The modern Bible versions are clearly different than the King James Bible and you've got to ask yourself this question
Why in order to understand the difference you need to understand the history of the English Bible?
turns out there's a Bible Museum right here in Phoenix that has one of the largest collections of rare English Bibles in the world and
The museum director Joel lamp is going to let us actually look into these rare
First editions of the Bible's leading up to the King James and the King James itself
He's gonna explain to us the history of our King James Bible
He's gonna take us all the way from Erasmus Greek New Testament the original Texas Receptus
And he's gonna take us through the history of all these English Bibles all the way up to the King James Version
So let's start with Erasmus what you see here on the table pastor is in a nutshell the history of the King James Bible
Now remember the King James Bible was printed in 1611 and there's a common misconception out there that it was the first English
Well, it wasn't there were numerous other English examples before I 1611 and what you see here
Starts with the original Greek as you just said Texas Receptus done by Erasmus of Rotterdam
This literally changed everything from what we know today in church history as well as in just secular history
It's called the 1516
Erasmus of Rotterdam's Greek Latin New Testament. Well, let's just call Erasmus what he is the smartest man that ever lived
Okay
Non-deity factor. Okay. Jesus, of course is the smartest man that ever lived but Solomon's up there as well
But even today we consider Erasmus the smartest whether it's in sciences theology philosophy
He was just that smart and this is the original text the original the original Texas Receptus
Please take a look at it
Generally considered the most important book that was ever printed and this is the book that launches the Reformation
Even as an atheist you acknowledge this is the most important book ever printed the Renaissance is launched from this the truth comes from
This book and so we see just how imperative this book is
But what it also did was caused an enormity of problems and what do I mean by that?
Well, the money stopped flowing to Rome. There's a building under construction
There's a very famous interior designer down there that was hired to decorate it. Of course. I'm talking about the Vatican
Michelangelo the Sistine Chapel
That money stopped flowing the church started putting bounties on people's heads saying you can't teach this
This isn't what we consider accurate, even though Erasmus said we kind of got a problem here. It does say
Metanoia not pay a fine
So we're gonna have to address this theological issue, but the Protestant movement was birthed from this book
And what is the Protestant movement actually mean to protest in this edition that you're showing me?
Erasmus has put the original Greek
Next to the church's Latin that's correct, and it makes it very easy to see the contradiction between the two. Of course
Is that right? That's why that's why it sure I understand
That's why it changed everything because it showed what we were doing wrong
Showed what it should be right, but he didn't translate it to show what it should be until later. Okay?
Okay, that wouldn't be until right tonight
These are two contradictory things side by side and all he's doing is just showing the evidence the church's Latin
Corrupted version and then the original Greek, Texas Receptus
He just put it side by side and just basically let the reader be the judge
But this is the bullet that basically effectively killed the church, right?
What you see here is what we know today is the first edition Coverdale Bible
What really it is though is the work of William Tyndale now as we know Tyndale is the inventor of the English we speak today
He's also the inventor of our very first English Bible translated from the original languages
Tyndale and England wanted to do the same thing Luther was doing in Germany, and he went underground and
with the aid of Luther's library books like this here and
Later editions of Erasmus his work Tyndale would produce the very first New Testament
It becomes the most hunted book in the history of England. And so the king wants this thing burned
So England was still totally under the control of the Catholic Church at the time that Tyndale is producing his New Testament
1526 and it is a book that's basically an assault on the established or Catholic Church of London at that time
This became a monumental achievement because Tyndale in the last years of his life spent most of his time
Translating from the Hebrew and the Greek to produce this book the rest of the Old Testament some of it
They weren't able to get done from the original Hebrew by the time this book came out
Well, no because Tyndale was arrested in 1534, right?
He's held under house arrest for 500 days. Okay, and then on the morning of October 6 1536
He's taken out and burned but in that incarceration period Miles Coverdale
Finished that which Tyndale had started gotcha
Now what I love more than anything that we have in this room is this text here?
This is the 1537 what we call the Matthews Bible now, what is this?
It's nothing more than a completed this right now remember when Tyndale dies his last words as you spoke so eloquently earlier were
Lord open the eyes of the king of England now what happened in that prayer?
Tyndale could have said a million things
Why waste your last breath saying Lord open the eyes of king of England Tyndale knew?
That no matter how crazy Henry the eighth was that if he could get Henry the eighth to break
With the established Church of Rome England would be one and
Protected it's one thing to have a personal relationship with Jesus
It's another thing to have a personal relationship with Jesus with somebody wanting to wake up and kill you every morning
That was that was their mission
But finally came to the eighth permitted the Bible to go free based on one thing a divorce
These two texts
Obviously change England you could truly have a personal relationship with Jesus from these two books
You had that mediator of you had to have someone that of just Jesus Christ being the mediator
Well, we call today the confession booth, right? Forgive me father for I have sinned. It's been two weeks since my last confession
So this defeated the confessional it got rid of it completely. There was no need anymore
You didn't have to have a man tell you what your penalty was for this crime that you committed against God
Then what we have today is called the Great Bible or the Bible that was actually authorized and permitted by Henry the eighth King of England
that will become fun and to remember a couple of things a later edition of
Erasmus his work was done by a guy named Beza and
Another work that we're most familiar with though. Is this one here done by Stephanus now
Stephanus is important because he gives us the Greek that are
Geneva Bible or the Bible done by the reformers of John Calvin William Whittingham those guys
They will use this Greek text to translate what their English Bibles known as today is the Geneva Bible
You know, it's famous because it's the first one with verses
Okay, and that's why the Geneva Bible so, you know familiar to many of us. It's like where did John 3 16 come from?
