96 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



Bible " revised by ten bishops of that day, under the super- 

 intendence of Archbishop Parker. And in 1609-10 was print- 

 ed the first edition of the Douay Bible. Its title-page reads 

 thus: "The Holy Bible faithfully translated into English 

 out of the authentical Latin. Dilligently conferred with the 

 Hebrew, Greek and other editions in divers languages. With 

 arguments of the books and chapters : Tables : and other 

 helps for discover}^ of corruptions in some late translations, 

 and for clearing controversies in religion. By the English 

 College of Dowa3^" This first Donay edition was of the Old 

 Testament only. The New Testament was separately pub- 

 lished at Rheims in 1582. Both the Old and New Testaments 

 were not printed together until 1763-64. 



The Bible we all have read, the King James' or author- 

 ized edition, was first printed by Robert Barker, London, 

 161 1. The original title states that in its production the 

 translations of Tyndale, Matthew, Coverdale, Cranmer, Par- 

 ker, and the Geneva Bible, were diligently compared and re- 

 vised. The names of the forty-seven translators are given, 

 with the portion of the Bible each respectively translated. 

 It further states that the whole was finally edited by Miles 

 Smith and Thomas Bilson, Bishop of Winchester ; and that 

 the translators' preface to the reader was also written by 

 Miles Smith. It is a pity that preface has not been printed 

 in all the King James' Bibles, as it is an instructive account 

 of that version and is clearly and vigorously written. In the 

 following year Smith was made Bishop of Gloucester. It is 

 scarcely three hundred years since that translation was made, 

 but it has had a diffusion throughout the world with which 

 that of no other book is comparable. The numbers sent out 

 are so great they can hardly be realized. The aggregate 

 number of Bibles printed in Great Britain and the United 

 States is estimated at three hundred million. That sum in- 

 cluded translations in many languages ; yet the great bulk 

 comprised onlj^ English Bibles in the authorized version. The 

 King James' version, like its predecessors, had to stand much 

 criticism, though for lucidity and charm of style it won 



