Best new thread.
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Textus Receptus Academy - Sept 2022
https://www.facebook.com/groups/467217787457422/posts/1202486610597199/
Robert Lee Vaughn
One thing that comes to mind to me in all this is regarding Richard Bancroft's supposed 14 changes to the text. The Bois-Casaubon correspondence suggests they are still working on the translation (maybe only small tweaks?) in the fall of 1610. Wasn't Bancroft's changes supposed to come after Bilson and Smith did their review? I wonder when that happened? To put this together, Casaubon arrived in London October 30, 1610. Bancroft died November 2, 1610 (just 3 days later). When did Bancroft make the 14 changes, if he did?
Christopher Yetzer
Robert Lee Vaughn I actually don't know the reference to Bancroft's changes. Do you have that?
I am waiting on some documents but in my mind the general meeting took place from the beginning of 1609 to the end of 1610. There is an important document simply referred to as a "newsletter" from November 1609 that says they were done with the O.T and going on to the N.T. I have requested images of the document to try to understand it better, but if that is in reference to the general committee, then it would throw out the whole 9 months in 1610 idea.
There are other reasons to believe it started in 1609. 1. The letter from William Eyre to James Ussher in late 1608 requesting the manuscript back. 2. Some articles concerning Barker note that possibly 1609 is when he started to get money together. 3. It seems that several companies were finished by early 1607 and others seemed to be wrapping up by mid 1607 (see letters to John Harmar). That leaves another whole year before the general meeting.
Below is my new chart considering that change.
Robert Lee Vaughn
Christopher Yetzer thanks. Nice chart. Bancroft's 14 changes is a polemic Rick Norris pedals as a supposed "well-established fact" against the King James translation. There
Thomas Hill (c1602-1653), a member of the Westminster Assembly, preached a sermon April 3, 1648 called "Truth and Love happily married in the Saints and in the Churches of Christ." According to Norris he said, “I have it from certain hands, such as lived in those times, that when the Bible had been translated by the translators appointed, the New Testament was looked over by some of the great Prelates, (men I could name some of their persons) to bring it to speak prelatical language, and they did alter fourteen places in the New Testament to make them speak the language of the Church of England.” According to Norris, these changes (not all 14) are mentioned in the sermon: bishoprick (Acts 1:20); hell (Acts 2:27) instead of grave; Easter (Acts 12:4) instead of the passover; omitting of "by election" (Acts 14:23); Helps in government (1 Cor. 12:28) instead of helpers, governors.
It further seems all the evidence he supplied is second hand testimony. Here is one place where Norris makes some of these assertions:
https://www.baptistboard.com/threads/claimed-14-changes-in-the-kjv-by-a-prelate-or-prelates.119908/
Christopher Yetzer
Robert Lee Vaughn https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A43825.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext
I do find it interesting that Norton never even mentions it. But I also don't find it convincing. Especially the Easter that was in all the previous Bibles. There probably could be some effort made to look at some of the others with the manuscripts recently available. I haven't read the whole sermon but I see the name Bilson, not Bancroft.
Bryan Ross
Christopher Yetzer,
Robert Lee Vaughn From Olga Opfell page 106.
Bryan Ross
Robert Lee Vaughn,
Christopher Yetzer A key might be to find where Smith complained about this.
Christopher Yetzer
Bryan Ross Agreed. It curiously matches the 14 rules given at the beginning. Wonder if someone got their wires crossed. Who would know and how would they know he made 14 changes. It seems suspicious to me. Plus Bancroft was dead before their work was finished, if the letters between Bois and Casaubon are correct.
Bryan Ross
Robert Lee Vaughn It is clear to me that 1 Cor. 12:28 was tampered with by someone at some point. My misgivings about Norris not withstanding.
Robert Lee Vaughn
Bryan,
Christopher,
A few more comments on this.
1. The text we have is the text we have, whether the words in those (supposed) “14 places” are from the translators, the polishers (Bilson and Smith), the archbishop (Bancroft), or some now unknown persons. The main problem I have with Norton is that he is looking for some grand conspiracy theory to score points against the King James Bible (or, as he would say, KJVOs).
2. I would think that it is a possible though unknown factor (certainly unknown to me) in the timeline of the translation that the OT and NT were finished by the time that Bois is still working on the Apocrypha in late 1610. So maybe Bancroft would have time to go over them before he died.
3. I have read before the claim that Miles Smith complained about Bancroft making changes. So far as I have seen, though, no one has documented that.
4. Hill, the apparent first source of charging certain changes were made, does not mention Richard Bancroft. He says “some of the great Prelates, (men I could name some of their persons).” This is an unnamed group of more than one person, according to Hill. I am not sure when this became Richard Bancroft. A book by William R. Williams mentions Henry Jessey making that claim about Bancroft. This probably comes from Edmund Calamy, who says that Henry Jessey said Bancroft, but he supposedly repeating what Thomas Hill said (who did not say Bancroft).
