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• Conclusion: If Bloody Mary hadn’t died early (age 42); if any of the many Catholic plots to kill Queen Elizabeth had succeeded; if sudden storms hadn’t inflicted the heavy losses in lives, ships, and expenses that allowed England to repulse the invasion of the first Spanish armada in 1588; if sudden storms hadn’t allowed England to repulse the invasion of the second Spanish armada in 1596; if sudden storms hadn’t allowed England to repulse the invasion of the third Spanish armada in 1597; and if the Gunpowder Plot hadn’t been mysteriously exposed in 1605: there would not have been a King James Bible that “just happened” to have God’s name and rank on it; Britain would not have spread the KJV around the world; English would not have become the universal language of the world; scholars and theologians – with no inerrant word of God in existence to expose their Reason-based unbelief – would have, during the 1800s, turned Christianity into the shallow, pathetic joke it is today; there may have been no Bible believers around because of the oh-so-revised mere Bible versions they were using, and because so many were using their layman’s aids to “correct” God’s word; and perhaps apostasy-revealing, literal-word-of-God-based Bible studies that reveal how un- and anti-Scriptural modern Christianity and society are might not have been written. If all of that bad stuff had happened, the church’s salt would have lost its savor centuries ago, and the Devil would have already won the War. We must, by trusting and accepting God’s definition of His word, actively believe in the truth, the authority, and the necessity of the Bible by using it to stay on the strait and narrow way which leadeth unto life (Mt 7:14).

MAKING THE KING JAMES BIBLE

The Translation Committee

King James appointed to the committee 54 of the best scholars of his realm. They were of various political and religious backgrounds, donated their time and effort for no pay, and ranged in age from their late 20s to their mid-70s. A notable scholar who was excluded from the committee was Hugh Broughton (1549-1612).

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Broughton was recognized as the foremost scholar of the “sacred languages” of the Cross: Greek, Hebrew, and Latin – he could speak them as if they were his mother tongue. Broughton despised both the official Bishop’s Bible and the popular Geneva Version. He was openly critical of Catholic doctrine and superstition, believed monarchs rule by Divine Right, despised the Calvinist/Puritan belief in democratic rulers over churches rather than bishops, and published, in Greek, a refutation of several popular Calvinist teachings of Theodore Beza – including the Enlightened belief in democratic churches, societies, and governments. Broughton also wrote to Queen Elizabeth, pointing out the urgent need for the creation of a new Bible version. Christianity was not important to her, however, and she ignored his letter. Broughton later advised the new king, James, to create a new Bible version, and when James promptly agreed, Broughton was delighted because he assumed he would be on the translation committee.

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Broughton’s knowledge of Hebrew alone (he was an effective apologist for Christianity when speaking with Jews who were learned in the Old Testament) was enough to justify appointing him to a translation committee for a new Bible version. His depth of historical knowledge about the changes the Hebrew language went through over the centuries before and after the Crucifixion, made him acutely aware of the ignorance-based Hebrew translation mistakes many modern scholars were making. He realized that both the radical changes and the nuanced changes Hebrew underwent during the Babylonian Captivity when the Hebrew language switched to the pagan alphabet required a depth of understanding that merely “speaking Hebrew” could not recognize. Broughton also understood that many of the Greek NT manuscripts have a blend/mix of four main types of Greek in them: the common soldiers’ (Koine) Greek, the regional Greek used by the Apostles in their writings, the Septuagint Greek used by later scholars who translated the Hebrew OT and Greek NT into Greek-language Bibles, and the scholarly Greek of the Talmud’s traditional teachings. It was this history-shaped blended complexity of the Biblical languages that were used when initially writing Scripture’s living-language manuscripts that tended to be obscured over the centuries after the original manuscripts and copies of the originals had been translated many times into other languages that had been affected by linguistic trends over many centuries by various unknown men of unknown language skills from unknown regions that, Broughton thought, made it folly for modern scholars to attempt to use their shallow knowledge and understanding when “unskillfully altering,” evaluating, sorting, and “correcting” Bible manuscripts. All of these well-intentioned attempts to “correct” Scripture and produce and defend “better” Bible manuscripts and versions against “lesser” Bible manuscripts and versions were, to varying degrees, subverting Christians’ faith in the truth and authority of God’s holy word. Broughton was convinced his expertise was needed – nay, necessary – for any committee making a new Bible translation so it could avoid the same mistakes that had resulted in a long series of “mere” short-lived, ho-hum Bible versions.

