The KJV wasn't so much a translation as a copy of the Bishop's Bible;
Did you personally do a side by side comparison of the Bishops’ Bible and the KJV to truly know it was just a copy? No. Most definitely not.
While there was an original rule that the king set out, things obviously turned out differently in practice. The rule would allow for any part of the Bishops’ Bible to be changed if the original languages allowed it.
This was not some lazy copy and paste job of the Bishops’ Bible. The KJV translators worked in six different companies, divided between Westminster, Cambridge, and Oxford. Each company was assigned a different section of Scripture. According to the translation rules, each man in a company would first work through the same chapter or chapters individually, translating or amending the text as he thought best. Then the whole company would meet together, compare their work, discuss the differences, and agree on what reading should stand. After a book was completed, it was sent to the other companies for further review. If another company disagreed with a reading, they could send back their objections and reasons. Any unresolved differences were then handled at a general meeting of leading translators near the end of the work. So the text went through multiple layers of examination, correction, debate, and refinement before it was finalized.
The translators also consulted the original Hebrew and Greek texts and spoke highly of them in the preface. They stated that they worked directly from the original languages rather than merely reproducing an English Bible. They also compared earlier English Bibles, foreign language translations, editions of the Textus Receptus, and other scholarly resources available to them. The result was a carefully reviewed translation that underwent years of examination and refinement, not a simple reproduction of the Bishops’ Bible.
So the claim that the KJV translators merely reproduced a copy of the Bishops’ Bible is not an honest representation of the facts presented in the KJV preface or of the work that they actually performed. Such a claim focuses on a single translation rule while ignoring what happened in practice during the seven years of translation work that followed. The historical record shows that the translators engaged in a lengthy process of translation, comparison, review, correction, and refinement that went far beyond simply reproducing the Bishops’ Bible. In other words, you are taking one rule and reading it apart from the historical process that ultimately took place.
Meanwhile, in the Modern Bible Movement, you have people falling away from the faith and believing false doctrines from those modern Bibles, and you and many others in such a movement have no problem with Unitarians, Catholics, liberals, rainbow people, and a Mormon having worked on your critical texts.
So you basically have a bias against the KJV, and you will say anything to try to discredit it.
This to me seems like damage control for the problems in your own movement.
Side Note 1: The one video you posted below here contains so much false information that I am planning to do a video response to it using reputable sources to refute its claims.
But this is what your side does. It constantly gaslights the facts surrounding the Textus Receptus and the KJV and will do almost anything to discredit them.
Side Note 2:
As for King James running people out of England:
It was not merely them using the Geneva Bible. These were separatists groups trying to make change in trying to have their own worship services instead of conforming to the church. While I believe King James was misguided for trying to enforce the church of Anglicanism upon everyone, the KJV did not remain as an Anglican Bible like the Geneva Bible is known to be a Puritan/Calvinist Bible. What makes the KJV special is that it broke the denominational barriers within Protestantism. It became the standard even in other English speaking countries because they recognized its excellence in translation by many learned men compared to other previous imperfect works done by fewer scholars in previous TR English Bible translations (like the Geneva, Bishop's Coverdale's etc.). As I stated before, what is ironic is that the very Puritans who did not want to conform ended up abandoning the Geneva Bible and favoring the King James Bible in the Antinomian crisis involving Anne Hutchinson. This event created a gradual shift that led to the Puritans (Calvinists) favoring the King James. The King James Bible was praised for its excellency throughout history for the work that it was. So despite a king and his ambitions, God was able to use him to spread His word and cause three of the greatest revivals, create unity and memorization over one text that led to much good fruit. Sure, there are are bad actors in the KJV believing community. You will get bad actors everywhere. Judas was a bad actor among the good disciples. However, my point is that the KJV was not defined by King James's rule alone. It took on a life of it's own in bringing forth much good fruit.
.....
