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The King James Bible developed out of a desire for one universal, English-speaking translation of the Bible. When Queen Elizabeth died in 1603 and left her throne to King James VI of Scotland, one of the first things he did was commission 54 men to write a new version of the Bible. He had been born at a time between the Geneva Bible and the Bishop’s Bible, and felt that there were too many translations circulating around. He ordered the writers to make this new version as close to the original Greek and Hebrew as possible.
In July of 1604, the 54 men (though only 47 participated) were split into six groups, and each given a section of the book to translate. Four years were spent on this preliminary translation, and the final version was finally done in 1611. It included a title page describing the translation process, a new title page for the New Testament and a dedicatory epistle to King James, commissioner of the King James Bible.