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Despite his unsurpassed academic credentials, Broughton was not appointed to the committee. Why? Because nobody wanted to work with him. He was pompous, disagreeable, impatient, sarcastic, argumentative, condescending, and insulting. When he learned he’d been passed over, he reacted with characteristic aggressive anger – he said and wrote that the King James Bible would be like all the other mere versions – a horrible version unworthy of anybody’s attention.

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To the credit of the King James translators, however, their unwillingness to work with Broughton did not mean they didn’t hold his knowledge and scholarly works in high esteem. Broughton had already published translations of several books of the Hebrew OT, and the translation committee not only consulted and used them as references, but several of our well-known phrases in the KJV came from Hugh Broughton. (Note: I think one of my historical sources said Broughton, who died shortly after the KJV was published, when he had a chance to closely examine it, was so impressed that he swallowed his pride and anger and publicly praised it. But that’s not in my notes; I don’t know where I may have read it…but Broughton’s integrity was so impressed on my memory that I’m willing to give him credit here – while also letting you know I’m not absolutely sure.)

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To close this section on the translation committee: I am aware of the fact that fallible humans worked on the KJV – just as fallible, well-intentioned humans have worked on all Bible translations. But the inerrancy of the KJV, combined with the fact that it alone meets God’s definition of His word, together with numerous amazing-and-unique details about the KJV and its history, made me realize the KJV is supernaturally different from all other Bible versions and old dead-language manuscripts: It is God’s word; it is not the translators’ word. Its unique inerrancy is God’s proof that the AV1611 is His word. I am thankful for what it says, for what it teaches me, for how it corrects me, and for what it does inside me. I am humbly thankful that it has been helping me get to know my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Jer 9:23,24  Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.

MAKING AND PRINTING THE KING JAMES BIBLE

In 1605 the 54 scholars on King James’ translation committee were divided into six companies: two of the companies were to work at Westminster, two were to work at Oxford, and two at Cambridge. Each of the six companies was assigned a different section of the Bible. The companies worked on their sections for the first two years, and when they were finished they swapped sections and carefully went over each other’s work for the next three years. When the KJV translation companies finished reviewing the works of the other sections and were finished with the whole Bible, two men from each company (12 men in all) were assigned to carefully review the entire work and make changes when necessary. Then the finished, reviewed Bible went to a final review group made up of a small number of senior translators who had to painstakingly go over everything one last time.

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Several Master Original Copies (MOCs) of the finalized KJV were made, and some of these MOCs were delivered to the printers in 1610 so they could make the necessary preparations and begin work. Two different printers were to produce two first editions of the KJV that were to be replacements for all of the existing Bishops’ Bibles in churches. For that reason, the two first print runs created the huge lectern-format Bibles with the traditional, formal, heavy Gothic blackletter type. Those two editions were the only KJVs printed in 1611. Then, beginning in 1612 when the printers switched to the newer, more reader-friendly Roman-style type, smaller-sized editions were printed for the general public. From then on, there were many, many editions (print runs) of the KJV…and because of the manual, boring-but-detail-demanding job of the typesetters, there were a lot of typesetter mistakes.

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No one knows what the Master Original Copies looked like. One reason for that is the fact that, after the first print runs were made, it was common for succeeding printings to be made from already-printed KJVs – the MOCs weren’t considered necessary. When the KJV’s inerrant text gradually began to attract attention in the late 1600s, people wondered what the “original” text of the MOCs said…but the MOCs had vanished in the 1666 Great Fire of London that destroyed most of the city, which had grown into a helter-skelter, overcrowded, stinking, flea-infested, plague-causing rats’ nest. In fact, the plagues ended when the city burned down.

