Battle of the Bibles - Present Truth

for Protestantism to bring forth a Bible that would not only expose popish perversions but
would become a monument to the English language and a treasure to all who cherish
truth and liberty.
And who were better qualified for this awesome task than the godly scholars who
were born and bred amidst the struggles of the Reformers? Their character had been
refined by fire and shaped on the anvil of papal persecution. Surely none were better
fitted to set about the task of transmitting the Word of God with conviction and sincerity!
King James responded to the call. He appointed fifty-four learned men, all with a
reverent regard for divine inspiration to bring into being a Bible that would reflect the
greatest possible concern to achieve fidelity of translation. By the time the work began,
the number of translators had been reduced by circumstance and death to forty-seven.
Humility, the hallmark of every true follower of Christ, was not lacking in these
great men. One of their number who was eventually appointed to write the Introduction
to the finished Bible, Miles Smith, MA. D.D., was able to write:
"There were many chosen that were greater in the other men's eyes than in their
own, and that sought the truth rather than their own praise" ("The Translators to the
Reader").
The thoroughness with which these men were organised is well described by a
modern-day admirer of the Authorised Bible - Benjamin G. Wilkinson, Ph.D.:
"The forty-seven learned men appointed by King James to accomplish this
important task were divided first into three companies: one worked at Cambridge,
another at Oxford, and the third at Westminster. Each of these companies again split up
into two. Thus, there were six companies working on six allotted portions of the Hebrew
and Greek Bibles. Each member of each company working individually on his task, then
brought to each member of his committee the work he had accomplished. The
committee all together went over that portion of the work translated. Thus, when one
company had come together, and had agreed on what should stand, after having
compared their work, as soon as they had completed any one of the sacred books, they
sent it to each of the other companies to be critically reviewed. If a later company, upon
reviewing the book, found anything doubtful or unsatisfactory, they noted such places,
with their reasons, and sent it back to the company whence it came. If their should be
disagreement, the matter was finally arranged at a general meeting of the chief persons
of all the companies at the end of the work. It can be seen by this method that each part
of the work was carefully gone over at least fourteen times. It was further understood
that if there was any special difficulty or obscurity all the learned men of the land could
be called upon by letter for their judgment. And finally, each bishop kept the clergy of his
diocese notified concerning the progress of the work, so that if anyone felt constrained to
send any particular observations, he was notified to do so" 6 ("Our Authorised Bible
Vindicated", 1930, p 85).
(6 In stark contrast to such openness, we shall later note the secretive way in
which the fraud of Revision was thrust upon the English-speaking world.)
The authorised Bible of King James became available to the public in 1611.
Immediately it was accepted as the living Word of God and "a miracle of English Prose".
A comparison with the Rheims-Douay Bible, the Old Testament portion of which was
completed a couple of years earlier, only served to enhance the Authorised Version's
popularity. It was immediately recognised as a death-blow to the supremacy of Roman
Catholicism in the English-speaking world.
Faber, a one-time Church of England clergyman who, like many of his ilk,
endeavoured to Romanise his church and finally abandoned his Protestant cloak by
8