This episode spells out the conservative approach of the translators of the King James Bible and demonstrates that the KJV relied heavily on previous translations. One word study found that 83.7% of the KJV was identical to William Tyndale's New Testament. Translators were instructed to methodically go through the Bishop's Bible and make any modifications based on the Hebrew or Greek texts. The translators relied on relatively late copies of both testaments, drawing from the Masoretic Text for the Hebrew (11th century). With respect to the New Testament, translators mostly relied on Erasmus' compilation of Greek texts (3rd to 5th editions), as well as collections of Stephanus and Theodore Beza. Together these copies make up the Textus Receptus, or Majority Text. The Majority Text depends on relatively late manuscripts (12th century) but is nevertheless very reliable when compared to modern translations, which depend on manuscripts as old as the second and third centuries.
The Convergence of Nationalism and Individualism in Bible Translation
This episode sets the setting for English translations of the Bible in the 16th century. The sixteenth century was revolutionary in most respects. Feudalism gave way to nationalism and the rise of powerful monarchs, and consequently wider embrace of the local vernacular as opposed to Latin, the lingua franca of western Europe and the Roman Catholic Church. (RCC) The individualistic impulse and the spirit of inquiry fostered by the renaissance came to fruition in the Protestant Reformation, particularly among reformers like Martin Luther who emphasized the priesthood of all believers, as opposed to the "corporate" salvation approach of the RCC. So the following century of "Bible translation mania" was substantially a reflection of political and cultural shifts that substantially created demand for reliable translations of the Bible in the language of the common people. "Reliable," with regards to translation, refers to dependence on old copies of the original Greek text, which Erasmus compiled together in 5 editions of the New Testament. William Tyndale translated the New Testament into English in 1526, relying on Erasmus' 1522 edition. Subsequent English translations, leading up to the KJV of 1611, all depend on Erasmus' compilation of copies of the Greek New Testament.