Most Christians do not understand that the KJV was never intended to be reguarded as an actual Translation. ...
King James I of England (VI Scotland) didn't ask for a paraphrase, or for paraphrasers, but for translation and translators. Here are the men of the AV1611:
A. The first Westminster Company: Genesis - 2nd Kings
1. Lancelot Andrews, 1555 - 1626: Dr. Lancelot Andrews was Master of Pembroke, 1589; prebendary at St. Paul’s; Dean of Westminster, 1601; Bishop of Chichester, 1605; Bishop of Ely, 1609; member of the Privy Council, 1609 and Bishop of Winchester,1618. Dr. Andrews was also the first person named in the “Order agreed upon for this Translation.”
a. “Once a year, at Easter, he used to pass a month with his parents. During this vacation, he would find a master, from whom he learned some language to which he was a stranger. In this way after a few years, he acquired most of the modern languages of Europe.”29
b. “He was not a man of ‘head knowledge’ only. He was a man of great practical preaching ability and an ardent opponent of Rome. His conspicuous talents soon gained him powerful patrons. Henry, Earl of Huntington, took him into the north of England, where he was the means of converting many Papists by his preaching and disputations.”30
c. “As a preacher, Bishop Andrews was right famous in his day. He was called the ‘star of preachers.’”31
d. “Many hours he spent each day in private and family devotions; and there were some who used to desire that ‘they might end their days in Bishop Andrews’ chapel.’ He was one in whom was proved the truth of Luther’s saying, that ‘to have prayed well, is to have studied well.’”32
e. “This worthy diocesan was much ‘given to hospitality,’ and especially to literary strangers. So bountiful was his cheer, that it used to be said, ‘My Lord of Winchester keeps Christmas all year ‘round.’”33
f. “But we are chiefly concerned to know what were his qualifications as a translator of the Bible. He ever bore the character of a ‘right godly man,’ and a ‘prodigious student.’ One competent judge speaks of him as ‘that great gulf of learning’! It was also said, that ‘the world wanted learning to know how learned this man was.’ A brave, old chronicler remarks, that such was his skill in all languages, especially the Oriental, that had he been present at the confusion of tongues at Babel, he might have served as the Interpreter-General! In his funeral sermon by Dr. Buckridge, Bishop of Rochester, it is said that Dr. Andrews was conversant with fifteen languages.”34
2. John Overall, 1559 - 1619: Dr. Overall was; Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, 1596; Master of Cathrine Hall, 1598; Dean of St. Paul’s, 1601; Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 1614; Bishop of Norwich, 1618 and a member of the Court of High Commission.
a. Dr. Overall was present at the hanging of the Jesuit Henry Garnet, mastermind of “the Gunpowder Plot” and tried to lead him to Christ.35 Garnet died unrepentant.
b. Dr. Overall was vital to the translation because of his knowledge of quotations of the early church fathers which helped with the authentication of 1 John 5:7. This verse has a multitude of evidence among church fathers, though its manuscript evidence suffers from the attacks of Alexandria’s philosophers.
3. Hadrian Saravia, 1531 - 1613: Dr. Saravia was; professor of Divinity at Leyden, 1582; prebendary of Glouchester, 1595 and prebendary of Westminster in 1601. Dr. Hadrian Saravia was as evangelistic as he was scholarly.
a. McClure reports: “He was sent by Queen Elizabeth’s council as a sort of missionary to the islands of Guernsey and Jersey, where he was one of the first Protestant ministers; knowing, as he says of himself, in a letter, ‘which were the beginnings, and by what means and occasions the preaching of God’s Word was planted there.’ He labored there in a two-fold capacity, doing the work of an evangelist, and conducting a newly established school, called Elizabeth College.”36
b. In 1611 he published a treatise on Papal primacy against the Jesuit Gretser.
c. He was “educated in all kinds of literature in his younger days, especially several languages.”37
4. Richard Clarke, 15?? - 1634: Dr. Clarke had been fellow of Christ College, Cambridge; and was Vicar of Minster and Monkton, in the Isle of Thanet, at the time of the translation. He was one of the Six Preachers in the Cathedral of Canterbury. A volume of his sermons was published in folio, after his death, in 1637.
5. John Laifield, 15?? - 1617: Dr. John Laifield was; fellow of Trinity. He was the chaplain to the Earl of Cumberland during his voyage to Puerto Rico in 1598 and finally rector of St. Clement Danes’s, London in 1601.
a. Of him it was said: “That being skilled in architecture, his judgment was much relied on for the fabric of the tabernacle and temple.”38
6. Robert Tighe, 15?? - 1620: Dr. Robert Tighe, Archdeacon of Middlesex, and Vicar of All Hallows Barking, was known as “an excellent textuary and profound linguist; and therefore employed in the Translation of the Bible.”39
7. Francis Burleigh, 15?? - 16??: Vicar of Bishop’s Stortford.
8. Geoffry King, 15?? - 16??: Dr. King was fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and succeeded Mr. Spalding as Regius Professor of Hebrew in that University. Dr. King was an ardent anti-papist.
9. Richard Thompson, 15?? - 1613: He was of Clare Hall, Cambridge.
10. William Bedwell, 1561 - 1632: Dr. William Bedwell was rector of St. Ethelburgh’s, Bishopsgate and later vicar of Tottenham High Cross, near London. Dr. Bedwell was one of the most remarkable scholars on the committee. He was famous as “an eminent Oriental scholar.” His epitaph mentions that he was “for the Eastern tongues, as learned a man as most lived in these modern times.” He was considered the principal Arabic scholar of his time. His intellectual feats were monumental.
a. “He published in quarto an edition of the epistles of St. John in Arabic, with a Latin version, printed at the press of Raphelengius, at Antwerp, in 1612. He also left many Arabic manuscripts to the University of Cambridge, with numerous notes upon them, and a font of types of printing them. His fame for Arabic learning was so great, that when Erpenius, a most renowned Orientalist, resided in England in 1606, he was much indebted to Bedwell for direction in his studies.
To Bedwell, rather than to Erpenius, who commonly enjoys it, belongs the honor of being the first who considerably promoted and revived the study of the Arabic language and literature in Europe. He was also tutor to another Orientalist of renown, Dr. Pococke.”40
b. “Some modern scholars have fancied, that we have an advantage in our times over the translators of King James’ day, by reason of the greater attention which is supposed to be paid at present to what are called the ‘cognate’ and ‘Shemitic’ languages, and especially the Arabic by which much light is thought to be reflected upon Hebrew words and phrases. It is evident, however, that Mr. Bedwell and others, among his fellow-laborers, were thoroughly conversant in this part of the broad field of sacred criticism.”41
c. “Dr. Bedwell also commenced a Persian dictionary, which is among Archbishop Laid’s manuscripts, still preserved in the Bodelian Library at Oxford. In 1615 he published his book, A Discovery of the Impostures of Mahomet and of the Koran. To this was annexed his Arabian Trudgeman.
d. “Dr. Bedwell had a fondness for mathematical studies. He invented a ruler for geometrical purposes, like that we call Gunther’s Scale, which went by the name ‘Bedwell’s Ruler’.
e. “After Bedwell’s death, the voluminous manuscripts of his lexicon were loaned to the University of Cambridge to aid the compilation of Dr. Castell’s colossal work, the Lexicon Heptaglotton.”42
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