What % of KJV from Rheims?

From the Rheims? I think that # is way too high. More like 5%. That is not to say there are not similarities, but those are more likely coincidental than actual. The basis of the KJV was the Bishops' Bible of 1568 which predates the Rheims of 1582 so it is anachronistic to assume the similarities came from the Rheims.

 

J.G. Carleton has compiled a list of 2,803 readings and 140 marginal readings taken from the Rheims NT. (The Part of Rheims in the Making of the English Bible, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902)


DOUG KUTILEK has compiled some other sources on the topic.

 

Yeah, that sounds more like it. 80-90% seemed really high to me.

Now, that begs the question. Because the KJV and the Rheims read the same does it necessarily follow that the KJV reading came from the Rheims? If 30 students all take the same test, and 20 of them give the same answers, does it mean they copied from one another, or does it mean they all gave the correct answer?

Because the words read the same does not necessarily mean they were copied. The same can be said of the Tyndale and Geneva bibles. If we take the KJV readings that follow the Tyndale readings, and add to that the readings that follow the Geneva readings, and those from Cranmer, Great, Bishops', etc., we come up with 135% of the KJV. Oh oh. How can we have more than 100%? We can't. Many of those readings are simply coincidental to good translation.

That is not to say that some may be edited from the Rheims, but it would be anachronistic to assume all of them did.

 

I can believe a goodly percentage was contributed by the Geneva Bible. (But then the Geneva was a retranslation and a revision of previous translations. If a word or passage is found to be in accordance with your original language source, why change it?)

However, I am in a group studying seventeenth century Europe. So, I do have a problem with believing the Rheims numbers. One reason is politics: Church of England translators consciously adopting the wording of Church of Rome translators? I find that very hard to believe. Remember the reason we have church in the AV1611 instead of the Geneva's congregation? The other reason for my skepticism is the source each of the translations used. As I understand the situation, the Rheims was to conform with or be translated from the Latin Vulgate. The committees translating the Authorized Version of 1611 were under no such obligation.

I agree with TCassidy. Most of the time there is only one way to honestly translate a text.

 

I think that what you have shown us is not that the KJV copied the Rheims, but rather that the Rheims copied the Tyndale as did the Great Bible, the Geneva Bible, the Bishops' Bible.

To save time I will only type out verse 10.

Tyndale (1525), "Yf we saye we have not synned, we make him a lyar, and his worde is not in us."

Great Bible (1539), "If we saye we have not synned, we make hym a lyar, and hys worde is not in us."

Geneva Bible (1560), If we say we have not sinned, we make him a lier, and his worde is not in us."

Bishops' Bible (1568), If wee say that wee have not sinned, wee make him a lyar, and his word is not in us."

 

And I again would remind you of the ecclesiastical and secular politics of the period. The various committees would not have let a copy of the Rheims NT within 10 miles of their location. The Puritans/Presbyterians had already rejected the Bishops' in favor of the Geneva for too much popery. The men working on the AV 1611 would not have even touched a copy of the Rheims much less used it as a reference.

Good night, the hue and cry raised by the Puritans would still be heard today. Remember, on the Continent, the Thirty Years War is just about to ignite. The times were too dangerous for the AV1611 translators' project and persons, for them to use the Rheims as a source.

 

Just to clarify my position. The AV1611 translators were not ignorant of the world around them. So, yes, I have no doubt they were familiar with the text of the Douay-Rheims. But like I said, the Rheims was probably not present on the shelves of their studies and workrooms, unlike other texts and versions.

 

I don't think you can go quite that far. Dr. William Fulke of Cambridge published a refutation of the Rheims NT in 1589 that included the texts of the Rheims side by side with the text of Bishops New Testament. According to Sir Frederick Kenyon, in Our Bible & the Ancient Manuscripts, Fulke's refutation probably had wider circulation than the Rheims NT itself.

"Fulke's work had a considerable popu­larity, and it is possibly to the wider knowledge of the Rheims version thus produced that we owe the use made of it by the scholars who prepared the Authorised Version ..."

The KJV translators, in their letter to the reader, indicated a close familiarity with the Rheims NT.

"Lastly, we have on the one side avoided the scrupulosity of the Puritans, who leave the old Ecclesiastical words, and betake them to other, as when they put WASHING for BAPTISM, and CONGREGATION instead of CHURCH: as also on the other side we have shunned the obscurity of the Papists, in their AZIMES, TUNIKE, RATIONAL, HOLOCAUSTS, PRAEPUCE, PASCHE, and a number of such like, whereof their late Translation is full, and that of purpose to darken the sense, that since they must needs translate the Bible, yet by the language thereof, it may be kept from being understood."

 

Their anti-Rheims statement seems to me to be a preventative strike. With such a bold statement, I revise my opinion. There may very well have been a couple of Rheims copies around. If I was them and anybody asked why, I'd have said:

Remember back then, theological debates were a blood sport.

 

Don't be too hard on the Church of England based on Wycliffe's choice of "penance" vice "repentance." Remember, Wycliffe completed his translation in 1380, about 150 years before the English Reformation of 1535. And, never forget, as much as we may admire Wycliffe, he was an ordained Roman Catholic Priest who did not repudiate the Roman Catholic Mass until 1381, the year after he finished the work on his translation. Add to that he was translating from the Latin Vulgate and "paenitentiae/paenitentiam" is a lot closer to "do penance" than "repentance."