In our last post we took up the first alleged precursor to the commissioning of the KJB at Hampton Court, the decision of the 1601 General Assembly in Scotland to revise the Geneva Bible. Here we take up a second potential precursor to the commissioning of the KJB, an undated parliamentary bill for a new Bible. The Text of the Bill B.F. Westcott drew attention on 7 Nov. 1872 to a draft for an act of Parliament from the Elizabethan era providing a “remarkable detail in the history of the English Bible, which seems to call for further investigation” (x, n.1). Sadly, little “further investigation ..read more

On Monday, 16 Jan. 1604, the King James Bible was commissioned by the royal authority of King James VI and I. Before examining that commission, I decided to explore potential precursors. In 1601 James called the Scottish General Assembly to meet in Burntisland where it commissioned a new Bible. The masterful and greatly missed historian Jenny Wormald concluded that the “origin of the Authorized Version of the Bible lay in [James’] proposal” to the Assembly (pg. 11). Numerous scholars make similar claims (e.g., David Norton, pg. 82-83; David Wright, pg. 208; William Cra ..read more

Our last two posts (here and here) traced activities of the first two days of the Hampton Court conference. This post overviews the final day and reflects on the conference as a whole. Hampton Court Day Three – Wednesday, 18 January 1604 The final day happened in two parts. The first session was most important, treating and deciding issues not yet settled. The second session essentially publicized these decisions. The Puritan spokesmen were present only at the second. Session One John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, from a 1602 painting at Lambeth Palace. Wikimedia Commons. The first ses ..read more

In our last post we traced the activities of the first day of the Hampton Court Conference. In this post we overview the events of the second day, on which a new translation was first proposed. In the next we will overview the third day. Hampton Court Day Two – Monday, 16 January 1604 On Monday, the Puritans finally got their long awaited audience with the king. Archbishop Whitgift and the other bishops had been charged to settle by Wednesday the issues commissioned to them by the king. They thus met in a separate Council Chamber while the king heard Puritan complaints. Whitgift sent two ..read more

In our last several posts we have examined the avenue, attendees, and accounts of the Hampton Court conference. In a future post we will zoom in on the request made at the conference for a new translation which resulted in our King James Bible. To place that request in historical and political context, a clear overview of the events of the entire conference is first needed. To that end, this post and the next two will each overview one day of the conference. The Activities – Historical Difficulties Patrick Collinson, that veteran scholar of Puritanism, cautions that “the historian of Hampton C ..read more

In our last several posts, here and here, we have discussed the famous Hampton Court conference, which ultimately lead to the creation of the King James Bible. One or two more posts on the conference will be forthcoming, but along the way it seems appropriate to say a word about the primary sources used for studying the conference. Those without interest in such detailed historical investigation can simply skip this post and move to the next one. The Lying Barlow? The longest and most well-known account of the conference is the semi-official, The Sum and Substance of the Conference b ..read more

The Hampton Court conference in 1604 not only set the direction for the Church of England’s future, it also was the context in which the King James Bible was first conceived. At least, the mature form of it that later came to fruition. In our last post on the conference, we examined the palace itself and the dates on which the conference was held. To fully grasp the import of the conference and its impact on the King James Bible, we must also say what we can about those who attended. Many men would work on the KJB, and we will specifically note which of those men were present at this moment in ..read more

The Hampton Court conference in 1604 was described by Frederick Shriver as, “one of the most significant events in the political and religious history of England.” It set the course for the future of the Church of England and determined the role that the Puritans would – or rather, wouldn’t – play in the official Church. Some have perceived the seeds of the English Civil War (now more commonly called “the wars of the three kingdoms”) being planted at this conference. Indeed, given the colonization of the New World by the Puritans as they increasingly found less room for them in the English chu ..read more

In our last post we took up the first alleged precursor to the commissioning of the KJB at Hampton Court, the decision of the 1601 General Assembly in Scotland to revise the Geneva Bible. Here we take up a second potential precursor to the commissioning of the KJB, an undated parliamentary bill for a new Bible. The Text of the Bill B.F. Westcott drew attention on 7 Nov. 1872 to a draft for an act of Parliament from the Elizabethan era providing a “remarkable detail in the history of the English Bible, which seems to call for further investigation” (x, n.1). Sadly, little “further investigation ..read more

[In our last few posts, we have examined the coming of King James I to the English throne, here, the text of the Millenary Petition made to him, here, and the impact which that Petition made, here. We now examine the structure of that Petition and probe into a few of its requests.] Political maneuvers are an art form. Successfully making requests of a new monarch who had not yet made clear what direction his rule would take was an especially tedious form to master. One had to know what could be asked, and what could not; what was too much, and what too little. Further, one had to know how to g ..read more