often declare.
Back in March, on a Facebook public group called “KJV Onlyism Discussion Unbiased,” someone reposted a rant by Anglican Apologist and KJVO opponent Stephen Boyce.[i]
“I’m convinced that if the King James translators were alive today, translating the same exact translation we have now, many in the King James Only movement would reject their translation as a translation made by heretics because its authorization came from a monarchy, its translators believed in baptismal regeneration, infant baptism, real presence in the Eucharist, high church practices (such as bowing to a cross, priests in vestments, crossing themselves, scripted prayers, liturgy, etc..) and submitted to Bishops as leaders of the church.”
“The beauty and majesty of this 400 year translation doesn’t belong to a small group of Baptists who claim it for their own, not realizing that their separatists forefathers utterly despised the translation because it was too high church and maintained much of the terminology that the Church of England held to in their high church practices and liturgy. Enough is enough with all this insanity.”
The first paragraph is worth little beyond Boyce stating his personal opinion. It matters not what he is convinced of in an imaginary scenario. Someone else can imagine their opposing opinion, and neither can prove their point – and both will be equally satisfied they are right. Draw. Deadlock.
The second paragraph is a bare assertion that he does not undertake to prove. There is a bit of “insanity” in repeating “urban myths” about early separatists “utterly despising” the King James Bible.[ii] Can he demonstrate it? I can show some who used it rather than despising it. For example, in Ill Newes from New England, John Clarke quotes from the King James Bible.[iii] The same can be found in John Bunyan’s writings (though many falsely claim he only used the Geneva Bible).[iv] The first quotes in the 1644/1646 London Baptist Confession better match the KJV than the Geneva. Maybe someone can find some Baptists who utterly despised this translation, but the ones I have checked so far did not. Which Baptists utterly despised it? Don’t just assert – give us the goods.
In a response to me, Stephen stated, “I never said baptists rejected it. I said separatists (though they developed into baptists over time).” Of course, he did invoke the Baptists, and while all separatists are not Baptists, Baptists are separatists.[v] Then he could not definitely supply any names or faces of separatists who “utterly rejected” the King James Bible. The only person I know who I would say rose to the level of “utterly despising” the new translation was Hugh Broughton (he was cantankerous, fractious, and prickly; a Puritan of sorts, who was all over the page, but not a Separatist).[vi] (Boyce did not mention him.) John Bunyan was more of a separatist than a full-fledged Baptist (and he used the KJB). Boyce mentioned the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. There are two Bibles in the Pilgrim Hall Museum at Plymouth, a Geneva Bible that belonged to William Bradford, and a King James Bible that belonged to John Alden.[vii] (Using a Geneva Bible and “utterly despising” the KJV are not the same thing, neither necessarily even two sides of the same coin.)
Others mentioned to me were Oliver Cromwell and relational Calvinists (whatever that means).[viii] Cromwell and his supporters did not despise the KJV to the extent that they completely excluded it from the “Souldier’s Pocket Bible” (as has been purported).[ix] Hamlin and Jones in The King James Bible After Four Hundred Years claimed that Cromwell came to favor it and “Even before the end of the Commonwealth, no one was printing anything but the KJB” (p. 8; a book from Cambridge Press, not Peter Ruckman!). And, Cromwell and company were Puritans reforming the Church of England, not Separatists. Those in Geneva and other relational Calvinists surely were not Separatists in the sense of his initial claim. Is the Dutch Reformed Church included as relational Calvinists? They received delegates from the Church of England at the Synod of Dort, 1618, and had them make a report on the new Bible translation![x]
Stephen also told me that “Just because someone quotes the KJV doesn’t mean it was preferred.” Surely. However, when they quote the KJV it doesn’t mean it is despised. Even if they preferred the Geneva Bible, or when they don’t quote the KJV, it doesn’t mean it is despised! I do not fail to believe that some people despised King James Bible. I do not suppose there were none who despised it. However, to assert a claim requires demonstrating the claim. Stephen Boyce failed to give good historical evidence of specific separatists who “utterly despised” the King James Bible. Generic historical claims are unhelpful.[xi] They become Christian urban myths that keep getting repeated as fact, without supplying evidence.
