The Marvelous Men Behind Our Majestic and Enduring King James Version of the English Bible

Grant Van Leuven

Recently, I had reason to study through significant sections of two books in our church library about the 47 eminent scholars and clergymen who, over six years—with unmatched academic tenacity and rigorous accountability along with a remarkably deep and wide Christian faith and spiritual enthusiasm, produced our beloved King James Version (KJV) of the English Bible. 

They are, Gustavus S. Paine’s, The Men Behind the King James Version, and Alexander McClure’s Translators Revived: Biographical Notes on the KJV Bible Translators.  I was so blessed by what I learned; and, because we can often take a licking for best liking the KJV as our own cherished Bible, I’m eager to share some of their astounding accounts with you.

What follows from these volumes is reminiscent of what I taught in my membership class supplement to chapter one of the Westminster Confession of Faith, “Of the Holy Scriptures,” which explained why we use the KJV. Charles Jefferson wrote: “The purest, noblest English ever written is that of our King James Bible.  Its unfading glory is no mystery to those who have come to know the beautiful and saintly soul of William Tyndale.”

Also from the class, in The Story of English, the KJV is prized as:

probably the single most influential book ever published in the English language … Out of their deliberations [between the bishops and Puritan divines with King James at Hampton Court in 1604] emerged a plan which would provide the English language with one of its great Renaissance masterpieces, a work whose impact on the history of English prose has been as fundamental as Shakespeare’s: the Authorized Version of the Bible.