1611 A.D.: The King James Bible Is Published! Is That Event Prophesied In Scripture?
I would like to begin by saying that I like the King James Bible and feel that it is a solid Bible to learn from. Perhaps it is even a great Bible, or maybe it is the very best Bible. I don't know. I personally do not have the education in ancient languages required to know exactly how good the various translations are compared to one another. But I have had bad experiences with what I call 'James Screamers' who will get completely heated up against you if you don't use the King James and only the King James because the others, in their view, are something akin to Devil Bibles. I have met them multiple times. I feel it is something quite a lot like a form of demonic possession. Their voices get loud, their faces contort. And none so far were renowned language experts, as you might have guessed. It is the only type of Bible that I have personally run into that draws such a loyal and sometimes fanatical crowd of readers. But I don't think that many people who experience one of these people's spiritual bout with rabies are going to walk away thinking "Darn, based on my experience with the James Screamer I really want to become a Christian."
Salvation is through Jesus' grace and atonement for our sins. Our part involves such things as reacting with gratitude to salvation granted through Jesus. Our part involves repenting and confessing our sins, being water baptized as Jesus assured us we must do, then leading a Christian life where we try to follow Jesus' commands. And His commands are to love God with all of your heart, your mind, your strength, and your soul. And to love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. This does not, in my view, include insanely screaming in someone's face until you are frothing at the mouth about how only the King James Bible should ever be used by a Christian. So, I often read from the King James Bible. I do not count the use of that translation as being my only path to salvation. So please don't think this account is any sort of endorsement of the James Screamers way of communicating their preference for that translation. But it's a great Bible.
The King James Bible is famous throughout the Christian world for being a well translated and solid Bible. It is a 'Protestant' Bible, meaning it has 66 fully canonical books, 39 of Old Testament and 27 of New Testament (though there also 14 books of Apocrypha.) The also widely used Catholic Bible has 73 books by comparison. The King James translators tried to keep only the books that they felt were the very most pure and trustworthy. And 66 is a very fortunate number!! In the Bible and Christian history it often associates with God's people being delivered from death or impending disaster pretty much just in the nick of time, or by a special provision from God. There is an account about that on this site.
But though this could be made into a relatively long account merely about the development of the Bible...and especially the King James Bible....there's another great thing to consider here. Do you know what is interesting? I think that the book known as the King James Bible is foreshadowed in Scripture. Maybe you will agree! It is mostly based on the publishing date: 1611. Let's dive in.
The Bible is 'the Word of God', holding the teachings of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And Jesus is sometimes known as 'the Word'. He is referred to as 'the Word' in the first chapter of the Gospel of John, for instance. And it says in scripture that all things are held together by Jesus, as if He were gravity I suppose. Or as if gravity was a form of Jesus. I don't know. But I know that in many of the last 50 years of history the number 6.673 was the Gravitational Constant's calculated numerical portion, and so in that sense the two are inextricably combined. After all, both 66 and 73 are there in the mathematical constant which 'holds all things together'. The number of canonical books in a Protestant Bible followed by the number in the Catholic Bible?
That's what science unwittingly used to replace Jesus? Two of His most signature numbers? That might be an evidential miracle without doubt, I believe! About 2 billion Christians use those two forms of the Bible! It is perhaps a coincidence, sure. But it is quite possible a clever form of evidence of authorship and design left by God to mock those who try to erase Him from the story of when He formed this Creation which He allows us to dwell. And He did it in in 6 days of construction time! Anyone who's involved with construction professionally realizes that that's not shabby. That numeral is possible proof of authorship in my mind. But it all seems intermingled. We take refuge in Jesus. We take refuge in the scriptures of the Bible. Obeying and living as taught by the Word protects us and makes us safe.
Belonging to Jesus protects us and makes us safe. Noah's Ark made an important sliver of humanity safe, and that wooden boat is sometimes described as being a 'type' or a 'prefigurement' of the coming Jesus.
6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
10 And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
22 Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.