Additionally, in this second paragraph Boyce refers to “a small group of Baptists who claim it for their own.” Here he means “King James Only” Baptists. This is contrary to the facts. “King James Only” Baptists do not ”claim it for their own” to the exclusion of others. Most (if probably not all) of these types of Baptists think that all English-speaking Christians should use the AV (King James Bible).[xii]
A quick look at the 1644/1646 London Baptist Confession (compiled by persecuted separatist folks falsely called Anabaptists)
LBC: But this I confesse unto thee, that after the way which they call heresie so worship I the God of my Fathers, beleeving all things that are written in the Law and the Prophets, and have hope towards God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead both of the just and unjust. - Acts xxiv. 14, 15.
LBC: For we cannot but speak the things that we have seen and heard. - Acts iv. 20
LBC: If I have spoken evill, bear witnesse of the evill; but if well, why smitest thou me? - John xviii. 23.
LBC: Blessed are yee when men revile you, and say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake. Rejoice, etc. - Matth. v.11, 12. & xix. 29.
The “Bible Versions Debate” will not be settled by history. It should not be settled by history. However, we should be careful in our use of history in the debate. Let it be accurate and straightforward. Some people did not like the new Bible. Some people did. Let those who did and did not be placed accurately.
A critique of “A Nearly Forgotten Heritage: The Geneva Bible,” by Jonathan Edwards (a modern one, not the Puritan preacher) represents another curious piece of the “pro-Geneva/anti-KJV” puzzle.[i] It contains some of the so-called “common knowledge” that is “widely available online” which passes for historical truth.
“In 1568, the Bishops Bible was published. Although partially using the Tyndale work, it mostly translated from the Latin Vulgate.”
This is false, The Bishops Bible was not “mostly translated from the Latin Vulgate.”
“The Geneva remained popular, and despite many reprints, the Geneva did not require any revisions.”
This is also false. Yes, the Geneva Bible was revised – one revision admitted by this author – but there were others as well. The Geneva Bible itself finds its basis in the prior English translations. Some Geneva Bibles were printed with the New Testament revised by Laurence Tomson (for example, this 1590 printing).[ii]
“All of the KJV printings prior to 1666 contained the Apocrypha...”
This is probably generally true, but not totally correct, in an age when printers bound Bibles in all sorts of ways (e,g., they might add the Book of Common Prayer, Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter, etc.) This 1637 printing of the KJV does not contain the Apocrypha, but skips from Malachi to Matthew.
“…the King James Bible…also included the Apocrypha, books the Roman church used, but which had been removed from the Geneva (the 1560 edition did include the books in an ‘inter-testamental’ section). No marginal notes, no cross-references…”
This statement implies that King James translation did not have the Apocrypha in an “inter-testemantal” sections – but it does! It does not deal with The Prayer of Manasseh, which in the Geneva Bible did not include in or ever move to the “inter-testamental” section. He further misunderstands marginal notes and cross references, both of which the 1611 contain. However, it did not have commentary or study notes, as the Geneva Bible.
“It was a publishing failure. The people did not flock to the new Bible, they continued to use the tried and true Geneva.”
“In its first five years of existence, readers called for seventeen editions, compared with six editions of the Geneva Bible during those same years. Expanding the time frame, in the first 35 years of its existence the KJV went through a whopping 182 editions.” See “The Reception of the King James Bible” in Correcting the Internet.
“The Mayflower pilgrims brought the Geneva to America. As I learned my family history as a 10th generation descendant of John and Priscilla (speak for yourself, John) Alden, I became interested in the Geneva Bible. John’s Bible is on display in the museum at his home near Plymouth, Massachusetts.”
Apparently, this descendant of John Alden does not know Alden’s Bible on display in the museum at Plymouth is not a Geneva Bible, but is rather a King James Bible instead.
“The KJV...is nearly word-for-word identical to the Geneva. Because of the exceptionally close copy of the KJV to the Geneva, I refer to the ‘Authorized Version’ as the ‘Plagiarized Version.’ It is simply hard to believe that being so close, with the exception of maybe 10 places, the KJV is not simply plagiarized rather than an actual work of dedicated scholars.”
This is strange complaint from one touting the Geneva Bible. If it is so great, then he ought to be glad its replacement was so exactly like it! However, in honesty the King James translation definitely is not a plagiarized version of the Geneva Bible, and there are certainly many more than 10 places where the Geneva is different. Many many more. Yet it is true that all the early generations of the English Bible are all built on the work of one William Tyndale. And rightly so.
