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This leaves the Great Bible, the Bishops' Bible, and the King James Bible -- three out of the ten. It appears that
Bible believers have manipulated the history of the English Bible to prove a bogus theory.
Or have they?
The answer is yes and no. As will presently be proved, the theory is not bogus at all -- even if some zealous
brethren have been careless in the way they went about proving it.
The definitive list of Bibles that makes the Authorized Version the seventh Bible, thus fitting the description in
Psalm 12:6 of the words of the Lord being "purified seven times," is not to be found in the opinions of the many
writers on the history of the English Bible. To the contrary, the definitive list is to be found in the
often-overlooked details concerning the translating of the Authorized Version.
To begin with, the translators of the Authorized Version did acknowledge that they had a multitude of sources from
which to draw from: "Neither did we think much to consult the Translators or Commentators, Chaldee, Hebrew, Syrian,
Greek, or Latin, no nor the Spanish, French, Italian, or Dutch." The Greek editions of Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza
were all accessible, as were the Complutensian and Antwerp Polyglots, and the Latin translations of Pagninus,
Tremellius, and Beza. What we want, however, is a reference to English Bibles.
The translators also acknowledged that they had at their disposal all the previous English translations of the
sixteenth century: "We are so far off from condemning any of their labors that travailed before us in this kind,
either in this land or beyond sea, either in King Henry's time, or King Edward's (if there were any translation, or
correction of a translation in his time) or Queen Elizabeth's of everrenowned memory, that we acknowledge them to
have been raised up of God, for the building and furnishing of his Church, and that they deserve to be had of us
and of posterity in everlasting remembrance." Although this statement of the translators refers to English Bibles,
it is not specific as to exactly which versions.
The information we need is to be found, not in the translators' "The Epistle Dedicatory" or their "The Translators
to the Reader," but in the "Rules to be Observed in the Translation of the Bible." These general rules, fifteen in
number, were advanced for the guidance of the translators. The first and fourteenth, because they directly relate
to the subject at hand, are here given in full: "1. The ordinary Bible read in the Church, commonly called the
Bishops Bible, to be followed, and as little altered as the Truth of the original will permit." "14. These
translations to be used when they agree better with the Text than the Bishops Bible: Tindoll's, Matthews,
Coverdale's, Whitchurch's, Geneva."
And thus we have our answer. The seven English versions that make the English Bibles up to and including the
Authorized Version fit the description in Psalm 12:6 of the words of the Lord being "purified seven times" are
Tyndale's, Matthew's, Coverdale's, the Great Bible (printed by Whitechurch), the Geneva Bible, the Bishops' Bible,
and the King James Bible.
The Wycliffe, Taverner, and Douay-Rheims Bibles, whatever merits any of them may have, are not part of the purified
line God "authorized," of which the King James Authorized Version is God's last one -- purified seven
times.
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