“May your Majesty be pleased,” said Dr. John Rainolds in his address to the king, “to direct that the Bible be now translated, such versions as are extant not answering to the original.”
Rainolds was a Puritan, and the Bishop of London felt it his duty to disagree. “If every man’s humor might be followed,” snorted His Grace, “there would be no end to translating.”
King James was quick to put both factions down. “I profess,” he said, “I could never yet see a Bible well translated in English, but I think that of Geneva is the worst.”( The Geneva Bible spoke against King James!)
These few dissident words started the greatest writing project the world has ever known, and the greatest achievement of the reign of James I—the making of the English Bible which has ever since borne his name. The day was Monday, January 16, 1604. The scene was the palace at Hampton Court, with its thousand rooms built by Cardinal Wolsey and successfully coveted by Henry VIII.
(By the way, King James never did ANY translating! King James put together the men that did!)