It is good that this (probably young) “amateur Christian historian” is interested in the Geneva Bible and the history of the English Bible. It is bad that he gets so many facts wrong – facts that someone else can now come along and say this is information “widely available online”! Sadder still that a site that dubs itself “Christian History Institute” allows such to pass as “Christian History.” “Maybe 10 places” the KJV is different from the Geneva? Does anybody at CHI even check the stuff that gets posted?
About two years ago I made an effort to root out some World Wide Web claims that folks like John Bunyan and John Milton only used the Geneva Bible. At the time I decided to focus my research on John Bunyan.[i] I found that assertion definitely was untrue concerning Bunyan. I tried to get some sites to correct their error. I found that once a horse is out of the barn, it can be hard to get it back in.
Background.
A PhD at a museum of a major Christian University sent a very gracious reply that they looked into it and agreed that Bunyan’s primary use of the Geneva Bible seemed to be a legend. Yet their website Geneva Bible page continues to perpetuate the legend.
A major purveyor of Bible resources (very well-known, whose name I will not mention at this time) had something on their site about John Bunyan and the Geneva Bible. I received from a representative of this company an obstinate reply, defending their use of the so-called “fact” because it was “widely available online”! In the reply, this representative even copied and included the following statement from a blog: “It was the Bible of Shakespeare and Paul Bunyan and Cromwell’s Army and of our Pilgrim Fathers.” Yes, the person did not care enough to even notice that this quote was defending “Paul Bunyan” (not John Bunyan!) using the Geneva Bible. I’m glad Paul did, if he did! Babe the Blue Ox may have used it too. On the other hand, satisfied with the Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox proof, they never considered the documentation I provided.
I corresponded with the then CEO of GenevaBible.com. He referred me to a single source, an undocumented claim found in the article on the Geneva Bible at Harvard Divinity School library. I guess if Harvard posts it, it has to be true! This led to a very polite exchange with a librarian there (at Harvard). I provided 3 or 4 scholarly resources and one primary resource –Bunyan himself – showing that the Geneva was not his primary Bible. Though the correspondent seemed to be listening, that library page nevertheless still says the Geneva Bible was the Bible of John Bunyan.
Whether it is a claim of a KJVO author, a textual scholar, or just Joe Blow, the World Wide Web exacerbates and multiplies myths and mistakes.[ii] It gives them a false weight that makes them seem to be true. I found it on the internet; it must be true.
John Milton.
Since I found this “Geneva Bible Only” to be untrue concerning John Bunyan and the Pilgrims, I expected it was also untrue of John Milton.[iii] However, at the time I did not pursue it further. Now I present here just a little bit of information that I recently came across in A History of the English Bible as Literature by David Norton. Norton is King James Bible historian and is not “King James Only.”
“His work had enormous influence on both literary taste and religious ideas, and was written with intimate and, at times, open familiarity with the KJB. Moreover, Milton proclaimed the literary supremacy of the Bible.” (Norton, pp. 175-176)
John Milton was not a so-called “King James Onlyist.” He read and studied the Bible in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, as well as English. But he certainly was not a “Geneva Bible Onlyist.” It is the King James Bible that was his primary English Bible.
“Now, Milton had owned from childhood, perhaps from his fourth birthday, a small quarto KJB (Barker, 1612) which shows abundant signs of use, and he was obviously thoroughly familiar with its text.” (Norton, p. 176)
Milton regarded the King James Bible “as the most accurate but yet improvable rendering of the original. The Hebrew and the Greek he did regard as dictated by God, as his very few comments on the language as language show.” (Norton, p. 176)
John Milton wrote versifications or metrical paraphrases of the Psalms. Initially they were looser/more poetry driven, but sets of Psalms composed in 1648 and 1653 (after his blindness) “show an increasing fidelity both to the originals and to the KJB…” (This is not now fidelity to the KJB as compared to the Geneva before – no, but more fidelity to the KJB and original Hebrew language, as compared to his earlier Psalms.) “The appearance of fidelity, which is often also a fidelity to the KJB, is bolstered by his inclusion of notes supplying the Hebrew or a literal translation of it.” (Norton, p. 179)
Of his later metrical Psalms, Norton writes “He obviously wants to be faithful to the KJB’s words – arguably he is responding to the power of some of its phrases – and seems to be experimenting to see how nearly they can be read as English poetry.” (Norton, p. 180)
Interestingly to this subject, David Norton does not even mention the Geneva Bible in Chapter 8, “Writers and the Bible I: Milton and Bunyan.”
