Report of the British Delegates to the Synod of Dort on the English Bible of 1611
A written statement handed to the Synod of Dort at its seventh session, in which the theologians sent by James I explain how the English translation of 1611 was organised and what rules its translators followed.
The synod wished to know how the English translation had been made, so that it could take from the English practice whatever might be of use. The British delegates’ written answer is entered in the acts under the seventh session, Tuesday 20 November. It says that the Bible was divided into six parts, each assigned to seven or eight scholars, two parts to London and four to the two universities; that twelve men chosen from all the companies then reviewed the whole; and that Bilson, bishop of Winchester, and Dr Smith, by then bishop of Gloucester, put the final touches to it.
It lists the rules as the delegates understood them: no wholly new version, but the old one cleared of faults; no notes in the margin beyond parallel passages, alternative senses and difficult idioms; the Greek text followed for Tobit and Judith; words added to complete the sense printed in a different type. The statement was made seven years after publication by men close to the work, and is cited in the King James Bible.
Cited in
- 1611, firm date