# Bible translation of post-Cromwell Puritans?



## RamistThomist (Oct 12, 2013)

I gather that many Puritans and non-conformists didn't use the KJV because of King James' moral pecadilloes and tendency towards prelacy and tyranny. After Cromwell and Charles I, though, given that a lot of time had passed, did nonconformists begin to use the KJV? Or to phrase the question another way, when did the KJV begin to eclipse the Geneva Bible in Puritanical and post-Puritanical Britain and Scotland?


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## NaphtaliPress (Oct 12, 2013)

Someone can correct me but I recall one of the only things the Puritans and King James seemed to agree on was the need for a new English translation. Gillespie refers to the AV as 'our English' translation by the mid 1630s and when the Westminster Assembly was authorizing bible printings they were all AV; no discussion about bringing back the Geneva. So I suspect it was not a long process of overlooking the weaknesses in how it came to be and seeing the strengths of the product.


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## irresistible_grace (Oct 12, 2013)

It seems they used the KJV soon thereafter.
They just refused to call it "King James" Version  
It is the *Authorized Version*, "our English" translation!


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## jogri17 (Oct 12, 2013)

If my Church History course serves me correctly, 1603 was the Milenary Petition in which a thousand or so Puritan ministers in the Church of England gave the coming king just after becoming King. When the Hampton Court was held, they revised and increased the number of their demands. Very few concessions were made to them, but two major ones were given: 1. Notes in a copy of the prayer book which reflected a more Puritan approach to ceremonies. 2. A new major English Bible Translation. It was not apart of the original Milenary Petition, but was one of the added. This was not a time of the Civil War yet, and compared to his son, the Puritans loved James. He was a far better king than his son Charles.


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## Logan (Oct 12, 2013)

During that time period, wasn't it the Bishop's Bible that was the only version "authorized" for use in the English church? And wasn't it this version that the Puritans rejected as being unsuitably translated? Thus the complaint against the translation.

I seem to remember having the impression that they objected to the "official" Bible being the Bishop's Bible and would have preferred to have used the Geneva Bible but James didn't like the Geneva so decided instead to commission a new translation to pacify both them and himself.

Interestingly, I was looking at the translator's note to the reader today and there was a rather lengthy section that essentially said "people object to this new translation on the grounds that they already have a good translation and think that we're saying they've had unsuitable and corrupted Scriptures for a while. We don't say that at all, we admire those who have gone before us and yet think that later thoughts are usually wiser so thought we'd improve on their work, and besides, we think the old translators would commend us for our effort."

I found it amusing and somewhat ironic.

Edit: perhaps I'm thinking of the "Great Bible" instead of the Bishop's Bible.


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## NaphtaliPress (Oct 12, 2013)

Agreed; things were not good with James I and his bishops but not nearly as bad as when Charles I paired up with Laud. One doesn't think of Charles even as a young man putting up for a second being grabbed by the lapel and told he was God's silly vassal, as Melville did James.


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## NaphtaliPress (Oct 12, 2013)

Neal says Dr. Rainold proposed a new translation (so was a Puritan idea) to which the King agreed as long as there were no marginal notes; he thought the Geneva the worst bible because of the notes allowing disobedience to kings.
The history of the Puritans, or Protestant nonconformist ; from the ... - Daniel Neal, Joshua Toulmin, John Overton Choules - Google Books


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## ZackF (Oct 13, 2013)

I am curious, though maybe hijacking the thread, if the puritans prepared a study bible with the KJV like the Geneva Bible essentially was.


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## PointyHaired Calvinist (Oct 13, 2013)

Cromwell's "Solider's Pocket Bible" was from the *Geneva Bible*, not the KJV. Also, either the Westminster Assembly or Cromwell's Republic proposed an updated translation of the Bible but never got around to doing it.


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## NaphtaliPress (Oct 13, 2013)

The pocket Bible was a pamphlet of 150 verses related to being a soldier. It was as such not a bible and it was published about August 3 according to Thomason only a month after the seating of the Assembly and when their only work was on the 39 articles and Antinomianism. The Assembly had a committee dealing with the accuracy and printing price of Bibles but far as I can tell they did not discuss a new translation for the kingdoms. 


