I have been reading the Geneva Bible--the Bible the Pilgrims brought with them to America. The Geneva Bible was published in 1560. Much of the KJV traces back to the Geneva Bible--except that King James did not like the notes by the people who translated the Geneva Bible from the original languages and created the Geneva Bible. He didn't like the notes because to him the notes undermined the notion of worldly kings being ordained by God to rule the people via their "royal" bloodlines. The margin notes are an incredible addition to the text because we get to see the viewpoint of learned Christians and Biblical scholars of the 1500s.
Today I started reading Isaiah Chapter 43 and in the very first verse there are two margin notes. This is the Chapter after Isaiah is giving prophecy from God about Him sending Christ to the world. For context, Chapter 42: v. 6: "I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and I will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, & for a light of the Gentiles, 7. That thou may open the eyes of the blind, & bring out the prisoners from the prison: and them that sit in darkness, out of the prison house."
(This seems to me to be what Jesus came to do and it is happening right now in the Great Awakening.)
The Geneva Bible has short summaries in italics before each chapter. The summary for the first part of Chapter 43, which I was reading this morning: "The Lord comforteth his people.."
Halfway through the first verse there are two margin notes. I was surprised to see the word "conspiracies" in the second note. The note is for the second part of the verse: "Fear not: for I have redeemed thee: I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine."
The margin note to me feels like it was written 500 years ago for all of us right now:
"When thou seest dangers and conspiracies on all sides, remember this benefit and the love of thy God, and it shall encourage thee."
The Pilgrims came to America with the Geneva Bible in hand to get away from the bloodline families of Europe and their dark rule. And here we are 500 years later seeing "dangers and conspiracies on all sides" caused by those same bloodline families that our ancestors sought to leave behind when they came to America. We should take their advice to remember the love of God and let that encourage us so that we FEAR NOT."
We should fear not as we fight to take back our country and restore it to being a Godly nation. God is with us and just as Q said: It's going to be Biblical.
A blessed day to you all.
Yes, the margin notes in the Geneva Bible reflect that the scholars who put it together were not fans of "papists". The copy I have is a facsimile of the 1560 edition published by Hendrickson Bibles with an introduction by Lloyd E. Berry. The introduction is very interesting as to the history of how early versions of the Bible came into being, and it was a dangerous business for sure. The first paragraph of the introduction:
"From early Anglo-Saxon times to the present there have been translations of the Bible, or parts of it, into English; and almost without exception each translation has met with opposition."
..."...there was indeed a demand for an English version despite the action of the Provincial Council at Oxford in 1408 prohibiting English translations of the Bible on pain of excommunication and trial for heresy."
..."Perhaps the most important advance in the translations of the Bible in the sixteenth century was that, beginning with [William] Tyndale, all translators except Coverdale returned to the Greek and Hebrew originals."
Then we are given a brief history of Tyndale leading to ..."However, the prohibition of the Council at Oxford was still in effect, and only by the permission of a bishop could a translation be prepared. So in 1523 Tyndale went to London to seek the patronage of ...the Bishop of London." That guy refused. Tyndale found somebody else, but figured out he was not safe in England at all so he moved to Germany, "where he finished his translation of the New Testament and where its printing was undertaken at the press of Peter Quentell. The Senate of Cologne learned of the work and forbade its production, with the consequence that only one copy survives. "
Tyndale was executed in 1535. But he had made his mark.
... "Tyndale encountered opposition not so much because his work was unauthorized as because his prefaces, notes, and choice of ecclesiastical words (e.g. report for penance, congregation for church) were simply unacceptable to the Church of England, and because he was reluctant to compromise on these matters. The excellence of his translation rested upon his style and idiom no less than upon his scholarship; and the importance of his work in the history of the English Bible is common knowledge: all subsequent translations of the Bible into English show Tyndale's influence."
..."in 1546 [King] Henry [VIII] prohibited the use of Tyndale or any other annotated Bible in English."
Mary Queen of Scots, a Catholic, ascends to the throne in England in 1553 and la number of Biblical scholars and translators end up executed and the rest flee to German or to Switzerland--Geneva, Switzerland, to be precise.
From page 15 of the introduction: "The single most important feature of the Geneva Bible, to both the laity and the clergy, consisted in the marginal notes. ... At the Hampton Court Conference in 1604, King James is reported to have given orders for the Authorized Version that reflected adversely upon the Geneva Bible: '...he gave this caveat that no marginal notes should be added, having found in them which are annexed to the Geneva translation some notes very partial, untrue, seditious, and savoring too much of dangerous, and traitorous conceits. As for example, Exod 1, 19, where the marginal note alloweth disobedience to Kings...."
p 17 "...it would be well to consider for a moment the literary influence of the Geneva Bible on the King James version. As CC Butterworth has said: 'In the lineage of the King James Bible this volume [the Geneva Bible] is by all means the most important single volume.' "
p. 22 "Not only was the Geneva Bible popular in England and Scotland, but also it was the favored Bible of the Plymouth and Virginia settlements in America. ...The Pilgrims brought the Geneva Bible with them on the Mayflower to Plymouth in 1620. In fact, the religious writings and sermons published by the members of the Plymouth colony suggest that the Geneva Bible was used exclusively by them in the colony's early days."
I'm quite certain I haven't answered your questions, but I have given a Clif Notes version of the introduction that supports your point, I think, that people of good conscience have LONG been trying to get out from under the grip of the monsters who have long run our world.
But this time, we're not running to a different place to get away from them. This time, God willing, we're taking our country back from them. We are going to pull them out right down to the tiniest of their roots. And then we're going to go out and work to free the whole world from the swamp monsters in their countries so that none of us will ever need to run from them again.