1. Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

Are 1602 errors retained in 1611?

Discussion in 'Bible Versions & Translations' started by Logos1560, Feb 26, 2012.

  1. Logos1560

    Logos1560 Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Oct 22, 2004
    Messages:
    6,204
    Likes Received:
    405
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Are some errors in the English text of the 1602 Bishops' Bible, which served as the starting English text for the making of the KJV, found in the 1611 edition of the KJV?

    David Norton observed: “The KJB of 1611 reproduces peculiarities of the Bishops’ Bible, some of which are found only in the 1602 printings” (Textual History of the KJB, p. 35). David Norton also asserted: “That the KJB was printed from an annotated Bishops’ Bible--possibly from Bod1602--is almost certain from the presence of the peculiarities and errors that come directly from the printed 1602 text” (KJB: a Short History, p. 106). Norton claimed: "Small mistakes can go unnoticed for nearly a couple of centuries in spite of the best efforts of translators and editors" (p. 130).

    The first rule for the making of the KJV stated: “The ordinary Bible read in the church, commonly called the Bishops’ Bible, to be followed, and as little altered as the original will permit.” The king's printer is known to have given around 40 copies of the 1602 edition of the Bishops' Bible [unbound copies] to the KJV translators to use in their preparations for making the KJV.

    How is it possible that those errors in the 1602 Bishops' Bible were not noticed by the KJV translators and evidently were not corrected since they are also found in the 1611 edition of the KJV?

    A number of the KJV translators held high positions of authority in the Church of England so that if these errors were supposedly the fault of the 1611 printers some of the KJV translators could have made sure that they were immediately corrected in the second, third, or fourth editions of the KJV printed in London. The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London had a great deal of authority and control over the printing of books and Bibles in that day.

    Here are six examples of those uncorrected errors that are found in the 1611 edition of the KJV.

    1 Kings 4:10 [Hesed--1560 Geneva, 1568 Bishops; Heseb--1602 Bishops]
    Heseb {1611, 1614, 1616, 1634, 1640 London}
    Hesed (1769 Oxford, SRB) [1629, 1769 Cambridge, DKJB]

    1 Kings 8:61 [Lord our God--1560 Geneva, 1568 Bishops; Lord your God--1602 Bishops] [see 1 Kings 8:59]

    LORD your God {1611, 1613, 1614, 1616, 1617, 1640 London}
    LORD our God (1769 Oxford, SRB) [1629, 1769 Cambridge, DKJB]

    1 Kings 11:5 [Ammonites--1560 Geneva, 1568 Bishops; Amorites--1602 Bishops]
    Amorites {1611, 1613, 1614, 1616, 1617, 1640 London}
    Ammonites (1769 Oxford, SRB) [1629, 1769 Cambridge, DKJB]

    The Hebrew word at 1 Kings 11:5 is the Hebrew word translated "Ammorities" in the KJV in all other places, and it is not the same Hebrew word that is translated "Amorites" in the KJV in other verses.

    2 Kings 11:10 [house of the Lord--1560 Geneva; the temple--1602 Bishops]
    the Temple {1611, 1613, 1614, 1616, 1617 London}
    the temple (1675 Oxford) [1629, 1637, 1817, 2005, 2011 Cambridge] {1640, 1672 London} (1638 Edinburgh) (1816 Albany) (1818 Holbrook) (1827 Smith) (1832 PSE) (1854 Harding) (2006 PENG)
    the temple of the Lord {1795 London}
    the temple of the LORD (1769 Oxford, SRB) [1638, 1769 Cambridge, DKJB]

    At 2 Kings 11:10, the preserved Scriptures in the original languages have the Hebrew word that is translated "Jehovah" or "LORD" at other places in the KJV. That name is omitted in the 1602 Bishops' Bible and the 1611 edition of the KJV.

    2 Kings 24:19 [Jehoiakim--1560 Geneva; Joachin--1602 Bishops]
    Jehoiachin [1817 Cambridge] {1611, 1613, 1614, 1616, 1634, 1640 London} (1816 Albany) (1818 Holbrook) (1827 Smith) (1832 PSE) (1854 Harding)
    Jehoiakim (1769 Oxford, SRB) [1629, 1769 Cambridge, DKJB]

    The Hebrew name at 2 Kings 24:19 translated "Jehoiachin" in the 1602 Bishops' and the 1611 KJV is not the Hebrew name translated "Jehoiachin" in other verses in the KJV. The Hebrew name at 2 Kings 24:19 is the same Hebrew name translated "Jehoiakim" at other verses in the KJV.

