Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/1611_kjv/read.me

Text File | 1994-02-11 | 5KB | 84 lines

Greetings to all who love the Bible which is God's Word to mankind:

Enclosed in this packet is the Preface which was printed in 1611
with the Authorized Version of the Bible, commonly referred to as
the King James Bible.

Many people who claim they have the 1611 version of the Bible are
not familiar with the fact that what they really have is the 1769
version or the 1833 Webster's update of the 1611 Bible.  While
others who claim they only trust the 1611 version really are using
the 1890 Darby Bible or the 1898 Young's Literal Translation.

This packet also contains a thesis by our beloved brother-in-Christ,
Edgar J. Goodspeed.  In it he calls upon Bible publishers to restore
the Preface to the KJV in all future versions they print.  He authorized
Meredith Publishing Company to include his thesis with the Preface in a
booklet they distributed to Bible Bookstores.  Brother Goodspeed writes
in his thesis that the 1611 version was continuously changed from 1611
until 1769 to correct mistranslations, spelling errors and to modernize
the translation to conform with changes in the language.  This practice
was discontinued in 1769 and efforts were made starting with the Revised
Version and it's counterpart the American Standard Version to make fresh
translations using the original text for the Hebrew and the Greek and
other translations like the KJV to give us the most reliable translations
available in the English language.  The latter translations had the ad-
vantage of more and better manuscripts than were available to the KJV
translators in 1611.

This packet contains the 1611 Preface with the spelling somewhat modern-
ized as were printed as an appendix in 1935, the 400th anniversary of the
first printed English Bible, that by Myles Coverdale, of which the King
James Bible is the most illustrious descendant.  The Preface to the 1611
original Authorized Version was set to hand by Myles Smith of Brasenose
College in Oxford (who later became the Bishop of Gloucester) who was
commissioned by KJV translators to defend their version of the Bible.

This packet is being distributed to fulfill the hopes of E.J. Goodspeed
that the world might have a copy of the Translator's Preface which they
intended for the reader to have.  It's hard to find a copy of the 1611
Preface nowadays but it is still available.  The Preface can also be
found in the editions since 1821 of the English royal quarto, published
by the Oxford University Press, an expensive pulpit Bible.  It can also
be found in full in A.W. Pollard's RECORDS OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE and as
an appendix in J.R. Dore's OLD BIBLES, 2nd ed.

It is a shame that neither the British and Foreign Bible Society or the
American Bible Society has never seem willing to include the Preface (or
an abbreviated form thereof) in their Bibles for the last one hundred
(plus) years.  It is also available from the Oxford and Cambridge presses
and the original can be found in the Huntington Library as the Bridgewater
collection of the first printing of the 1611.

This packet has been prepared and assembled by Antonio F. Partigianoni,
101 Nelda Dr., Leesville, LA 71446 [phone], from a booklet edited
by Edgar J. Goodspeed, THE TRANSLATORS TO THE READER, Preface to the King
James Version 1611, Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, and as reprinted by
Meredith Publications, 1030 South Santa Anita Ave., Arcadia, CA. ($1 per
copy eons ago).  This booklet contains an lengthy plea and justification
by E.J. Goodspeed for replacing the Preface into all future printings of
the KJV, the modernized version from the Coverdale 400th anniversity
appendix and photocopy of the original plates of the Huntington Library
original 1611 Preface.

I have done my best to faithfully transcribe the Preface and elected to
include footnotes and comments in brackets within the text due to cons-
traints of ascii printing. I did not use an indented left margin should
someone want to use another word processor to read or reprint it.  Both
the KJV modernized version of the Preface and Goodspeed's thesis can be
downloaded as 1611-KJV.ZIP from the better BBSes. Hopefully, others will
be good enough to send this along to other networks and BBSes.  To that
end, I have included in this packet a six-part set of files containing
the Goodspeed thesis and a 13-part set of files containing the actual
Preface to the 1611 Bible.  These files are identified as MSG-EJG.xx
and MSG-KJV.xx and are formatted to less than 99 lines each to conform
with most mail-tosser requirements.

With the help of Eric Gray from Tucson who has a full-page scanner, I
will soon be able to upload a copy of the original plates of the 1611
Preface in the Old English.  So, be on the lookout for KJVPCX-01.ZIP to
KJVPCX-xx where "xx" is the number of files required to upload the PCX
formatted files honoring the normal 360k file size restriction.

Ciao and God bless,
Tony