End Quote Genesis 6 KJV
So, if you go to the first place I know of when the date 1611 is built into the Biblical scripture it speaks of people getting rescued from the punishment to come. It speaks of the reason that the Ark of Noah's time was necessary (the wickedness of people in that day made it necessary, and the corruption that they had introduced into the Earth. And the violence wrought by the fallen angels, who lived on the Earth and also married women and had strange hybrid children that the Bible merely refers to as 'the mighty men of old'.) And it speaks of how the Ark was built partly per God (the instructions on its design) and partly by men (who did the physical labor of building the Ark. So it was part of God and part of man and designed to save humanity. That is like Jesus being sired by God but gestated by a human woman. He was of human flesh, and yet God. So the Word, as in Jesus, is hinted at here. And the Bible's teachings saves men from death as well. And it, the Bible, is partly of God and partly of man. The Word's are God's. But the paper and the printing and the bindings are from man. So the Bible may have been hinted at here also. And like the Ark, a Bible is made from a tree...the paper is. Chewed up wood...paper.
Some translations say the Ark was made of 'gopher wood'. That makes you think of wood that had been chewed up by a gopher, doesn't it? Could they have had forms of particle board or chip board prior to the Great Flood? Where was their technology level at concerning lumber products? Humanity was over 1600 years old at that point, and fallen angels dwelt among men at that time. What level of intellect does a fallen angel possess?
Some translations say the Ark was made of Cypress Wood. The word 'press' is in Cypress. And a printing press is how a book like the Bible is formed. Is that a lingual 'connection' to the idea of the Ark being like the Bible and being like Jesus as well, couched in the English language that the Holy Father knew that men would one day speak? Maybe.
Next example of 1611 A.D. possibly being used as a code for the coming Bible or the coming Lord Jesus: what if you go to the 16th book of a Protestant Bible, and go to its first chapter and verse. What is being spoken of there...and does it relate to the coming book called the Bible in some way?
It is the beginning of the Book of Nehemiah. His ministry was the task of returning to a destroyed Jerusalem and rallying his people to rebuild that which was the proper home of those known as God's people. The city had been burnt down then purposely destroyed by Babylon, and the walls were torn down. They face adversity, but rebuild the walls under Nehemiah's leadership. And they spend a great deal of time reading out loud from a book of the Law...the Book containing the Laws given by God to Moses. Ezra reads aloud from it, and explains the teachings to the gathered returned exiles of Israel, for about 7 days. And a big event in the book is the freeing of the slaves. Israelite slaves, slaves to other Israelites, are ordered by Nehemiah to be released. This was a key focus of Jesus' ministry in a spiritual sense, and the teachings of the Bible, followed, can free men from being slaves to sin.
Nehemiah has the people purify themselves and the temple and its articles of service, and also get rid of all the wives of foreign peoples that they had married. Just send them away. Wow! It was against the Mosaic teachings to mix in marriage with the peoples around and within Israel who worshipped false gods and had hideous religious ceremonies. But by most measures Nehemiah was a devastatingly severe reformer. And though a strong leader and an amazing administrator for the Israelites returned to Jerusalem, Nehemiah would have spent a lot of time at HR meetings in our present day explaining his management tactics. He gave people beatings, pulled out people's hair, and generally was a quite demonstrative leader it would appear. This sort of reform was also a part of Jesus' ministry...to call people to live lives of holiness, to teach them to disassociate from the wickedness in the world and become a pure people dedicated to God. And it is a teaching of the Bible...to become pure and after that to remain pure as we live our lives.
The whole aim of the Protestant reform efforts canoe likened to Nehemiah's efforts as described in the Bible. He aimed to get rid of the evil which had crept in to Israelite culture, and to return them to living pure lives dedicated to the one true God. The King James Bible translation effort was focused, like Nehemiah, on producing a work that was a return to a higher level of purity and righteousness.
And finally, Nehemiah ends his book by speaking of wood and offering first fruits to honor God. Jesus carried wood and He was a living first fruit to God on the cross, and was the first fruit of those raised from the dead to eternal life. Likewise the Bible is of processed wood, and its words and teachings gathered a first fruits of followers of Jesus. the Bible forms walls of safety for the Christians who live within its teachings as well, going back to the theme of rebuilding the walls.
Ultimately this rebuilt Jerusalem was noted to be a pretty shabby version of the one that had been destroyed decades earlier. It was humble, simple, stripped down and basic. Yet its structural soundness had been restored and it sufficed. This is a difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. In the Old Covenant, you could be proud of following all of the directions and commands...you had earned your righteousness before God. But in the New Covenant you are to be humble. It specifically teaches that we men have nothing to be proud of, and that Jesus won our salvation for us because we were too wicked to do it.