    Genesis 47:6 [man--1602 Bishops; men--1560 Geneva]
    any man (1675, 1679, 1715, 1728, 1747, 1754, 1765 Oxford) [1629, 1637, 1638, 1683 Cambridge] {1611, 1613, 1614, 1616, 1617, 1660, 1672, 1705, 1711, 1747, 1750, 1772 London} (1638, 1722, 1756, 1764, 1766 Edinburgh) (1762 Dublin) (1782 Aitken)
    any man [1873 Cambridge] (2000, 2002 ZOND) (HPB) (2008, 2010, 2011 HEND) (NHPB)
    any men (1768 Oxford) [1762, 1763B, 2005, 2011 Cambridge] {1760, 1763, 1764, 1767, 1795 London} (1769 Edinburgh) (EB) (2006 PENG)
    any men (1769 Oxford, SRB) [1743, 1747, 1768, 1769 Cambridge, DKJB]

    At Genesis 47:6, the Hebrew word translated "man" in the 1611 is plural in number. The singular form "man" would also not agree with the later plural pronoun "them" that follows and refers back to it.
     
  2. jonathan.borland

    jonathan.borland Active Member

    Joined:
    Nov 15, 2008
    Messages:
    1,166
    Likes Received:
    2
    Are you saying they may have plagiarized some stuff?
     
  3. JonC

    JonC Moderator
    Moderator

    Joined:
    Aug 28, 2001
    Messages:
    33,286
    Likes Received:
    3,547
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Surely not!!!
     
  4. Logos1560

    Logos1560 Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Oct 22, 2004
    Messages:
    6,204
    Likes Received:
    405
    Faith:
    Baptist
    negative influence of Bishops' on KJV

    Did making of the Bishops' Bible the starting point for the English in the making of the KJV result in the keeping of any of the Bishops' Bible's less accurate renderings? Was the Bishops' Bible a negative influence in any way on the making of the KJV?

    Concerning the Bishops' Bible, Charles Butterworth noted: "Among its peculiarities is the frequent use of 'God' where other versions have 'the Lord'" (Literary Lineage, p. 180). For example, the Bishops’ Bible has “God” at some verses [Ps. 18:1, 23:1, 25:1, 30:1, 35:1, 71:1, 74:18, 79:5, 81:15, 96:1, 97:1, 99:1 etc.] where the KJV has “LORD,“ but it has “Lord” at other verses [Ps. 67:6, 74:1, 10, 80:3] where the KJV has “God.”

    The 1602 Bishops' Bible was the very likely source of the 1611 edition's renderings "God" at Genesis 6:5, 2 Samuel 12:22, 2 Chronicles 28:11, and Isaiah 49:13. Later editors changed the first two of these to "GOD" and corrected the last two of these to "the LORD." The Bishops’ Bible may also be the source of the 1611’s rendering “Lord” at Isaiah 34:1, which later editors revised to “LORD.“ Again the likely if not certain source of the 1611 edition’s rendering “that were in the temple” (2 Kings 11:10) was the Bishops’ Bible that also omitted the phrase “of the LORD” that had to be added by editors in later KJV editions. If the KJV translators were responsible for the keeping of these renderings or omissions from the Bishops’ Bible, they cannot accurately be considered printing errors. Did the Holy Spirit guide the KJV translators to keep those renderings from the Bishops’ Bible that later editors corrected?

    Genesis 6:5 [1611 kept “God” from 1602 Bishops; see also 2 Samuel 12:22, 2 Chronicles 28:11, Isaiah 49:13]
    JEHOVAH (1842 Bernard)
    God (1679, 1770, 1771, 1772, 1773, 1777, 1778, 1782, 1783, 1784, 1788, 1791, 1792, 1798, 1799, 1803, 1810, 1812, 1928 Oxford, 1952 PE, SSB Oxford) [1743, 1747, 1756, 1760, 1765, 1767, 1768, 1769, 1773, 1778, 1795, 1800, 1817, 1822, 1824, 2005 Cambridge] {1611, 1613, 1614, 1616, 1617, 1640, 1660, 1750, 1795, 1824 London} (1722, 1756, 1764, 1766, 1769, 1787, 1789, 1791, 1858 Edinburgh) (1762 Dublin) (1782 Aitken) (1791 Collins) (1791 Thomas) (1802, 1813 Carey) (1810, 1828 Boston) (1813 Johnson) (1815 Walpole) (1816 Albany) (1818 Holbrook) (Clarke) (1827 Smith) (1832 PSE) (1846 Portland) (1854 Harding) (1895, 1997 NPC) (1954 ABS) (1924, 1958 Hertel) (1966 SC) (1968 Royal) (1972, 1976, 1987, 1989 TN) (1973 REG) (1975, 1985 Open) (1976 BH) (1975, 1978 GID) (CSB) (Nave’s) (RRB) (WMCRB) (LASB) (FWP) (1984 AMG) (VB) (JVIPB) (EB) (RSB) (SFCB) (2008 Pilot) (2010 BEAMS) (2010 BRO) (1833 WEB)

