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Available at pleasantword.com. Also available at amazon.com, barnsandnoble.com, and christianbook.com. |
To those interested in the question of which English translation is best, this book presents a different angle. Most books on the KJV controversy weigh in heavily on textual questions and considerations. This book, on the other hand, deals mostly with the history surrounding the English "Reformation" and the resulting Anglican Church. To those who would argue that the King James Version is the only acceptable English translation, a few well-placed questions will challenge your thinking. Why would not the most conservative or "fundamental" Christians of that era accept this new version? Why did John Bunyan stick with the Geneva Bible? Why did the Pilgrims reject the new King James Bible? Why didn't the early Puritans accept the King James Bible? Today it is evident that the King James Translation is superior to the Geneva Bible in every way but one. But that one advantage was critical at the time. The Geneva Bible had been translated with the assistance of men like John Foxe (Foxe's Book of Martyrs), John Knox, John Calvin, Theodore Beza, great leaders of the Reformation all. The King James Translation was produced primarily by Anglican churchmen, most of whom were high-church, ceremony-bound prelates who had no use for the likes of Luther or Calvin. King James I hated the Geneva Bible. It was filled with Reformation commentary and it was the most popular English Bible in the realm despite all the Anglican Church's efforts to produce a Bible that could compete with it. After it became clear that the Bishops' Bible would never dent the popularity of the Geneva Bible, James ordered a new translation in 1604. It was introduced to the English people in 1611. Even with the king ordering its exclusive use in all of England's churches, it took more than 50 years and a bloody English Civil War before it finally caught on. By then, many of the most fundamental Englishmen had fled to the New England colonies where it was forbidden to print English Bibles. Only King James Bibles were permitted to be printed in England, and for more than a century England was America's only source for Bibles. With all those advantages, 50 years after it was introduced it finally caught on, and it became the best selling, most readable and majestic Bible the world has ever known. |