The KJV Bible

The Encyclopedia Foundation is a non-political and non-religious. Doesn’t mean the Directors might not have opinions, but they are not relevant to the mission, any more than your faith is relevant to your day job.

It may raise eyebrows then that we intend on preserving the King James Version of the Holy Bible. On the very first metal plate. The 13th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Harvard Five Foot Shelf of Knowledge, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare…and that Bible.

We are including it for several reasons.

One, it is of vast cultural significance. Those fifty books of the Harvard Series are. No one questions that. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare are. No one questions that.

Likewise, obviously the Bible is. Specifically – at least for English speaking Westerners – the King James Version.

But besides being of cultural significance, we at the Encyclopedia Foundation are perhaps more aware of its role in history than others. You see, for a long time, books being so expensive, it was about the only book a person had. Books were hand wrote, so if you could only afford one, that was the one to get.

Even when printers got rolling, books were still expensive. Unless you were rich, one book was what you’d have, and the Bible was your best bet. Not only for the religious instruction, but for the moral instruction, the history of it, the sheer abundance of stories, the proverbs, the adventures, the political lesson, the teachings of warfare, and guide to political intrigue, sanitation rules, how to maintain an army camp without diseases ravaging it…and on and on and on.

It wasn’t gun that let the Spanish conquer the Aztecs and Incas. It was literacy. The Spanish could read, they had books – including the Bible. Any educated man had read that. They had then thousands of years of experience in warfare and political intrigue.

What did the Incan’s have? Nothing. Whatever their personal experience was. Whatever stories they remembered from grandpa. They were hopelessly naïve and educationally outclassed. And that Bible, regarded by many as some silly religious book, was actually the prime book that educated those in positions of power.
Do you want to know how to keep diseases out of a military camp in the field? Deuteronomy 23:13, “And thous shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee.”

The Spanish knew this. The Incans didn’t. For those of you busy calling out that diseases killed more Natives than Spanish steel or books did. True enough. Diseases did kill more. Pity their armies massed in the hundreds of thousands hadn’t heard of Moses. If so, they might still be here.

If one could have one book set, the Encyclopedia Foundation has made clear that it should be the 13th Edition of (say it with me!) the Encyclopedia Britannica. But if one could have just one single book with which to start over…well, if you think about it, then no matter your faith, the Bible would be at the top of the list. No other book packs so much diversity into it.

As to which “version”, that is so contentious. Everyone has a “version”.

Fortunately for us, the King James Version is of obvious and unquestioned historical and cultural significance. So we are spared having to defend our choice. We pick the historically significant one.

(We would be happy to hear from anyone who wished us to store a version they found more appropriate, though.)