    GOD (1715, 1768, 1769 Oxford, SRB, Oxford Classic, NPB) [1629, 1637, 1638 Cambridge, CSTE, DKJB] {1634, 1672, 1711, 1760, 1763, 1817 London}


    2 Samuel 12:22 [see Gen. 6:5, 2 Chron. 28:11, Isaiah 49:13] [God--1602 Bishops]
    God (1675, 1679, 1715, 1728, 1747, 1754, 1758, 1762, 1765, 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, 1773, 1774, 1777, 1778, 1782, 1783, 1784, 1787, 1788, 1791, 1792, 1795, 1798, 1799, 1803, 1804, 1810, 1812, 1819, 1821, 1823, 1828 Oxford) [1629, 1637, 1638, 1683, 1743, 1747, 1756, 1760, 1762, 1763B, 1765, 1767, 1768, 1769, 1773, 1778, 1790, 1795, 1800, 1817, 1822, 1824, 1833 Cambridge] {1611, 1613, 1614, 1616, 1617, 1634, 1640, 1660, 1672, 1705, 1711, 1747, 1760, 1763, 1764, 1767, 1772, 1795, 1817, 1824, 1825 London} (1638, 1722, 1756, 1764, 1766, 1787, 1789, 1791, 1793, 1810, 1820, 1842, 1851, 1858 Edinburgh) (1762 Dublin) (1782 Aitken) (1791 Collins) (1791 Thomas) (1802, 1813 Carey) (1810, 1826, 1828 Boston) (1813 Johnson) (1815 Walpole) (1816 Albany) (1818 Holbrook) (1819, 1829, 1843, 1954 ABS) (1827 Smith) (1832 PSE) (1846 Portland) (1854 Harding) (1924, 1958 Hertel) (CSB) (WMCRB) (VB) (1987 Dugan) (1989, 2003 TN) (1991, 2008 AMG) (KJVCB) (Life) (2008 Pilot) (2010 BRO) (1833 WEB) (1842 Bernard)

    GOD (1829 Oxford, SRB, SSB, Oxford Classic, NPB) [CCR, CSTE, DKJB]

    2 Chronicles 28:11 [of the Lord--1560 Geneva; of God--1568 & 1602 Bishops]
    of God (1675 Oxford) [1629, 1637, 1817, 2005, 2011 Cambridge] {1611, 1613, 1614, 1616, 1617, 1634, 1640, 1672 London} (1638 Edinburgh) (1816 Albany) (1818 Holbrook) (1827 Smith) (1832 PSE) (1854 Harding) (2006 PENG)
    of the Lord {1795 London}

    of the LORD (1769 Oxford, SRB) [1638, 1769 Cambridge, DKJB]

    Isaiah 49:13 [see also Genesis 6:5 and 2 Samuel 12:22] [God--1602 Bishops]
    God (1675 Oxford) [1629, 1637 Cambridge] {1611, 1613, 1614, 1616, 1617, 1634, 1640, 1672 London} (1638 Edinburgh)
    the Lord {1795 London} (1846 Portland)

    the LORD (1769 Oxford, SRB) [1769 Cambridge, DKJB]
     
  5. Logos1560

    Logos1560 Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Oct 22, 2004
    Messages:
    6,204
    Likes Received:
    405
    Faith:
    Baptist
    No, that was not my point. The KJV was made as a revision of the pre-1611 English Bibles, especially the Bishops' Bible. The KJV is more a revision of those pre-1611 English Bibles than it is a new translation.

