
Earliest Known Draft of King James Bible Is Found, Scholar Says - samclemens
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/15/books/earliest-known-draft-of-king-james-bible-is-found-scholar-says.html
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jfmercer
Regarding this discovery, I would argue that debates about the _quality_ of
the KJV translation are beside the point. This is a tremendous historical
discovery, especially for historians of the early English Reformation. The KJV
formed the mind of British Christianity for centuries, which in turn formed
the mind of the British Empire. In other words, the KJV translation is
important not merely for early Reformation studies, but for world history more
generally. Anything that could give historians greater insight into the
process of the KJV translation, as well as the theology (theologies?) of its
translators, is a great discovery.

(A side-note regarding the Empire and Christianization: in the early centuries
of the Empire, the British were primarily interested in trade and conquest,
but not so much in evangelization and conversion of native peoples. The East
India Company (EIC) was a good example of this: as long as profits and goods
flowed in from India, the leaders of the EIC were content not only to leave
native religions alone, but even to intermarry with native Muslims and Hindus
and allow each wife to raise her children in her own particular faith
tradition. Hence the creation of a new ethnicity: the Anglo-Indian. However,
in the 19th century, an evangelical revival effected a sea-change in British
Christianity, and thus the Empire became a vast instrument of evangelization
and conversion. At this point, I think, the KJV became important for world
history, rather than British history in particular.)

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baldfat
Former Seminary Student here. Not really that significant for religious
reasons. This is purely a Historical and Literacy in the Middle Ages finding.
King James version is not very important at all in academia for theology
besides historical understandings (My main focus and where I was going to do
my PhD). We have the original documents that the King James used and we also
have MUCH better originals than the KJ.

~~~
jonah
It's such a poor translation, it's unfortunate so many people still hold it as
_the one_. My feeling is that being exposed to the KJV turns away a lot of
people who might otherwise be interested in reading the Bible. There are so
many others that are more accurate, use modern modern language, and are more
accessible at the same time.

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hugh4
I don't pretend to know or especially care about accuracy, but the semi-
archaic language of the King James Version gives it a certain authoritative-
sounding zing that others may lack.

"Thou shalt not kill" sounds a whole lot better than "Don't kill" even though
the former has two words missing from modern English.

~~~
baakss
This is interesting to me mostly because my favorite translation is often
criticized for being difficult to read because of archaic word choice. Though
in this case, a lot of that may be the 'directness' of the translation from
the source language (Latin).

I suppose there's a sweet spot between how authentic-sounding the translation
is and how complex the diction is.

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dragonwriter
> This is interesting to me mostly because my favorite translation is often
> criticized for being difficult to read because of archaic word choice.
> Though in this case, a lot of that may be the 'directness' of the
> translation from the source language (Latin).

The only English Bible translation that I've ever heard criticized for
readability because of the directness of its translation from a Latin
(intermediary, obviously, as its not the original language of any of the books
of the Bible) source is the original (before the mid-18th Century revision)
Douay-Rheims.

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jkldotio
First paragraph of the article.

"The King James Bible is the most widely read work in English literature, a
masterpiece of translation whose stately cadences and transcendent phrases
have long been seen, even by secular readers, as having emerged from a kind of
collective divine inspiration"

From
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tyndale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tyndale)
"In 1611 the 54 scholars who produced the King James Bible drew significantly
from Tyndale, as well as from translations that descended from his. One
estimate suggests the New Testament in the King James Version is 83% Tyndale's
and the Old Testament 76%."

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Aloisius
Could someone explain how it is that someone discovers something that is
already in a University archive? It seems people are discovering these kinds
of things every few years.

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edmccard
In this case, the notebook was long known to be there, but the relevant
section had been cataloged as a "verse-by-verse bible commentary". What was
discovered was that the verses are part of a draft for a new bible, instead of
just being verses copied from an existing bible.

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rancur
I love skipping straight to comments.

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hcrisp
Amazing! Although the draft is actually of 1 Esdras and Wisdom of Solomon,
part of the intertestamental Apochrypha and not found in many editions that
have only the New and Old Testaments. What happened to the translation drafts
of the other 66 books? Does this mean we have more information on J. R. R.
Tolkien's work (12 volumes) than we do of the original translators of the KJV
bible (a fact that probably would have astonished and annoyed Tolkien)?

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baakss
Why would that have annoyed Tolkien? He was Roman Catholic, and KJV is a
protestant translation.

~~~
hcrisp
I meant he would be dismayed more because of his love of language and ancient
translation, and contrasted to the distaste of his fans' excesses. But I
looked it up, and I was surprised to find that he did read the KJV. "The exact
Bibles in Tolkien's library are not publicly known, but he probably used the
Catholic Douay Version, as well as the Authorized (King James) Version" [1].
"Tolkien knew well the King James Bible of 1611" [2]. [1]
([https://books.google.com/books?id=B0loOBA3ejIC&pg=PA63&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=B0loOBA3ejIC&pg=PA63&lpg=PA63&dq=tolkien+kjv+bible&source=bl&ots=hiFE8CebWi&sig=iiI1VgQDYhhGDkDZ4Y669MUGbXw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAmoVChMI44Hus4TQyAIVTJINCh2gmgMq)
[2]
[https://books.google.com/books?id=O5WvohegkLcC&pg=PA76&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=O5WvohegkLcC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=tolkien+kjv+bible&source=bl&ots=L1EVV2Gg9C&sig=2F39Hlp-
wSzriv3NORmxlR71IWk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBGoVChMI44Hus4TQyAIVTJINCh2gmgMq)

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lifeisstillgood
Whilst happily an atheist, this is still fascinating.

Now does the draft contain the famous "Thou shalt commit adultery"? I bet they
just blamed the typesetter but really ... :-)

~~~
giancarlostoro
Whilst I'm happily a Christian, I've always believed the same about that KJV
mishap, somebody somewhere did something wrong. They are mere men after all.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
I was always under the impressionist was a publishers mistake. It would be fun
to find out the translators slipped it in ...

I would of course be very surprised anyone meant to put it in maliciously.

~~~
giancarlostoro
I think it was one of those "typo" issues we see today that really screwed up
the final output. Like a tired scribe (or translator I guess) who totally
didn't write an entire word, and then when they copied it over to be printed
(I'm not entirely sure the way they did it, but I imagine they handwrote it
first) it totally missed a word, but that's just my own view, I never truly
researched it. Would be tough to figure out how and why without some sort of
journal(s) from the translators themselves.

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lentil_soup
_" The King James Bible is the most widely read work in English literature"_

I've read this many times, but is it true? Are there real sources to support
this claim?

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danielvf
Here's the article mentioned that contains the details of what was found in
the draft.

[http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1619318.ece](http://www.the-
tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1619318.ece)

It's certainly interesting to get a view into a the processes behind a a four
hundred year old, geographically distributed, 50 scholar collaboration.

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justinator
Cool. So what are the notes around John 10:36 say? That's always been a pretty
contentious adding of a, "the" in there.

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dang
Url changed from [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/origins-of-the-
king...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/origins-of-the-king-james-
bible-180956949/?no-ist), which points to this.

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henrik_w
I feel compelled to add the link to the hilarious King James Programming site:
[http://kingjamesprogramming.tumblr.com/](http://kingjamesprogramming.tumblr.com/)