Well, it came from
They divided it into verses and verses the chapters were already that was already there
But the verses gotcha after Henry the eighth his son takes the throne and we know him today as Edward the sixth
He died very young. He was only on the throne for four or five years
But in that time he permitted the scriptures to go free as well
But he too had no spouse and no kids and so when he doesn't have an heir who ends up taking the throne his sister
Who we know today is Bloody Mary and we don't call her that because she liked vodka tomato juice with a splash of Tabasco
We call her Bloody Mary because she was responsible for literally over 7,000 of her own people's now
Wow, and here's a perfect example. Here's a family pastor in Bloody Mary's reign
Here's some five mothers and five fathers all being burned at the stake and for what reason?
They taught their children the Lord's Prayer in English Wow, she had them burned at the stake
So in her zeal for the Catholic Church, she's she's killing these people. The parents were teaching their kids
Okay, and they only wanted the church to teach their kids. We weren't qualified
Pastor to teach our children. So basically they're being burned at the stake for homeschooling. That's basically what it came down to
No, it's in a sense. It was they wanted complete rule Wow
You
Well during that uprising
man of courage
Decided that we're going to rebel and what were their names John Knox John Fox William Whittingham
They fled England and they go to work on a brand new text. And what do we call that text today?
We call that the Geneva Bible. Well, it says right on there. It says someone has written here family Bible. That's right
That's what it truly was the very first family Bible, right?
Well, we know today is the textus receptus. It will go to produce what we know is the very first homeschool Bible
The Geneva Bible. Mm-hmm, right? And so this is the book that sales over on the Mayflower. Gotcha
That's the Bible that settles Jamestown. Mm-hmm
After Bloody Mary's terror, she had a sister
We of course we know her name as Queen Elizabeth to win the hearts of the people
She gave us the bishops Bible. This was done by
Bishops
Done by pastors, but they're building upon the work of the Geneva Bible
They just wanted something that was a little bit more authoritative. Right this comes from people you experts
Hebrew Greek experts, but truthfully it never settles with the people. It was a glorious work
She was on how it just didn't catch on just never God just knew that something was better was coming down the pike
And then of course she didn't have a spouse no kids. So who would take the throne her cousin from Scotland?
Of course, we know him as King James and that big tall Bible that you see down there closest to you
That's the first edition of the King James Bible and then a year later
He allowed the folks to buy one in a bookstore and you're holding the very first King James New Testament
Then when we get to 1603 we have King James becoming King King James the sixth of Scotland
He became the king and it was said unto him that a new
Translation should be brought forth of the scriptures. And the reason why is that you got a lot of people using the Geneva Bible
But then they'd go to church and it's the bishops Bibles
There were two main versions and both of them had issues
The Geneva Bible had some issues the bishops Bible had some issues
And so they said let's just take the time to do it, right
They got the best scholars in the land together and they said we're not trying to replace a bad version
We're going from good to better to best here, I mean these are good translations the Geneva Bible is good
The bishop Bible is good. We're just gonna perfect it and get it just dialed in
so from 1604 to 1610 the KJV was translated by
54 of the greatest scholars that existed at that time just to give you one example one guy
Lancelot Andrews was an expert in Latin Greek
Hebrew Chaldean
Syriac Arabic and he also spoke 15 modern languages
That's one guy out of the 54 people that translated the King James Bible over the course of seven years
So there were those who were Arabic scholars over those who were Greek and Hebrew scholars that were Aramaic scholars
They were men of great intellect all of them. Yeah, and their knowledge of the scripture was varied
They may have hauled some different beliefs or different areas of theology might be slightly different from one of the other translators
What they did was they divided themselves up into six groups
These six men translated these six books of the Bible and so forth and when they did this then they compared them all together
And each of the six groups did this and then they chose one leader out of each group
To evaluate all six groups and they so what happened was every passage of Scripture was evaluated 15 times
And then the end of it all all of them came into agreement with what was translated based upon the correct
Verbal dynamic that they used that is for what it says
That's what it means even if it was in slight contradiction to what they might think the king in 1603
said okay, I'm going to organize a committee and
No matter how long it takes
You're going to go to work using two rules
Old Testament must be translated from the Hebrew New Testament must be translated from the Greek and
I am going to give you all the resources humanly possible to make this happen
So the best Hebrew of that day the best scholarly Greek of that day and in 1603
53 guys were hired they go off and for seven years
They work on what we know today is the most important book in the history of man
the first edition first issue first printing of the King James text and it took him seven years and
They did a phenomenal job and the King James that you and I read today, of course comes from that 1769
Revision, but this was the anchor of the text and this is the product of it
And in 1612, he gives us what we know today is the very first handheld King James New Testament
And this is what caught on that's what cut off the handheld King says if you can afford it
you can own it every bookstore in London sold it and it would take off and
Then it would become and always has been the number one selling book in the history of man
No book has ever outsold this text or ever will