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A43825.0001.001/1:3?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nnc1.0037100777...
https://books.google.com/books?id=M-I5AAAAcAAJ (p. 47)
Nick Sayers
Author
Admin
Robert Lee Vaughn in the book I have of Norton, he mentions Bod1602 over 500 times and Beza zero times.
It seems he has an unhealthy overemphasis that the KJV is a revision. The dedication to King James says clearly:
“…how convenient it was, that out of the Original Sacred Tongues, together with comparing of the labours, both in our own, and other foreign Languages, of many worthy men who went before us, there should be one more exact Translation of the holy Scriptures into the English Tongue…”
It says out of the
1 ORIGINALS
2 English bibles
3 foreign language bibles
So narrowing it to just an update of the Bishops is misleading.
Robert Lee Vaughn
Nick Sayers I agree. They did not throw out the past English Bible work, and they did revise the Bishops Bible, but it is also a new translation. Some people seem to want to emphasize it _only_ as a revision and not as a translation. The cover page also makes this point: “Newly Translated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Translations diligently compared and revised…”
Christopher Yetzer
Robert Lee Vaughn I agree with 1. You make a good point on 2. That has been my thought. They did O.T. then N.T. and lastly Apocrypha.
As far as Hill. Everything seems to be based on Hill's comments (apart from the possibility that Smith made some complaint). His arguments are very week and now I see why no modern scholar takes him seriously. He is incorrect on almost every account. Easter was in Acts 12:4 since Tyndale and was in common use even in the 1645 Annotations. He argues that Bishoprick was added to support the system of Bishops in the church, but ignores that it was in the text since Wycliffe and that even his favored Geneva had the word Bishop in other passages. He doesn't mention that "hell" in Acts
2:31was in almost every English translation except the Geneva, and even then it was in Diodati's Italian 1607 and the 1602 Spanish etc. Acts 14 "ordained them elders" goes back to Tyndale and many of the translations between. The only one that has some question to it is 1 Corinthians
12:28. But judging by his information, I would reckon that he is not a trustworthy witness.
Bryan Ross
Christopher Yetzer Are you talking about Hill or Norris?
Bryan Ross
Nick Sayers If you haven’t already done so you need to read Lawrence Vance’s “The Making of the King James New Testament.” He is a King James advocate and concludes that the King James NT is 91% the same as the Bishops.
Christopher Yetzer
Bryan Ross I was specifically talking about Hill. His account and reasons are really weak. I think the complaint by Smith seems to be a separate accusation which in some places gets mixed with Hill's. The "14 changes" seems to come from Hill. It is possible that there were some things done, but I find it hard to believe that Smith would have gotten upset over a few standard readings that read like almost every English Bible before as well as many foreign language Bibles.
Robert Lee Vaughn
Christopher Yetzer There are 7 supposed changes combined – the 5 Norton mines from Hill’s sermon. Then one or two that Edward Whiston mentions in The Life and Death of Mr. Henry Jessy. Whiston seems to suggest that Hebrew 9:1 and Acts
19:37 were mentioned in Hill’s sermon, but I may be misunderstanding him. (I did not notice those in Hill’s sermon, and also I never noticed Norris mention Hebrews 9:1.)
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A65658.0001.001/1:5?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
Most of these changes do not seem to me to support the strong charges that are made against them. The gathered list appears to be Acts 1:20; 2:27; 12:4; 14:23; 19:37; 1 Corinthians 12:28; Hebrews 9:1. Yet only in Acts
14:23 and 1 Corinthians
12:28 (and perhaps Heb. 9:1) does the KJV not follow or agree with the majority of pre-1611 translations. There is some bit of variation in the pre-1611 translations of Hebrews 9:1 that does not seem to me to make that much difference in the meaning. Geneva 1560 is much the same as the KJV except it uses “testament” instead of “covenant” and “religion” instead of “divine service.” 1 Corinthians
12:28is an interesting case, in that most KJVs of which I am aware no longer have “helps in government” as per 1611, but “helps, governments.”
Robert Lee Vaughn
Regarding the KJV as a translation or a revision, my idea is that it is not either/or, but both/and.
Bryan Ross
Robert Lee Vaughn Yes. Both/And
Robert Lee Vaughn
Bryan Ross,
Christopher Yetzer. As to where Miles Smith complained about Bancroft, the earliest record I can find so far is what Edmund Calamy said that Henry Jessy said.
