Walk through narrative-driven exhibition wings designed to immerse you into the theological, political, and linguistic breakthroughs that birthed the Bible as we have it today.
Exhibition Wing • king james era
The Making of the King James Bible (1611)
From Hampton Court to Westminster Abbey: How 47 Scholars Shaped the English Tongue
In 1604, King James VI of Scotland arrived in London to assume the English crown. At the Hampton Court Conference, Puritan leader John Reynolds suggested an entirely new translation. James agreed—on the condition that the Geneva Bible's anti-monarchist notes be banished. What emerged was a masterpiece that borrowed heavily from Tyndale's martyr-sealed translation while uniting the scholarly resources of Oxford, Cambridge, and Westminster.
The Dangerous Journey of the First Printed English New Testament
Possessing an English Bible in 1526 was high treason punishable by being burned alive. Tyndale's New Testament was printed in Worms, shipped down the Rhine, and distributed by daring cloth merchants in London, Oxford, and Bristol before Cardinal Wolsey could seize them.
Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and the Birth of Modern Textual Criticism
For 1,500 years, the King James Bible and Western Europe relied on late Byzantine Greek manuscripts. The 19th-century discovery of Codex Sinaiticus at Saint Catherine's Monastery and the unlocking of Codex Vaticanus transported scholars back to the era of Constantine, sparking the modern translation era.