“[In his later metrical Psalms] He obviously wants to be faithful to the KJB’s words – arguably he is responding to the power of some of its phrases – and seems to be experimenting to see how nearly they can be read as English poetry.” (Norton, p. 180)
Conclusion.
There is a great deal of information that can be found online that contradicts the other online material that promotes the unsourced Geneva Only myth. For example, S. L. Greenslade refers to Milton and Bunyan – even Cromwell – in context of the English indebtedness to the Authorized Version of the Bible (The Cambridge History of the Bible: The West from the Reformation to the Present Day, S. L. Greenslade, Editor. Cambridge: University Press, 1963, p. 492). The book earlier noted the KJB’s place of complete dominance in the minds of English people as “the” Bible. “Eventually, however, its [i.e., the King James Bible] victory was so complete that its text acquired a sanctity properly ascribable only to the unmediated voice of God; to multitudes of English-speaking Christians it has seemed little less than blasphemy to tamper with the words of the King James Version.” (Cambridge History of the Bible, p. 168)
If you do not like the King James Bible, that is your choice. It is a free country. But people who tout “the evidence” need to learn to deal with all the evidence.
Sources.
In the Baptist History Preservation group on Facebook, Jonathan Burris asserted that early Baptist churches in America used the Geneva Bible rather than the King James Bible. He invoked the name of John Clarke.[i] He “substantiated” his claim by simply declaring that the Geneva Bible is what came over on the Mayflower, not the King James; and that “All of this is easily verifiable.” Let’s see what we can verify.
Mayflower.
First, I have previously reviewed the claim that the Pilgrims would have only brought and used the Geneva Bible (see HERE). Briefly, the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts possesses two Bibles they are “reasonably sure” came over in the Mayflower – a Geneva Bible belonging to Governor William Bradford and a King James Bible belonging to John Alden. The carefully stated position of the museum is that they do not have “absolute proof” that there were any Bibles on the Mayflower. This is not quite the substantial evidence against the King James Bible that Jonathan Burris proposed.
John Clarke.
As I remember it, Burris wished us to take the matter of John Clarke’s Bible “on credit” rather than his presenting evidence to prove his claim.
It can be shown that John Clarke, pastor of the Baptist Church at Newport, Rhode Island, owned a Geneva Bible. In 1978, when Edwin S. Gaustad wrote Baptist Piety,[ii] he stated that this Bible then was “now in the possession of the Rhode Island Historical Society.” He described it as “a 1608 edition of the Geneva Bible, printed in London by Robert Barker.” He adds “it apparently first belonged to John Clarke’s father, Thomas (1570-1627)” and “contains vital statistics pertinent to the Clarke family.” The fact that John Clarke owned a Geneva Bible (which may have survived to the present primarily because of its Clarke family information) does not prove that he did not own or use a King James Bible.
To test the claim of Jonathan Burris, I reviewed John Clarke’s Ill News from New-England; Or, a Narrative of New-Englands Persecution in order to get a sense of what Bible Clarke used – especially hoping to find Bible verses quoted in his book by which to identify a particular translation. There is a lot of scripture in his book, but often times he is likely quoting from memory – just writing and not looking in a Bible to get it exact. In some places it seems like he adjusts Bible verses to fit in the form of the sentence he is writing. Nevertheless, my initial conclusion is that John Clarke’s Bible references favor the King James as the primary Bible he was using in 1652 when he wrote Ill News from New England. Consider this.
Review.
On the cover page of this book, Clarke excerpts from three verses in Revelation: 2:25; 3:11; 22:20. Two are the same in both Bibles, but 3:11 has “behold I come shortly” in the Geneva Bible – which is not what Clarke has.
John Clarke refers to part of Romans 8:2, and that reference does not match either the Geneva or KJV. When he mentions part of Hebrews 12:14, it is the same in both the Geneva and KJV. When he writes “the word that in the 5 Rom. 11. is rendered attonement, is in 2 Cor. 5. 18, 19. and in all other places translated by the word Reconciliation,” he could be speaking of either the Geneva or the KJV.
