or the last three centuries Protestants have
fancied themselves the heirs of the Reformation, the Puritans,
the Calvinists, and the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock.
This assumption is one of history's greatest ironies. Today,
Protestants laboring under that assumption use the King James
Bible. Most of the new Bibles such as the Revised Standard
Version are simply updates of the King James.
The irony is that none of the groups named in the preceding
paragraph used a King James Bible nor would they have used it if
it had been given to them free. The Bible in use by those
groups, until it went out of print in 1644, was the Geneva
Bible. The first Geneva Bible, both Old and New Testaments, was
first published in English in 1560 in what is now Geneva,
Switzerland. William Shakespeare, John Bunyan, John Milton, the
Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620, and other
luminaries of that era used the Geneva Bible exclusively.
Until he had his own version named after him, so did King James
I of England. James I later tried to disclaim any knowledge of
the Geneva Bible, though he quoted the Geneva Bible in his own
writings. As a Professor Eadie reported it:
"...his virtual disclaimer of all knowledge up to a
late period of the Genevan notes and version was
simply a bold, unblushing falsehood, a clumsy
attempt to sever himself and his earlier Scottish
beliefs and usages that he might win favor with his
English churchmen."
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The irony goes further. King James did not
encourage a translation of the Bible in order to enlighten the
common people: his sole intent was to deny them the marginal
notes of the Geneva Bible. The marginal notes of the Geneva
version were what made it so popular with the common people. The
King James Bible was, and is for all practical purposes, a
government publication.
