The Coming of the King James Gospels
by Ward Allen
Category: Bible

The Coming of the King James Gospels is a primary publication exploring the handwritten annotations of the Oxford New Testament Company, made as members completed Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Their original edited pages, gathered into one binding as the Bodleian Bishops' Bible ([1602] b.1), offer us the only known surviving record of their monumental work. Ward Allen's painstakingly produced collation of this Bishops' Bible is available for the first time in accessible visual layout. It allows a reader to study simultaneously the three texts, that of the original Bishops' Bible, the revisions suggested for the 1602 text, and the final King James version of the Gospels. The Coming of the King James Gospels, with Ed Jacobs's analysis of the revisions in the Bishops' Bible, makes it possible to trace the progress through the three distinct stages of the translators' work. Rejected readings reveal the reasoning which led to the wording of the final text. Beautifully produced, The Coming of the King James Gospels is now a prime resource for all students of the Bible and the English language.