There are several lengthy quotes at the bottom of page 33 and top of page 34. These seemed to be for the purpose of quotation rather than just worked into writing a paragraph. What Bible or Bibles do these match?
“Revel. 13. 10. He that leadeth into Captivity shall go into Captivity, he that killeth with the Sword must be killed with the Sword; here is the patience and faith of the Saints.” [Matches the KJV.]
“Rev. 12. 11. And they overcame him by the bloud of the Lamb, and by the Word of their Testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death.” [Matches the KJV]
Rev. 6. 9, 10, 11. I saw under the Altar the Souls of them that were slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held; And they cryed with a loud voice saying, how long holy and true wilt thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwel on the Earth, &c. [Not an exact match for either, but closer to the KJV.]
Rev. 20. 4. And I saw the Souls of them that were beheaded for the Witness of Iesus, and for the Word of God, and which had not worshiped the Beast, neither his Image, neither had received the marke upon their foreheads; or in their hands, and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. [Matches the KJV]
Conclusion.
The Mayflower/Geneva Bible legend is overworked and needs a rest (or at least a very thorough and unbiased review). Jonathan Burris’s claim that John Clarke preferred and used the Geneva Bible will not withstand scrutiny. The results of my initial test yields the conclusion that the Bible quotes in 1652 favor John Clarke’s using the King James Bible rather than the Geneva Bible.[iii]
My conclusion is tentative and needs to be tested more carefully. For example, retest with a greater sample of the work of John Clarke and other early Baptists in the American colonies. Compare using actual scans of Bibles printed in that period to check the quotes. I used the AKJV and 1599 Geneva on BibleGateway (which should be relatively trustworthy, but still not the truest test; it is what I had time to do while discussing this on the Facebook forum). Nevertheless, this test gives an idea how we can begin to verify such claims rather than just make them up!
From time to time, I run across factual errors in the realm of theology or church history on the World Wide Web. If I think it is egregious and possibly influential, I try to contact the web site owner or owners to suggest a correction. Sometimes the suggestions are met with appreciation, sometimes with ambivalence, sometimes with anger, and sometimes with silence. I intend (Lord willing) to start a series “Correcting the Internet” for the times I meet with these issues.
The following correction is to an article section titled “Addendum I: The King James Version” on the textual criticism site of Robert B. Waltz. In this case the “silence” is because I could not contact the owner. The site no longer has a valid contact e-mail and my message was returned undeliverable. There are several things on the site to which I object, but some are matters of opinion which I will overlook for the time being. I note two things.
The Greek Text of the King James Bible
The 2nd paragraph of the article states, “Scrivener reconstructed the text of the KJV in 1894, finding some 250 differences from Stephanus.”
This seems to be a common misconception. The original publication is 1881 rather than 1894. It seems that the 1894 publication of F. H. A. Scrivener’s The New Testament in the Original Greek is the best known, and the edition that was reprinted. Nevertheless, it was first published in 1881. F. H. A. Scrivener was commissioned to compile this work as part of the English Bible revision project. He served on the revision committee with B. F. Westcott, F. J. A. Hort, Charles J. Ellicott, and others. It came out the same year as the New Testament translation The scan of this book available at Google Books verifies the 1881 date.
The New Testament in the Original Greek, According to the Text Followed by the Authorised Version (1881)
This is a simple correction, easily verified in numerous sources.
The Reception of the King James Bible
The next to last paragraph in the article has this statement: “…at the time of its publication, the KJV was greeted with something less than enthusiasm, and for the first few decades of its life, the Geneva Bible remained the more popular work…”
Regarding the reception of the new King James Bible, this is a common misconception. It is not that this has no ring of truth. Rather, the Geneva vs. KJV embellishment is often simply passed on without scrutiny. (I have dealt with this is a few places, e.g., HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.) In this manner the overstatement exerts a wide and powerful influence on what people think about the reception of the KJV without inspecting the details. The King James Bible was a dud. People would not have used it if King James had not made them. There is a Geneva Bible partisanship running through the WWW, in both scholarly and popular circles, that rushes to judgment.[i] If we take a breath and do some research, we find that this idea encompasses some confirmation bias.
