Hampton Court Proposes the King James Bible
January 14, 1604
When the Scottish and English crowns were unified under James I in 1603, the English Puritans believed the pendulum of power had swung their way and that English Catholics would, one way or another, soon be sent packing. Meanwhile, many English Catholics hoped that the execution of James’s Catholic mother, Mary Queen of Scots, would lead James to convert to Roman Catholicism. James did not convert, but he disappointed many Puritans with his tolerant approach to English Catholics, refusing to “persecute any that will be quiet and give an outward obedience to the law.”
On January 14, 1604, James convened the Hampton Court Conference, which conceived a new translation of the Bible—The King James Version—that would eventually replace what James regarded as the corrosive influence of the popular Geneva Bible. The Geneva Bible was favored by English Puritans, a faction within the Church of England, but James hated this translation for its anti-royalist tone (“king” was translated as “tyrant” about 400 times in the Geneva Bible).
James instructed the translators to ensure that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology and reflect the episcopal structure of the Church of England and its belief in an ordained clergy.
Today, the King James Version is used by conservative Anabaptists, Methodists, and Baptists, and it was also used liturgically by the Antiochian Eastern Orthodox Church in the United States in the early part of the twentieth century.
Episcopal priest and philosopher Geddes MacGregor said of the KJV that it remains “the most influential version of the most influential book in the world, in what is now its most influential language.”
J. Douglas Johnson is the executive editor of Touchstone and the executive director of the Fellowship of St. James.
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