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The translators’ manuscript sources included many of those covered in chapter 7 on Bible versions. Modern scholars object to several sources for the KJV because some readings in the KJV either are not in any Greek manuscript we know about, or are not in any manuscript we know about today – the apparent hope of modern anti-KJVers is that you’ll assume the elite scholars appointed by King James to his translation committee, as well as earlier top manuscript experts like Beza, Jimenez, Erasmus, Jerome, and Stephanus all invented readings! Modernists also try to soil the KJV translator’s reputations by claiming they took readings from the poorly-done, recently published Catholic Douay-Rheims Version…when they know the same readings appear in Jerome’s pre-Catholic Latin Vulgate and/or in respected other-language (not Greek) manuscripts. For example, modernists zealously point out that some KJV readings do not appear in any of the almost 6,000 Greek manuscripts we have today…and they act like that’s relevant and important – when they know those readings are in the vast majority of 10,000 Latin Vulgate manuscripts and Old Latin manuscripts, and in the vast majority of Syrian manuscripts from the regions around Antioch, and from the writings of early Christians who quote directly from Scripture! In other words, they deliberately prey on the perfectly-normal ignorance of faithful Bible believers. Anti-KJVers hope you won’t know that famous, well-respected men like Jerome, Jimenez, Erasmus, and Beza did not invent the readings – they simply got them from one or more of “The Distinguished Lost Elite of the Manuscript Mess: The Chosen Few whose Quality caused them to be Hand-picked because they Stood Out from the Rest” that we all know existed…and that may surface again at any time! Modern scholars don’t want to admit those top scholars of yesteryear probably did use the Distinguished Lost Elite manuscripts…because Alexandrian-text-loving modernists don’t want to put themselves in the uncomfortable position of admitting that those top scholars of old are very well known for having carefully examined the Alexandrian texts…and then unanimously rejecting them. Today’s Bible believers, however, do not need to know the revealing details about the Manuscript Mess or about the men who produced earlier Bible versions, because they have a necessity that is more important than knowledge – their faith in God…which causes them to compare the inerrant text of the AV1611 with the obvious corruption of modern versions and bow their heads in humble acceptance of the KJV as God’s holy word. As for why so many modern scholars prefer, recommend, and use versions whose corruption indisputably proves they are not God’s holy word, we cannot know for sure, and it’s not for us to judge. Is their apparent enmity against the obvious authority of the Authorized 1611 King James Bible caused by their Natural carnality, which is violent enmity against the supreme authority of God? Or are they merely mediocre wimps who cannot stand up and resist the obvious-and-unscholarly wrongs of the majority? We don’t know. But we do know to run with the majority during the race of life is to be mediocre all of the time, and wrong most of the time.  Without faith it is impossible to please him (Heb 11:6).

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Printing the King James Bible: The text of the KJV has 774,746 words that are made up of millions of individual letters…and that doesn’t count the words that go into headings, or the many punctuation marks, or the many numbers, or the many space holders (blank spacers) that go between words, and upper cases for all letters, and all of the upper- and lower-case letters for italicized words. (The Gothic blackface KJVs had to substitute Roman type in place of italics because blackface didn’t have an italic type.)

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When a print run was complete, the inky metal letters, numbers, and spacers (that were all backwards so they’d print frontwards) were scooped up and then individually returned to their little upper- and lower-case wooden compartments in the large wooden type boxes. Letter similarities sometimes caused letters to be put into compartments for other letters. It’s easy to see, for example, how backwards, inky letters like b, d, and p could end up in each other’s compartments – as could u and n – and typesetters, when working on a print job, often trusted that the letters they grabbed from type compartment were the correct letters...and didn’t realize they’d inserted an incorrect letter because they often did it by feel.

