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Question #16
QUESTION: Did King James authorize his
translation to be used in the churches in England?
ANSWER: No. He authorized it's translation,
but not its usage.
EXPLANATION: It is difficult for someone
in the twentieth century, especially someone in America to fathom the
conditions of nearly four hundred years ago. We Christians not only
have a Bible in our language, but more often than not, we have several.
Added to that is our concordance and a raft of Bible commentaries and
sundry other "Christian" books.
Yet the world of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries
was quite different. The common man in England had no Bible. The only
copy available to him was chained to the altar of the church. As recently
as 1536, William Tyndale had been burned at the stake for the high crime
of printing Bibles in the language of the common man, English. When
King James commissioned the fifty-four translators in 1603 he did not
mandate the upcoming translation to be used in churches. In fact, that
it was translated and not intended for the churches
left it only one explainable destiny. That is, that it should be supplied
to the common man.
It might be noted that the world has no greater power
than the common man with the common Bible in his hand.
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