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The British Isles were frequently torn with religious dissension throughout most of the 1600s. In fact, it had been in a rather desperate effort to produce at least some degree of unity and loyalty among the fractious Christian groups found in his new realm, that King James had summoned a group of fifty-four scholars who were charged to produce the first officially authorized English translation of the complete Bible, naively assuming that surely the many varieties of Christians represented among his religious subjects could at least agree on this one unifying force for their common faith. The translators began their famous task shortly before the three shiploads of intrepid Jamestown adventurers left their Mother Country for the New World. The king's scholars continued laboring toward the completion of their magnificient finished product- the King James Version of Holy Scripture- which was finally published in 1611 . While this Bible did indeed become a principle religious building block for all the English-speaking Christians who follwoed in the wake of those first colonists, nevertheless over the next two centuries that would be about the only thing that Virginia's Christians would passionately hold in common. (en) |