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When a typesetter read the first part of a verse from the Master Original Copy he was using (or from an already-printed KJV), he quickly plucked the appropriate upper- and lower-case inky letters, punctuation marks, and word spacers from their inky compartments, and placed them by feel in the grooves that held pieces of type for a page’s text. He was supposed to make the end of the text row get as close to the page margin as possible so the page of text would look uniform – like today’s justified text does. If the text row was too short, he’d improvise to make it longer. For example, he’d add an e to the word be, making it bee; or he’d put two spacers between words instead of one; he’d add an e to mind to make it minde, etc. If a line of text was just a bit too long, it was quicker and easier to remove a letter from a word or to remove punctuation marks than to remove the entire last word in the line and then insert several spacers to make the line of words reach the page margin.

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Proofreaders were supposed to catch it when a typesetter absentmindedly skipped a verse; repeated part of an already-inserted verse; used numbers in the wrong order; spelled the word and with a u (that came from the n compartment), which made it say aud; or see that instead of grabbing two of the letter n for the old spelling of sonne (son), the typesetter took two type pieces from the lower-case n compartment and didn’t realize one of them was a misplaced u, and then set the two letters by feel into the groove without paying attention to what they really were, thus making the word soune. These and many, many other human errors plagued all of the old books produced by manual typesetting. For example, here are two typesetter errors not caught by a proofreader in the Geneva Bible:

• Mat 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers incorrectly said Blessed are the placemakers

• John 6:67 Then said Jesus to the twelve incorrectly said Then said Judas to the twelve

Here are some print-run errors in various editions of the KJV:

• The first two editions of the KJV, done by two different printers became known as the “she Bible” and the “he Bible” because in Ruth 3:15 one correctly said, and she went into the city, and the other incorrectly said, and he went into the city.

• Philemon 20 refresh my bowels incorrectly said refresh my bowles

• Luke 10:36 unto him that fell among thieves incorrectly said unto himt hat fell among thieves

• 1 Sam 12:21 was incorrectly numbered as verse 20, giving the chapter two verse 20s and no verse 21.

• Psalm 35:27 deliberately omitted the period at the end because there was no room for it.

• Micah 2:7 are these his doings? incorrectly said are these his dongs?

• The second use of members in 1 Cor 12:12 was spelled membrs because of space.

• Zec 6:7 walked to and fro incorrectly said walked to and for

• 1 Cor 6:9 the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God incorrectly said the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of God

• Isa 28:17 the waters shall overflow incorrectly said the waters shall overthrow

• John 3:17 God sent not his Son incorrectly said God sent not his Sou

• John 18:36 if my kingdom were of this world incorrectly said if my kingdom were of this word

• John 8:11 go, and sin no more incorrectly said go, and sin on more

• Exodus 20:14 Thou shalt not commit adultery incorrectly said Thou shalt commit adultery, which nicknamed this edition “The Adulterous Bible.”

• Psalm 119:161 Princes have persecuted me without a cause was changed by a disgruntled typesetter to Printers have persecuted me without cause, which nicknamed this print run “The Printer’s Bible.”

• Gen 24:61 Rebekah arose, and her damsels, and they rode upon the camels incorrectly said Rebekah arose, and her camels, and they rode upon the camels

• Galatians 4:29 has a comma. A typesetter had asked if the comma belonged there. After checking on it, the proofreader later wrote for the typesetter on the copy sheet by the comma “to remain” …and when a different typesetter who didn’t know about the question resumed work, that edition was printed with But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit to remain, even so it is now.

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As mentioned earlier, the first two editions of the KJV – the only two print runs done in the year 1611 – used the old-fashioned bold black Gothic print because, even though it was harder to read than the new Roman-style print, the Gothic was considered more “reverent.” Like most Bibles, the KJV used italics to identify words that weren’t technically in the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, but undeniably belonged contextually to convey the proper meaning. The Gothic type did not have italics, so the printers used Roman type as a substitute for italicized words. The visual result of mixing heavy bold black Gothic words with skinny light Roman words, depending on how many italicized words were supposed to appear on a page, was considered weirdly ugly by printers because it had a blotchy effect. Not a problem – they simply used Gothic type for many of the words that were supposed to be Roman-italic type, which made the overall look of the page acceptable to them.