PointyHaired Calvinist said:


> Cromwell's "Solider's Pocket Bible" was from the Geneva Bible, not the KJV. Also, either the Westminster Assembly or Cromwell's Republic proposed an updated translation of the Bible but never got around to doing it.


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## Phil D. (Oct 13, 2013)

Re: "I am curious, though maybe hijacking the thread, if the puritans prepared a study bible with the KJV like the Geneva Bible essentially was."

The Westminster Annotations were essentially created for that purpose. The full title of the final version read: 

"Annotations Upon all the Books of the Old and New Testament- This Third, above the First and Second, Edition so enlarged. As they make an entire Commentary on the Sacred Scriptures: The like never before published in English. Wherein the Text is Explained, Doubts Resolved, Scripture Parallel'd, and Various Readings observed; By the Labour of certain Learned 
Divines thereunto appointed, and therein employed. As is expressed in the Preface." 

The preface (found in the first volume) extols the advantage of having faithful notes "bound in" with the Scripture, stating that this was never more obvious than in the case of the Geneva Bible. There is also this in the preface:

"Hence were divers of the Stationers and Printers of London induced to petition the committee of the Honourable House of Commons, for licence to print the Geneva notes upon the Bible, or that some notes might be fitted to the new translation: which was accordingly granted, with an order for review and correction of those of the Geneva edition, by leaving out such of them as there was cause to dislike, by clearing those that were doubtful, and by supplying such as were defective. For which purpose letters were directed to some of us from the Chair of the Committee for Religion, and personal invitations to others, to undertake and divide the task among us, and so cometh in our part, whereof we shall give the world a true and just account in that which followeth." 

It should be noted that these Annotations were not an official product of the Assembly, although most of the contributors were also members of the Assembly.


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## ZackF (Oct 13, 2013)

Phil D. said:


> Re: "I am curious, though maybe hijacking the thread, if the puritans prepared a study bible with the KJV like the Geneva Bible essentially was."
> 
> The Westminster Annotations were essentially created for that purpose. The full title of the final version read:
> 
> ...



Thanks for this. Very interesting.


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## NaphtaliPress (Oct 13, 2013)

The Annotations are longer commentaries than notes. I think by the high tide of Puritanism, short notes on would have been a bit of a stretch for them. 
You did have Trapp whose commentaries on Scripture began coming out in the mid 1640s and then Poole and Henry's. All three more successful than the Annotations proved to be apparently.


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## Phil D. (Oct 14, 2013)

NaphtaliPress said:


> The Annotations are longer commentaries than notes.



Exactly. As the title of the 3rd edition states, it was so enlarged as to create an entire commentary. I have never seen a copy of the apparently much smaller 1st or 2nd editions, and wonder if they were perhaps published in more of a study bible format.


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## NaphtaliPress (Oct 14, 2013)

I don't recall if I looked at all the editions when doing creation day research for David Hall in 1998, but I believe the 'enlargement' may have to do with swapping out longer comments than before; I think some authors of the various book commentaries are different between editions. The 1645 first edition was over 900 pages; the second edition has the enlargement notice as in the third. I don't think the 1645 was anything like a bible with notes as with the Geneva but I would need to look at it to be sure of that.


Phil D. said:


> Exactly. As the title of the 3rd edition states, it was so enlarged as to create an entire commentary. I have never seen a copy of the apparently much smaller 1st or 2nd editions, and wonder if they were perhaps published in more of a study bible format.


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## Phil D. (Oct 14, 2013)

NaphtaliPress said:


> I don't think the 1645 was anything like a bible with notes as with the Geneva



Good to know.



NaphtaliPress said:


> The 1645 first edition was over 900 pages



Yet I know the 1560 Geneva study bible was over 1000 pages.


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## NaphtaliPress (Oct 14, 2013)

Phil D. said:


> Yet I know the 1560 Geneva study bible was over 1000 pages.


Because it was a bible; I"m just not sure the first edition Annotations was. The 1645 is on EEBO; I will try to remember to do check it next time I have access.


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