In “Ten Fallacies about the King James Version” (Southern Baptist Journal of Theology, Vol. 15, No. 4, Winter 2011, p. 9), Leland Ryken calls this “Fallacy #5: The KJV Fell Flat And Was Ignored When It Was First Published,” writing:
“It is true that the release of the KJV was surrounded by misfortunes that could easily have subverted the entire publishing venture. The first printer of the KJV found himself in almost immediate financial difficulty, and the early years of printing were bound up in litigation…the new translation was in immediate competition with the entrenched best-selling Bible of the day, the Geneva Bible…Despite this, the KJ V did very well. In its first five years of existence, readers called for seventeen editions, compared with six editions of the Geneva Bible during those same years. Expanding the time frame, in the first 35 years of its existence the KJV went through a whopping 182 editions. The KJV supplanted the Geneva Bible within fifty years of its publication, very good indeed.”[iii]
The “Hampton Court Conference” (so-called because it met at the Hampton Court Palace, near London) was held January 14, 16-18, 1604. King James I presided over this meeting attended by bishops and Puritan leaders of the Church of England. At this conference John Rainolds/Reynolds proposed a new English translation of the Bible be made, and King James agreed. William Barlow reported:
“Whereupon his Highnesse wished, that some special paines should be taken in that behalf for one uniform translation (professing that he could never, yet, see a Bible well translated in English, but the worst of all his Majesty thought the Geneva to be)…” (The Summe and Substance of the Conference…at Hampton Court, Jan. 14. 1603, William Barlow. Clerkenwell, UK: Bye and Law, Printers, 1804, page 35.)
The proud and prickly Hugh Broughton is perhaps best known for being hard to get along with, and for his excoriations of the new Bible translation in 1611 (A Censure of the Late Translation for our Churches). Less known (certainly to me, at least) is that Broughton may have tried to revive with the new King James I of England his former dead attempt with Queen Elizabeth to authorize his [Broughton’s] revising the English Bible. Kristen MacFarlane reports:
“…the succession of James I in 1603 gave Broughton what he perceived to be a window of opportunity. He had always thought his scholarship would be better received in Scotland than in England, and with a Scottish King on the British throne, Broughton felt confident that a change in his fortunes was imminent. This is shown in a letter entitled ‘Of Amending the Genevan translat.’, sent to James by Broughton soon after his succession and before 1604.[89] In this, Broughton explained to James that many bishops and nobles had long wished for an improved version of the Geneva Bible and that even Anthony Gilby (d. 1585), who was one of its translators, had been ‘most earnest to have his work amended’.[90] As well as briefly reiterating some of the general rules that Broughton had already mentioned in his Epistle to the Learned Nobility, this letter also informed James that another work was soon to be printed (An advertisement of corruption) which would further reveal the ‘grosse errors’ in the text and notes of current English Bibles, and urged him to take action in this matter.[91] Whether Broughton ever did send this letter, or indeed whether James ever received it and replied is a matter of speculation but, in any case he would have no more support from James, either for his new English Bible or his other projects, than he had from Elizabeth.” (Biblical Scholarship in an Age of Controversy: The Polemical World of Hugh Broughton (1519-1612), Kristen MacFarlane. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021, page 79.) [89] LBL MS Sloane 3088, fol. 114r-115r. The letter’s reference to the imminent publication of Broughton, An advertisement gives its terminus ad quem. [90] LBL MS Sloane 3088, fol. 114r. [91] LBL MS Sloane 3088, fol. 114v. (“LBL MS Sloane” refers to the Hans Sloane Collection of manuscripts at the British Library, numbered 1-4100.)
This intrigues me, and raises a question. If the letter by Broughton was sent to King James “soon after his succession and before 1604” and IF James received and read it, might Broughton’s points have influenced King James’s negative views and comments at the Hampton Court Conference about the English Bible in general and the Geneva translation in particular? Has any more in-depth research been done in this regard?
Note: After my writing this, Bryan Ross pointed out the previous desire of James to revise the Bible, in 1601 in Scotland:
“After this a Proposition was made for a new Translation of the Bible, and the correcting of the Psalms in Metre: his Majesty did urge it earnestly, and with many Reasons did persuade the undertaking of the Work, shewing the necessity and the profit of it, and what a glory the performing thereof should bring to this Church: speaking of necessity, he did mention sundry escapes in the common Translation, and made it seem that he was no less conversant in the Scriptures then they whose profession it was; and when he came to speak of the Psalms, did recite whole verses of the same, showing both the faults of the metre and the discrepance from the Text. It was the joy of all that were present to hear it, and bred not little admiration in the whole Assembly, who approving the motion did recommend the Translation to such of the Brethren as were most skill’d in the languages, and revising of the Psalms particularly to M. Robert Pont; but nothing was done in the one or the other: yet did not the King let this his intention fall to the ground, but after his happy coming to the crown of England set the most learned Divines of that Church awork for the Translation of the Bible; which with great pains and the singular profit of the Church they perfected.” (The History of the Church of Scotland, Beginning the Year of Our Lord 203, and Continued to the End of the Reign of King James VI (3rd edition), John Spottiswood. London: R. Norton, 1668.)