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The English alphabet was not yet fully developed, and the Gothic alphabet was old fashioned. The letter v wasn’t yet part of the English alphabet (the letter u was used as both a v and a u), it also didn’t have the letter j (an I served double duty for the letter I and j). The lower-case s looked similar to our modern letter f. These letter differences caused correctly-spelled English words to look different to us today. For example, the Roman-type word sin looked like fin with Gothic type; Jesus looked like Iefus;  joy looked like ioy, etc. And when all of those “new” letters were officially added to the English alphabet, it took a few years for printers to add those little metal letters to their inventory.

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Also, in 1611 the English language was still developing, there was no dictionary, and word spelling was therefore not standardized. If an old document has the same word spelled different ways, they weren’t misspellings; it was perfectly acceptable. Sometimes be would be bee; moued (moved) could be mooued; and me might be spelled mee. Other examples of modern-versus-1611 Gothic spelling: stars–ftarres;   also–alfo;   ran–ranne;   evil–euill.  And, of course, typesetters sometimes added or subtracted word letters to better justify page margins.

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Why am I telling you all of this? Because you may read someday something like this: “The KJV in use today is radically different from the original KJV of 1611; the original text has had 75,000 changes made to it. Today’s KJV is not the same as it was in 1611.” Statements like that made by anti-KJVers are technically correct when they use the word changes. But some other anti-KJVer will read that technically-correct statement, not realize it is subtly misleading, and will go around saying things like, “The text of the 1611 KJV has had 75,000 revisions (instead of changes).” Or he’ll say, “There have been many revisions to the 1611 KJV; the text of today’s KJV is very different from the original.” They will also say, “There have been many errors in the text of the King James Bible – instead of correctly calling them typesetter errors.”

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Just to be clear: The KJV has never been “revised,” which is why it is still the Authorized 1611 King James Bible. If the text had been “revised,” it would be renamed according to the year of the revision – such as this fictitious example: “the 1629 King James Bible.” Yes, the original text of the KJV has had many thousands of changes made to word spellings and to typesetter errors of many, many kinds. Those changes can also be called edits – and editions – but changes and edits are neither revisions nor do they result in a new version.

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Why do anti-KJVers always specifically mention changes made to the 1611 printing of the KJV – as opposed to printings made in later years such as 1612? Because both 1611 print-run editions used Gothic type. Fact: The Gothic print runs of 1611 and the Roman print runs of 1612 were both made from the translators’ Master Original Copy…which means, even though the texts of the 1611 Bibles and the 1612 Bibles were exactly the same, it is technically accurate to say there were tens of thousands of changes made to the original 1611 text. Look at these “changes,” for example:

• Because of the old Gothic lower-case f in the name Mofes in the 1611 text, the name Moses alone technically underwent 852 changes between 1611 and 1612 just because the lower-case Gothic f was changed to the lower-case Roman-type s…and there are a whole lot more words in the Bible than Moses that use a lower-case s. Lots of changes from a printer’s perspective; but zero revisions to the text.

• The name Iefus in the 1611 Gothic text was changed to the Roman Jesus 952 times…and we haven’t begun to scratch the surface of the 75,000 “changes” made to the Bible when the old Gothic type was replaced, when typesetter errors were corrected, when word spellings were slightly different, etc., etc.

