Our Babel of Bibles, Part Two

"It is an irony that the babel effect of numerous competing translations replicates in some measure the conditions that created the need for the KJV [King James Version] in its own day. At a conference in Hampton Court in January 1604, Dr. John Reynolds — the president of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, one of only four Puritan leaders in the largely Anglican gathering — argued that dissonance between the Bishop’s Bible (then standard in churches) and the Geneva Bible (most commonly read in families) was creating theological uncertainties among laypeople, and that this made the development of a common, authoritative translation desirable for the sake of Christian harmony. One could be forgiven for thinking that a similar case for a common Bible in English is far stronger now than it was then. Yet it should be evident that any such effort will face formidable obstacles." --David Lyle Jeffrey, Our Babel of Bibles: Scripture, Translation, and the Possibility of Spiritual Understand, Part Two, Adoremus Bulletin, June-July 2012