The Truth About Shakespeare And The King James Bible

Posted by Kary Bruening on Monday, April 8, 2024

The book is called the King James Bible (or the King James Version), and while the bulk of the translation wasn't written by King James himself, that doesn't mean none of it was. King James, like most of the nobles of the day, was highly educated, and according to Time, he actually did translate some of the Psalms personally. The rest, however, was contracted out. He was trying to get all the churches in his lands to use one official copy in an attempt to quell rising tensions between Christian factions, and for that, he needed it finished faster than one man could handle.

The lead on the translation was John Rainolds, president of Corpus Christi College. Britannica says the committee under him was composed of 47 clergymen and scholars who worked on the project at Rainolds' university before the project entered an intense peer-review-like process where they poured over the words to come up with the best way to construct each individual phrase. Rainolds ended up dying before he could see the work finished, but at least he got to see it while it was being worked on. Do you know who likely never saw the manuscript until it was in print? William Shakespeare.

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