Why do anti-KJVers stoop to misleading tactics like the above? Because, first, they want to make uninformed people think the miraculously-inerrant text of the KJV is just a myth perpetuated for unknown reasons by Bible-believing Christians. Second, they abhor the fact that 400 years ago an inerrant Bible was published…and they’ve been unable to find any errors or contradictions in it. Third, they really are constantly revising the text of their modern versions – in some cases tens of thousands of times – by not only changing, adding, subtracting actual words, they also sometimes use new words they discovered and liked in other manuscripts. Fourth, they cannot deny the existence of the errors and contradictions in all of their modern versions that Bible believers point out, and deep down inside they know it makes them look like fools and simpletons when they constantly claim those errors and contradictions have made their mere versions somehow “more accurate.” And, knowing their constant revisions and their “new, improved” mere versions prove they aren’t happy with their fruits, they defend themselves by saying misleading things about the “tens of thousands of changes” made to the 1611 KJV…because, hey, that’s the deceitful way the Bible-selling game is played! And in the hope of selling more mere versions, they’ll even try to make their mere versions look like they’re improvements on the KJV. For example, when Thomas Nelson publishers’ New KJV came out in 1982, they had to add the word new to the version’s title because its text had been revised – which made it no longer the KJV. Not surprisingly, however, the publisher’s promotional literature for the NKJV still “played the game” by falsely claiming the NKJV to be “the fifth major revision of the King James Bible.” They knew most people wouldn’t know the AV1611 underwent four major attempts to clean up typesetter errors, standardize word spelling and words in italics, and correctly record the marginal notes made by the translator committees. Those four major attempts were not revisions; they were the editions of 1629, 1638, 1762, and 1768 that did not change the text. Calling the 1982 NKJV the fifth “revision” of the KJV revealed the Thomas Nelson publishers to be ignorant, incompetent, or deceitful.

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I mentioned earlier that only the text of the King James Bible is Scripture. The chapter and verse numbering system had proven from the start to be incredibly helpful when discussing and studying the Bible…but it’s not the word of God. The Scripture references in the margins, as helpful as they might be, are not Scripture. The marginal “alternative words” are also not Scripture, and a number of them are false. But I want to address paragraph markings in Bibles.

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The 1599 edition of the Geneva Bible, in addition to attempting to clean up typesetter errors, inserted paragraph markings. These marks (¶) called pilcrows, had been used intermittently in secular writings by scholars over the centuries when they wanted their readers to be sure to keep separate the scholar’s written ideas, arguments, or subjects. During the Middle Ages it became a fad to use pilcrows as ornamentals – oversized designs in bright colors intended to add attractiveness to the otherwise-boring handwritten Bible pages. Then after the printing press matured, it was considered sophisticatedly stylish to leave spaces for colorful pilcrows to be manually drawn in after the printing was complete. Over time, non-showy pilcrows were added to printers’ type inventories so they could use them if required in legal documents. Two decades after the Geneva Bible first came out, pilcrows – now that they were included in more type inventories – were added to the word of God in a spur-of-the-moment, ill-advised attempt by the Geneva printer to make God’s word conform to man’s opinion-based, arbitrary subject groupings and isolators. Mankind’s helpful standardized chapter and verse numbering was different from non-standardized pilcrows because the numbering system merely made referencing and finding Scripture easier. Pilcrows, on the other hand, tended to isolate (if the reader paid attention to them) this section or subject from that. Because pilcrow placements were purely subjective, it is not surprising that years after the Geneva had pilcrows added to its text, some unknown printer began, on his own, adding pilcrows to the KJV…and, not surprisingly, the paragraph markings in the Geneva and KJV were put in different places. Indeed, the printer’s arbitrary addition of pilcrows to the KJV abruptly ends with Acts 20:36. Nobody knows why, and today Bible believers are so suspicious of publishers making any changes to the KJV that any and all interest in making changes has vanished. Some say God didn’t want His text to be “corralled” by man, and He wanted to use the attention-getting termination of pilcrows in His Bible to send a message about what He thinks of men using subject groupers and isolators that hinder the type of here-a-little-and-there-a-little Bible study that so enriches personal Bible study. The pilcrows in the KJV did not come from any manuscripts, have never been paid much attention to by Bible believers, and have hindered – among those who don’t know better – the kind of studying God tells us to do. In fact, one “Bible scholar” tried to use the pilcrows to convince me the Gap theory is incorrect because there is no pilcrow at the beginning of Genesis 1:2 – therefore nothing could have happened between 1:1 and 1:2. Is he “corralling” the word of God? I trow so, bro. Pilcrows, unlike chapter and verse numbering, have no meaningful function in the Bible for several reasons:

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• Subject groupings and segregations did not exist in any manuscript or Bible from the time God had Moses begin recording His word.​

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• Because of what pilcrows are supposed to do, only God can add them to His marvelous word. And the fact that He has not done so means they are not part of His inspired, inerrant word.