In contrast to Spottiswood, who heaps high praise on King James VI, David David Calderwood does not mention James in reference to the translation. He writes:
“In the last Session, it was meaned by sundrie of the Brethren, that there were sundrie errours in the vulgar translation of the Bible, and of the Psalmes in meeter, which required correcting; as also that there were sundrie prayers in the Psalme Book, that were not convenient for the time. It was therefore concluded, that for the translation of the Bible, every one of the Brethren, who had greatest skill in the languages, imploy their travails, in sundrie parts of the vulgar translation of the Bible, which need to be amended, & to confer the same together at the next Assembly.” (The True History of the Church of Scotland, From the Beginning of the Reformation unto the End of the Reigne of King James VI, David Calderwood. 1678, page 456.)
Calderwood does mention that “About the end of this Assemblie, the King discoursed upon the dutie of good Kings…” Spottiswood was a partisan for James, while Calderwood opposed his episcopal views. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between the opinion of two partisans.
As for the Bible to be revised, it would have been the Geneva Bible.
In 1643, a “pocket Bible” – The Souldiers Pocket Bible – was issued for use by the soldiers in Cromwell’s army. Some few still think this was an entire Bible, but it was in fact a pamphlet with excerpts of different Bible verses related to the army, soldiers, and war. The pamphlet was 5-1/2" X 3" with approximately 125 Bible verses on 16 pages. There is one verse on the title page. Writers usually claim that it contains verses from the Geneva Bible – which is generally correct, with at least two exceptions (and with the understanding that sometimes the verses in Geneva and King James are the same).[i]
“The Soldier’s Pocket Bible was composed of just 16 pages which contained 150 verse quotations from the Geneva Bible.”[ii]
“Originally published in 1643 during the English Civil war, the booklet is a collection of 125 verses from the Geneva Bible translation to encourage soldiers in Oliver Cromwell’s army.”[iii]
Here are a few excerpts. The Souldiers Pocket Bible did not always contain complete verses, and perhaps not always exact replicas of either version. For examples:
In his facsimile reprint of The Souldiers Pocket Bible, Francis Fry
quotes George Livermore’s observation about the pamphlet.
“The selections from Scripture are almost all from the Genevan version…Only one text (Eccles. ix. 2.) is unquestionably from the latter version [i.e., King James, rlv]. The variations from the Genevan consist in a occasional transcription of words, the substitution of a synonym, or similar looseness of quotation, as if memory alone had been relied on.”[iv]
Perhaps even Fry and Livermore had not paid close attention to the Bible verse on the cover page (Joshua 1:8) which, other than a few words left out of the last clause (which are in both Geneva and KJV), matches the text of the King James Bible rather than the Geneva Bible.
It seems there was no “grand conspiracy”
to exclude all use of the 1611 translation. Though the preponderance of verses
favor the Geneva Bible, there are places where the KJV and Geneva match, and places
in the pamphlet that do not match either translation. Furthermore, Hamlin and Jones suggest
that Cromwell was not deeply committed to use only the Geneva Bible.
“Although one might think that the Puritan Commonwealth would have been committed to the Bible most associated with English Puritans (the Geneva), even Oliver Cromwell now favored the KJB (printed by John Field, first Printer to Parliament and then ‘one of His Hignes [i.e. Cromwell’s] Printers’)’...Even before the end of the Commonwealth, no one was printing anything but the KJB, and its domination of the English Bible market was assured for the next 250 years.”[v]
For whatever reason – hatred of the KJV, love of the Geneva, sloppy research, repetition of “Christian urban myths,” riding the bandwagon, assumption the “scholars” are right – often the transition from the use of the Geneva Bible to the use of the King James Bible is presented in very controversial terms that are not cleanly supported by all the facts.
