The Removed Translators’ Prefix To
The King James Bible 1611 Version
The following thesis by a modern
manuscript scholar, now deceased,
protests the omission of the
Translators’ Preface to the 1611 King
James Version from King James
Bibles for the past 100 years. We are
left to wonder why it has been left to
a “modern” scholar to issue this
compelling and legitimate objection
to the removal of the Translators’ Preface. What other book would be
published without its preface, the preliminary essay in which the
author or authors explain their intentions and methods of research, define the scope of their work and present invaluable background information to the reader? Why is it that a modern scholar endeavoured for years to restore the Translators’ Preface to the King James Bible, but among the multitude of KJV-Only leaders who claim to defend the KJV, not one has so much as registered a complaint about the removal of the Preface and demanded its restoration by the publishing houses and Bible societies – nor have any of them independently published King James Bibles which include the Preface. Neither do the so called defenders of the 1611 King James Version educate KJV readers as to the contents of the Translators’ Preface; nor do they cite the Translators’ own words in their defence of the KJV, but invent dishonest explanations concerning the various translation issues. Why? We submit that dissemination of the Translators’ Preface would provide Christians with invaluable facts concerning the translation of the 1611 KJV – facts that
would enlighten and protect them against the great quantity of false and
misleading information that has issued forth from the leadership of the KJV Only movement. It is for this reason that we offer Professor Edgar J.
Goodspeed’s “Thesis on the Translators’ Preface” – not as an endorsement
of modern scholarship – but to inform our readers of the ramifications of
the disastrous and, we believe, deliberate suppression of the Preface to the
1611 King James Version.