The undertaking began when approximately a thousand ministers sent a petition, which later came to be known as the "Millenary Petition", to King James.1 Dr. Renyolds was made spokesman for the thousand ministers who represented about one-tenth of the clergy of the Church of England. They requested several "reforms" and eventually, at a meeting at Hampton Court, Renyolds proposed the undertaking of a new translation of the Bible on the grounds that the "Great Bible" of 1539 was a very corrupt translation. Although raised up using the Geneva Bible, King James was troubled over the many "notes" or comments contained in that translation. It was finally agreed that a new translation, absolutely true to the original Greek text, be made which would not have any footnotes or comments.2 Thus, James I acceded to their request, but he did not initiate the procedure. It was not launched by the "throne" but at the request of a thousand ministers. Further, clergy and laymen from both the Anglicans and Puritans were included in its translation.
Thus, with King James' blessings, Bishop Bancroft (soon to become Archbishop of Canterbury) met with the Dean of Westminster and the Professors of Hebrew at Oxford and Cambridge for the purpose of suggesting the names of the men who should work on the translation. Fifty-four of the best scholars in England were selected, but some died before the work began whereas others could not participate in the undertaking because of previous work commitments. Thus, only forty-seven3 actually engaged in the task (plus nine others whose participation seems to have been somewhat limited). None of the translators was paid for his work.
When the work began the forty-seven were divided into six groups: two at Westminster, one for the Old Testament and one for the New; two at Oxford, one for each Testament; and two at Cambridge, one for the Old Testament and one for the Apocrypha. For three years, from 1604 to 1606, each man in the group first worked out his own translation on the chapters assigned to him, guided by fifteen specific rules. Some of the most important of these rules were:
1 Alexander W. McClure, The Translators Revived, (Litchfield, MI: Marantha Bible Society, 1858), p. 57.
2 Ibid., pp. 58-59.
3 Of the 47, 4 were college presidents, 6 were bishops, 5 were deans, 39 had master's degrees, 30 held doctorates, 41 were university professors, and 13 in Hebrew as well as 10 in Greek were skilled to a rarely attained extraordinary magnitude: Eldred Thomas, Bible Versions, (Dallas, TX: Research Educational Foundation, Inc., 1978), p. 12.
