QUESTION:  Did King James authorize his translation to be used in the 
           churches in England?
   
ANSWER:  No.  He authorized its translation, but not its usage.
   
EXPLANATION:  It is difficult for someone in the twentieth century, 
especially someone in America, to fathom the conditions of nearly four 
hundred years ago.  We Christians not only have a Bible in our 
language, but more often than not, we have several.  Added to that is 
our concordance and a raft of Bible commentaries and sundry other 
"Christian" books.
   
Yet the world of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was 
quite different.  The common man in England had no Bible.  The only 
copy available to him was chained to the altar of the church.  As 
recently as 1536, William Tyndale had been burned at the stake for the 
high crime of printing Bibles in the language of the common man, 
English.  When King James commissioned the fifty-four translators in 
1603 he did not mandate the upcoming translation to be used in 
churches.  In fact, that it was translated and not intended for the 
churches left it only one explainable destiny.  That is, that it 
should be supplied to the common man.
   
It might be noted that the world has no greater power than the common 
man with the common Bible in his hand.

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