“And Dr. Smith, who was one of the Translators and the Writer of the Preface, (and who was afterwards Bishop of Glouchester,) complain’d to a Minister of that County, of the Archbishop’s alterations: But says he, he is so potent, that there is no contradicting him.” (A Continuation of the Account of the Ministers..., Vol. I, p. 47).
https://books.google.com/books?id=M-I5AAAAcAAJ
Unless there is some earlier record, this is “fourth-hand” evidence -- Smith to a minister in Glouchester County, to Jessy, to Calamy. That does not mean it cannot be true, of course, but just that there is much dependence on something repeated and passed down, rather than something from Smith’s pen.
Robert Lee Vaughn
Another interesting comment on the subject of changes in the final process, though somewhat inexactly sourced:
"Dr. Bret [this refers to Richard Brett, translator in the First Oxford Company, rlv] reported that the Bps. [Bishops] altered very many places that the translators had agreed upon: He had a note of ye places." Reading this through in context suggests he means the Bishops Bilson and Smith, who he had just mentioned, and not Bancroft, of whom he follows up saying that "Archbishop Bancroft himself insisted upon certain changed being made in a few places." The Bishops: very many places. Bancroft: a few places.
Charles Butterworth in The Literary Lineage of the King James Bible, 1340-1611, p. 213
https://archive.org/details/literarylineageo0000butt/page/212/mode/2up
Christopher Yetzer
Robert Lee Vaughn
I read your information from the forum you posted. I agree with all your thoughts.
1. The 14 changes seems to have been mixed with the thoughts of Smith or Brett over the years. The 14 comes from Hill and should be separated from the thoughts of Smith or Brett.
2. Who cares if 100 20th century writers quote Hill or some other 19th century writer quoting him. Stop with all the quotes from people quoting the same thing in different wording. Get back to the fount. (You said this well in the forum.)
3. I do think the order was originally meant to be translators->Bishops->Privy Council->King. But I'm not sure how much of that took place. At this point it seems very little if any. It could be possible that they finished the OT in the fall of 1609 and handed it immediately over to the Bishops. Then the NT midway through 1610, and the Apocrypha at the end of 1610. If the Bishops' changed something or the Privy Council or the King, than that was part of the process. I have no problem with that. There is evidence that the translators disagreed with themselves at times, so I see no problem with an experienced, educated Bishop or even the King himself (considering the process that the translation went through) deciding something needed to be emended. At this point all the arguments I have seen are very weak for any of the places recommended as being those places.
4. As far as proof (for historical purposes) I think Vance's statement at least seems to point to an original source, "A manuscript about the translators in the Lambeth Palace Library, apparently written about 1650, records that Richard Brett (1567-1637), a translator of the Oxford Old Testament company, reported that ‘the Bps. altered very many places that the translators had agreed upon: He had a note of the places" I don't have his book though to check the citation: King James, His Bible p. 52. Apart from that the earliest citation that specifically mentions Bancroft seems to be from Edward Whiston's 1671 work "The life and death of Mr. Henry Jessy" which appears to build upon Hall's sermon.
Steven Avery
Robert Lee Vaughn - also there was a lot of politics at that time grumbling about the AV (even John Owen) and grifters trying to get $$$ from the Long Parliament.
Jessey had his New Testament translation, unpublished, so he was far from an objective
source.
Rick Norris even fabricated the idea that Bancroft had intercepted the AV on the way to the printers. Totally dishonest writing.
You have good stuff in this thread, my add-ons are from memory but I can find more later at home.
Glad to see others correcting the history.
===================
Robert Lee Vaughn
1. Yes, this seems to be something that has become convoluted and confuse through the years.
2. I really am not sure whether Rick Norris actually thinks all these people referring to the same thing supports and strengthens his case, or whether he just likes to bury a discussion with a mass of cut-and-paste information.
3&4. I don’t think Richard Brett’s statement adds much we didn’t know, even if Norris and others try to make it somewhat conspiratorial. That Thomas Bilson and Miles Smith went over the final version of the text is a known factor, not new news. It would not be unlikely that any or all of the translators might have differed with some of the editorial changes they made.
Steven Avery
Christopher Yetzer - somebody could search out sermons of Miles Smith, which I think are in Lambeth or somewhere over there. I never found any complaints.
Robert Lee Vaughn
Steven Avery good point to remember about Jessey. Also ridiculous idea from Norris. He was the Archbishop and wouldn’t have to sneak around and “intercept” the translation if he wanted to see it.
Steven Avery
“In the sharp controversies of the Commonwealth period the slight indications given by the version of a certain ecclesiastical bias were unduly exaggerated. Charges of a direct prelatic influence were freely made, and various rumours were circulated, as if upon good authority, that Archbishop Bancroft had taken upon himself to introduce alterations in opposition to the judgment, and even the protest of the translators.’
Lectures on Bible Revision (1881)
Samuel Newth (1821-1898)
https://books.google.com/books?id=IpsCAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA92