Why The Legendary Geneva Bible was Banned (Part 2)

The Geneva Bible followed the Great Bible of 1539, the first authorised Bible in English, which was the authorized Bible of the Church of England.

During the reign of Queen Mary I of England (1553–58), a number of Protestant scholars fled from England to Geneva, Switzerland, which was then ruled as a republic in which John Calvin and, later, Theodore Beza, provided the primary spiritual and theological leadership.

Among these scholars was William Whittingham, who supervised the translation now known as the Geneva Bible, in collaboration with Myles Coverdale, Christopher Goodman, Anthony Gilby, Thomas Sampson, and William Cole; several of this group later became prominent figures in the Vestments controversy.

Whittingham was directly responsible for the New Testament, which was complete and published in 1557, while Gilby oversaw the Old Testament.

The first full edition of this Bible, with a further revised New Testament, appeared in 1560, but it was not printed in England until 1575 (New Testament) and 1576 (complete Bible).

Over 150 editions were issued; the last probably in 1644.

The first Bible printed in Scotland was a Geneva Bible, which was first issued in 1579.

In fact, the involvement of Knox and Calvin in the creation of the Geneva Bible made it especially appealing in Scotland, where a law was passed in 1579 requiring every household of sufficient means to buy a copy.

Some editions from 1576 onwards included Laurence Tomson’s revisions of the New Testament. Some editions from 1599 onwards used a new “Junius” version of the Book of Revelation, in which the notes were translated from a new Latin commentary by Franciscus Junius.

The annotations which are an important part of the Geneva Bible were Calvinist and Puritan in character, and as such they were disliked by the ruling pro-government Anglicans of the Church of England, as well as King James I, who commissioned the “Authorized Version”, or King James Bible, in order to replace it.

The Geneva Bible had also motivated the earlier production of the Bishops’ Bible under Elizabeth I, for the same reason, and the later Rheims-Douai edition by the Catholic community.

The Geneva Bible remained popular among Puritans and remained in widespread use until after the English Civil War.

The Geneva notes were surprisingly included in a few editions of the King James version, even as late as 1715.

Like most English translations of the time, the Geneva Bible was translated from scholarly editions of the Greek New Testament and the Hebrew Scriptures that comprise the Old Testament.

The English rendering was substantially based on the earlier translations by William Tyndale and Myles Coverdale (the Genevan Bible relies significantly upon Tyndale).

However, the Geneva Bible was the first English version in which all of the Old Testament was translated directly from the Hebrew (cf. Coverdale Bible, Matthew Bible).

One interesting variation of the Geneva Bible is the so-called “Breeches Bible”, the first of which appeared in 1579. In the Breeches Bible, Genesis Chapter III Verse 7 reads: “Then the eies of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed figge tree leaves together, and made themselves breeches.” In the King James Version of 1611, “breeches” was changed to “aprons”. Geneva Bibles with the “breeches” passage continued to be printed well into the time of the King James Bible of 1611.

In 2006, Tolle Lege Press released a version of the 1599 Geneva Bible with modernised spelling, as part of their 1599 Geneva Bible restoration project.

The original cross references were retained as well as the study notes by the Reformation leaders.

In addition, the Early Modern English glossary was included in the updated version.

The advisory board of the restoration project included several Protestant Christian leaders and scholars.

Geneva Bible v. King James Version Comparisons

The two versions are very similar to each other. Examination of the differences shows that the earlier Geneva version is often more direct and modern in style than the later King James, e.g.

“and the moon was like blood” (Geneva) versus “and the moon became as blood” (King James)

“as a fig tree casteth her green figs” (Geneva) versus “even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs” (King James)

By and large, the difference is that the KJV lacked footnotes that the Geneva Bible contained. The KJV does use the serial comma.

As can be seen by the text below, Daniel chapter 4 in the Geneva Bible appears to have removed two verses.

In reality, the Geneva Bible places those two verses at the end of chapter 3, as the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin versions all did.

It was not until the King James Version that those verses were placed with chapter 4 as opposed to chapter 3!

What did King James Do???

In 1604, the year after he claimed the throne of England in 1603, King James I hosted and presided over a conference pertaining to matters religious, the Hampton Court Conference.

While the Geneva Bible was the preferred Bible of Anglican and Puritan Protestants during the Elizabethan Age, King James I disliked the Geneva Bible and made his views clearly known at the conference: “I think that of all [English Bibles], that of Geneva is the worst.”

Apparently, his distaste for the Geneva Bible was not necessarily caused just by the translation of the text into English, but mostly the annotations in the margins.

He felt strongly many of the annotations were “very partial, untrue, seditious, and savoring too much of dangerous and traitorous conceits…” In all likelihood, he saw the Geneva’s interpretations of biblical passages as anti-clerical “republicanism”, which could imply church hierarchy was unnecessary.

Other passages appeared particularly seditious: notably references to monarchs as “tyrants”.

It followed that the need for a king as head of church and state could be questioned also.

James had been dealing with similar issues with the Presbyterian-Calvinist religious leaders back in Scotland, and he wanted none of the same controversies in England.

Also, if annotations were in print, readers might believe these interpretations correct and fixed, making it more difficult to change his subjects’ minds about the meanings of particular passages.

So when towards the end of the conference two Puritans suggested that a new translation of the Bible be produced to unify better the Anglican Church in England and Scotland, James embraced the idea.

He could not only be rid of those inconvenient annotations, but he could have greater influence on the translation of the Bible as a whole.

He commissioned and chartered a new translation of the Bible which would eventually become the most famous version of the Bible in the history of the English language.

Originally known as the Authorized Version to be read in churches, the new Bible would come to bear his name as the so-called King James Bible or King James Version (KJV).

The first and early editions of the King James Bible from 1611 and the first few decades thereafter lack annotations, unlike nearly all editions of the Geneva Bible up until that time.

Initially, the King James Version did not sell well and competed with the Geneva Bible.

Shortly after the first edition of the KJV, King James banned the printing of new editions of the Geneva Bible to further entrench his version.

However, Robert Barker continued to print Geneva Bibles even after the ban, placing the spurious date of 1599 on new copies of Genevas which were actually printed circa 1616 to 1625.

Despite popular misconception, the Puritan Separatists or Pilgrim Fathers aboard the Mayflower in 1620 brought to North America copies of the Geneva Bible.

The END!