From the title page of the Authorized Version we learn that it contains "The Old and New Testaments Translated out of the Original Tongues and with the former Translations diligently compared and revised," but we are not there informed as to who was, or were, entrusted with this important task. The work of translation or revision was placed in the hands of a large committee of competent scholars, apparently after consultation with the university authorities at Oxford and Cambridge. One fact which augured well for the success of the undertaking, was that no pains were spared to make the group a thoroughly representative one. Sound scholarship, rather than membership in any special group or religious denomination, was the dominant factor in the selection of the men who were to undertake this important duty. Thus, on examining the roster of those who were named by King James, we find Anglicans and Puritans, clergy and laymen, theologians and classical scholars, who seem to have worked together with a remarkable degree of harmony and unanimity. It is recorded, moreover, that those who were appointed were scholars of proved ability, men who "came, or were thought to come, . . . learned, not to learn" (Preface to the Authorized Version).
Strangely enough there is still some uncertainty as to the exact number of the men who carried out the work. While the king wrote in a letter to Bishop Bancroft that he had "appointed certain learned men, to the number of four and fifty, for the translating of the Bible," for some unexplained reason, only forty-seven names appear on the lists which have come down to us. The translators were divided into six companies or groups, two of which met at Oxford, two at Cambridge, and two at Westminster. To each group was assigned one particular portion of the Bible. For example, at Oxford the Old Testament group undertook to translate the books from Isaiah to Malachi; while the New Testament section there was entrusted with the rendering of the four Gospels, as well as the book of Acts, and the book of Revelation. Then, within each group, the procedure was for "every particular man ... to take the same chapter or chapters; and having translated or amended them severally by himself ... all to meet together, confer what they have done, and agree for their parts what shall stand." As soon as a book was completed in this manner, a copy of the revision was to be sent to each of the remaining five groups for their consideration, any suggestions which they might offer being submitted to the group which had carried out the revision; while the decision of any disputed point, and the final editing of the whole work, was placed in the hands of a committee of six, consisting of one leading member from each of the six companies.
From even this brief consideration of the procedure followed in the preparation of the King James Version, it will be evident how much time and care were expended on the rendering, in an effort to make it endure, as it has already endured for centuries.
