DID YOU KNOW?
The answer
The translators worked from the printed Greek editions of their day — the line running from Erasmus through Stephanus and Beza, later marketed as the Textus Receptus. The oldest manuscripts weren't options: Sinaiticus wouldn't surface for another two and a half centuries, and Vaticanus sat largely unpublished in Rome.
Why it’s interesting
The King James rests on the best printed Greek text the 1600s offered, built from the manuscripts Erasmus could reach. Modern translations differ where they do largely because far older manuscripts have since come to light — the kind of note their prefaces spell out.
Scholarly consensus
You can know the Bible.
Not just the stories, but the history, authorship, and scholarship behind it.