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• Because nobody agrees about where to place pilcrows in the Bibles they publish, some Bibles have them and some don’t. Pilcrows and so-called “paragraph Bibles” are merely man-made ornamentation and sales gimmicks.

Sadly, theology, Reason, the games Bible publishers play, and plain old unbelief have succeeded in hiding the fact that only the KJV meets God’s own definition of His holy word…and that war on the word sells a lot of “new, improved” mere versions.

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Most editions (print runs) of the KJV were primarily for the purpose of supplying more Bibles for public use, but minor efforts to clean up typesetter errors were made at the same time. There were four major attempts to clean up typesetter errors and to make the English of the Bible conform to the rapidly-maturing language of the worldwide British Empire. Those four major attempts to clean up and modernize the KJV were:

The 1629 Cambridge edition of the King James Bible was an attempt by Cambridge University to clean up the embarrassing sloppiness of both the official London commercial printers and the unofficial make-a-quick-profit printers who seemed to hire poor-quality typesetters and proofreaders (when they even bothered to hire proofreaders). This 1629 edition concentrated on publishing a quality, truly-proofed Roman text that italicized all of the proper words and properly recorded the translators’ marginal Scripture references and the alternative readings of certain Hebrew and Greek words. The marginal references, for example, told where certain NT quotes of the OT could be found in the OT; and the alternative readings pointed out readings that expressed the same or similar contextual meaning. For example, the text of Acts 12:13 said And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a damsel came to hearken, named Rhoda. Next to it in the margin the handwritten translator’s alternative reading said, Or, to aske who was there. (As mentioned in AOR, translators had good reasons for not making their alternative readings part of the text, and alternative readings are often superfluous, sometimes misleading, and are not Scripture. The translators included them because it was a growing fad among scholars; a fad that would grow into the modern layman’s aids that have done so much to subvert faith in Thus saith the Lord.)

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The main result of this cleaned-up 1629 edition was to greatly reduce the opportunities for pewsters, preachers, and scholars to spend their time joking about sleepy typesetters and proofreaders…which led to more emphasis on the text, which made this 1629 edition the real turning point when preachers and pewsters first began to sit up and notice there was something genuinely special about the AV1611’s text. The obvious quality of the 1629 edition caused sales of the KJV to rise sharply – so much so that it rapidly ate into sales of the cheaply-priced Geneva Bible Version – and would have eventually caused the Geneva to drop out of sight even if King James hadn’t, in an effort to literally put all Christians on the same page, banned publication of the Geneva in Britain. How do we know the AV1611 was going to make the Geneva version irrelevant? Because even in Scotland, which had made owning the Geneva a requirement, everybody realized the Geneva they already owned was just a “mere version,” so, even though they already owned the required Geneva, they went out and spent their money on the increasingly-known-to-be-special KJV…and printers in Scotland quickly began printing KJVs…and then in 1634 Scotland officially adopted the KJV in place of the now-acknowledged-to-be inferior Geneva version. The unprecedented quality of the KJV’s spirit-feeding text had made God’s word more important and in-demand than the Geneva’s flesh-feeding Enlightened notes. In fact, the KJV was popularly called “the Bible without notes” to distinguish it from the Geneva. Even the Puritans who came to America in 1620 with their Geneva Bibles, quickly switched to the KJV when its merits became widely known. And as the King James was distributed around the world, Christians of all languages agreed that it is the manuscript authority.