How about moving on to another example: Proverbs 16:11. It says "Honest scales and balances belong to the Lord. All of the weights in the bag are of His making." NIV or "A just weight and balance are the Lords. All of the weights in the bag are His work." KJV
The whole point of the King James Bible was to obtain a purified and correctly translated version of God's teachings to extend to people. It was to be an honest rendering of God's words to us, whether from the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit. His Word (and Son, Jesus) has been given authority to weigh our words and deeds in view of God's teachings, and to judge us for salvation or damnation. It will be a just and honest assessment, a weighing if you will, of our lives, using strict but honest moral weights and standards.
Another example. What about Matthew 6:11? Matthew is the number first book, the number 1 book in the New Testament. So this is another 1611 of sorts. And that verse is found to be in the middle of the world premier of the Lord's Prayer, spoken apparently for the first time ever by Jesus, the Bread of Life. (That is another of Jesus' official names from scripture - 'the Bread of Life'.). And note what verse 11 says, note where it falls of all possible places. Amazing.
Here is part of Matthew Chap 6.
9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:
15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
End Quote.
Notice how verse 11 literally speaks of receiving our 'daily bread' from God each day. Christians think that the words of the New Covenant, the Words of Jesus, really are 'the Bread of Life' and our religion likens the 'taking in' of the Words of God to the eating of spiritual bread very commonly. In our religion, the term 'our daily bread' can apply to our daily food, or our daily spiritual dining upon the powerful Words of God. Matthew 6:11 seems very appropriate to list as a scripture that may hint at the coming of the Bible using 1611, the year of the King James Bible's publishing as a sort of code.
Another example: Psalm 16, verse 11 says "You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand." the Bible is the teachings about the path of life to a Christian. Jesus lined His teachings to a 'narrow path' that few would find, unlike the 'broad path' that led to damnation, he said. Psalm 16:11 is a pretty appropriate example of the scriptures of the Bible perhaps foreshadowing the Bible itself.
In Matthew, the first (#1) book of the New Testament, the Chapter 6, Verse 11 words are "Give us today our daily bread." That, to a Christian, means both our daily food, and also a daily feeding upon the Word of God in the Bible. We literally call a daily reading of scripture as getting our 'daily bread.' This definitely could hint at the coming Bible.
In Mark 16:11, which is contested scripture that not every Bible includes, a crucified then arisen Jesus appears to first Mary Magdalene and then later some other disciples in 'another form'. They walk along talking and the disciples do not recognize it is Jesu that they are speaking to. So, as mentioned earlier, the Bible is mysteriously another form of Jesus, a form of Jesus who is sometimes called the Bread of Life. That's pretty interesting, right? And I did not search out chapter 16 in all of the Bible's books which have 16 chapters. There may be more good examples. But I will end with Exodus 16 in the verses surrounding verse 11. It is, amazingly, the place where manna, a white breadline food that fell in flakes, first falls upon the wandering Israelites from the sky. It is the food they would mainly live on, gathering it each day, day by day, for the next 40 years (40 is the classic number denoting a trial or testing period, in scripture.) And that is what a Christian is urged to do; we are to eat the bread from heaven, the Words of Jesus who is the Bread of Life, all the time during our trial period down here on the Earth. This chapter and verse is certainly an amazing correlation. I suspect it was placed in this exact place by God the Father so that we could marvel at His work as He guided the dispensation of history into all of our separate realities down here on Earth. Surely the Father foresaw the end from the very beginning, and surely He foresaw what Jesus , His Son, would have to do for us if we were to be saved. And surely God foresaw the creation of the book we call the Bible. Amazing is our God!!
Exodus 16:
11 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
17 And the children of Israel did so, and gathered, some more, some less.
19 And Moses said, Let no man leave of it till the morning.
End Quote
So, was the coming existence of the book we know as the Bible cleverly encoded into the Holy Scriptures using the publishing date of what would become perhaps the foremost of all English language Bibles? There's a circumstantial case to be made that it seems quite possible. And since some of these scriptures are Old Testament, it is yet another way of forecasting the coming of Jesus as the Messiah, since the number 1611 is an Anno Domini date. The Year of Our Lord 1611. Or 1611 A.D. It always was meant to be all about Jesus, and Jesus always did mean to make it all about His Father Yahweh. We should model that kind of loyalty and love with each other, right?