Shakespeare and the King James Bible

By Aaron on March 11, 2021 in People

This was long thought to be the only portrait of William Shakespeare that had any claim to have been painted from life, until another possible life portrait, the Cobbe portrait, was revealed in 2009. The portrait is known as the ‘Chandos portrait‘ after a previous owner, James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos. It was the first portrait to be acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in 1856. The artist may be by a painter called John Taylor who was an important member of the Painter-Stainers’ Company

Never has there been a better conspiracy theory than William Shakespeare and the King James Bible edition of 1611. Just five years later the mysterious William Shakespeare is said to have left this earth, in 1616. Meanwhile many wonder if he was every really born on earth and believe the Shakespeare name was a nom-de-plume. Now 420 years since it’s issue we are intrigued to discover the unmistakable hidden hand of Shakespeare in the KJV (King James Version).

Definition of nom de plume: a name that a writer uses instead of his or her real name

William Shakespeare’s grave, Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon, England. On his grave is written: *Good frend for Jesus sake forbeare,* *To digg the dust encloased heare.* *Bleste be þe man þt spares thes stones,* *And curst be he þt moves my bones.* In modern English: *Good friend for Jesus sake forbear,* *To dig the dust enclosed here.* *Blessed be the man that spares these stones,* *And cursed be he that moves my bones.*

Speculation about Shakespeare Authorship

Main article: Shakespeare authorship question

Around 230 years after Shakespeare’s death, doubts began to be expressed about the authorship of the works attributed to him. Proposed alternative candidates include Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, and Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Several “group theories” have also been proposed. Only a small minority of academics believe there is reason to question the traditional attribution, but interest in the subject, particularly the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship, continues into the 21st century.

*James I and his royal progeny*, by Charles Turner, from a mezzotint by Samuel Woodburn (1814), after Willem de Passe

Conspiracy is evident, whether Shakespeare was an actual person or not. Now a scholar named Alan Green has uncovered the very real evidence that King James conspired with writers and editors of his time, that would have been the best in his Kingdom, to perform what would have been the greatest operation of information warfare in all of human history. The compilation, editing and publishing of the King James Bible, which has become the number one selling book in human history and may very well have shaped the culture of the planet in the past 420 years.

Alan provides absolute proof that the Rosicrucian masters (Edward de Vere, Sir Francis Bacon and Dr. John Dee) who pulled off the great ‘Shakespeare’ subterfuge, masterminded stunning codes embedded in the 1611 King James Bible engravings! Their purpose was indisputable; they were pointing us to the missing Ark of the Covenant!

Bardcast™ 13 (The King James Bible & Ark of the Covenant)

The title page to the 1611 first edition of the Authorized Version of the Bible by Cornelis Boel shows the Apostles Peter and Paul seated centrally above the central text, which is flanked by Moses and Aaron. In the four corners sit Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the traditionally attributed authors of the four gospels, with their symbolic animals. The rest of the Apostles (with Judas facing away) stand around Peter and Paul. At the very top is the Tetragrammaton “יְהֹוָה” written with Hebrew diacritics.

The King James Version (KJV), also known as the King James Bible (KJB), sometimes as the English version of 1611, or simply the Authorized Version (AV), is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, commissioned in 1604 and completed as well as published in 1611 under the sponsorship of James I and VI. The books of the King James Version include the 39 books of the Old Testament, an intertestamental section containing 14 books of the Apocrypha, and the 27 books of the New Testament. Noted for its “majesty of style”, the King James Version has been described as one of the most important books in English culture and a driving force in the shaping of the English-speaking world.

It was first printed by John Norton and Robert Barker, both holding the post of the King’s Printer, and was the third translation into English approved by the English Church authorities: The first had been the Great Bible, commissioned in the reign of King Henry VIII (1535), and the second had been the Bishops’ Bible, commissioned in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1568). In Geneva, Switzerland the first generation of Protestant Reformers had produced the Geneva Bible of 1560 from the original Hebrew and Greek scriptures, which was influential in the writing of the Authorized King James Version.

Portrait by Paul van Somer, c. 1620. In the background is the Banqueting House, Whitehall, by architect Inigo Jones, commissioned by James.

In January 1604, King James convened the Hampton Court Conference, where a new English version was conceived in response to the problems of the earlier translations perceived by the Puritans, a faction of the Church of England.

James gave the translators instructions intended to ensure that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology—and reflect the episcopal structure—of the Church of England and its belief in an ordained clergy. The translation was done by 6 panels of translators (47 men in all, most of whom were leading biblical scholars in England) who had the work divided up between them: the Old Testament was entrusted to three panels, the New Testament to two, and the Apocrypha to one. In common with most other translations of the period, the New Testament was translated from Greek, the Old Testament from Hebrew and Aramaic, and the Apocrypha from Greek and Latin. In the Book of Common Prayer (1662), the text of the Authorized Version replaced the text of the Great Bible for Epistle and Gospel readings (but not for the Psalter, which substantially retained Coverdale’s Great Bible version), and as such was authorized by Act of Parliament.

By the first half of the 18th century, the Authorized Version had become effectively unchallenged as the English translation used in Anglican and English Protestant churches, except for the Psalms and some short passages in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. Over the course of the 18th century, the Authorized Version supplanted the Latin Vulgate as the standard version of scripture for English-speaking scholars. With the development of stereotype printing at the beginning of the 19th century, this version of the Bible became the most widely printed book in history, almost all such printings presenting the standard text of 1769 extensively re-edited by Benjamin Blayney at Oxford, and nearly always omitting the books of the Apocrypha. Today the unqualified title “King James Version” usually indicates this Oxford standard text.