4. Numerous differing versions of the King James Bible existed by the 18th century
The Bible known today as the King James Version was called the Authorized Version in the 17th century, and still is by many adherents. The term referred to the fact that the Church was authorized to replace the existing Bishop’s Bible with the new translation, an act which is attributed to the Privy Council. The printing of the Bishop’s Bible was suspended and only the new translation was allowed to be produced. For some time the Geneva Bible, printed in Amsterdam and containing marginal notations on the text, continued to be popular in England and especially in Scotland. During the first half of the 17th-century Dutch printers began to produce a combination Bible, with the text of the Authorized Version supported with notations from the Geneva Bible.
The popularity of the Bible augmented with notes led to the establishment of a commission which studied the possibility of printing an Authorized Version with notes which were in line with acceptable Protestant theology (the Geneva version being considered unacceptably popish). The project was abandoned when it was determined that the resultant Bible would be unacceptably large. The English Restoration made the Geneva Bible heretical in the eyes of the Church of England, and by the end of the 17th century, the Authorized Version was the most commonly found Bible in England. Disputes over the right to print the work continued throughout the 1600s, leading to many editions which contained errors of text, omissions, errors of punctuations and typographical issues.