    The point of this thread is that the KJV translators seem to have failed to correct some errors that were found in the 1602 edition of the Bishops' Bible that they used as their starting point. In some cases, the 1560 Geneva Bible already had the better or more accurate rendering so that should have called attention to the poorer Bishops' Bible rendering.

    The KJV was a revision and not a completely new translation. Concerning the KJV, P. W. Raidabaugh observed: “This great work was not strictly a translation, but a revision of all the English Bibles” (History, p 58). Likewise, Robert Dearden asserted: “This monumental work was distinctly a revision and not in any sense a new translation” (Guiding Light, p. 233). George Milligan affirmed that the AV is “a revision rather than a translation” (English Bible, p. 117). Condit agreed that the KJV “was a revision and not a new translation” (History, p. 339). R. Cunningham Didham asserted that the AV “is not properly a translation at all, but a revision of former translations” (New Translation of the Psalms, p. 6). Thomas Abbott wrote: “It is important to remember that it [the AV] is not a new translation, but a revision” (English Bible, p. 3). David Teems wrote: “In truth, the new Bible was not a translation at all, but a revision” (Majestie, p. 173). John Beard asserted that the KJV “was not a translation, in the proper sense of the term, but a revision” (Revised English Bible, p. 91). A 1853 article in the Local Preacher’s Magazine stated: “King James’s version of the Bible is not properly a new translation, but a revision of the existing translations of the Scriptures in English” (I, p. 113). Steven Houck claimed that sixty-one percent of the KJV comes from the older English versions with "about thirty-nine percent new translation" (The KJV of the Bible, p. 15). As noted elsewhere, others including some KJV-only authors suggest that 70 to 90 percent of the KJV comes from the earlier English Bibles. In 1842 Samuel Aaron and David Bernard pointed out that from the rules given the KJV translators and from comparing the KJV to the earlier English Bibles that "nothing is more obvious" than the fact that the KJV is a revision of them (Faithful Translation, p. 8). David Cloud admitted: "The King James Bible is a revision of that line of Received Text English Bibles stretching back to Tyndale" (For Love of the Bible, p. 8). In an article about John Overall, The Dictionary of National Biography referred to the KJV as "the 1611 revision of the translation of the Bible" (p. 1270). In an article about Roger Fenton, this same reference work called the KJV "the revised version of the Bible" (p. 1191). On its title page and in its preface, the 1611 KJV acknowledged that it revised the former English translations. In their preface, the KJV translators indicated that they never thought that they should need to make a new translation but instead endeavored to make a better one out of several good English translations. Peter Levi wrote: "The Authorized Version was a conflation of existing translations" (English Bible: 1534-1859, p. 34).

    In his introduction to a facsimile reprint of the 1611, A. W. Pollard observed: "The Bible of 1611, being only a revised edition, was not entered on the Stationers' Registers" (p. 32). David Norton maintained that “presumably because it was considered a revision rather than a new book, the first edition was not entered on the Stationers’ Registers” (Textual History, p. 3). In 1913, Franklin Gruber wrote: “The fact that no entry of it on the Stationers’ Registers can be found, can be accounted for. It was probably, if not certainly, omitted because it was then regarded as only a revised version--a revision of the Bishops’ Bible--for in cases of revised editions of books, registration was not considered necessary, and was generally not made” (Biblical World, Vol. 42, p. 220). Adam Nicolson pointed out: “Being only a revision of earlier translations, and not a new work, there was no need for it to be entered in the Stationers’ Register, which recorded only new publications” (God’s Secretaries, p. 227). David Burke wrote: “It is of significance in this regard that there was never any record of the original printing of the KJV in the Stationers’ Register because it was deemed a revision of earlier works rather than an entirely new work” (Translation that openeth, p. xxi, note 8).
     
  6. jonathan.borland

    jonathan.borland Active Member

    Joined:
    Nov 15, 2008
    Messages:
    1,166
    Likes Received:
    2
    So the translators did not always verify the underlying texts for their 1611 translation/revision? Your posts have indicated to me that there were a lot more editions of the KJV than I had ever considered possible.
     
  7. Crabtownboy

    Crabtownboy Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2008
    Messages:
    18,441
    Likes Received:
    259
    Faith:
    Baptist
    I doubt they had any idea of the concept of plagiarized. The word plagiarize did not come into the English language until the 18th century.

    The KJ translators relied heavily on earlier translations. The 1611 version was revised and in the preface it is stated this was necessary to correct some of the mistakes in the 1611 edition.
     
Loading...