John Rainolds

[VirginiaHuguenot]

John Rainolds, English Puritan (1549 -- May 21, 1607) was a highly respected Biblical scholar and precisionist who initiated the proposal to prepare a new version of the Bible at the Hampton Court Conference which became the King James Version, which he also helped to translate. He died 400 years ago this year.

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Gustavus Paine, The Men Behind the King James Version (1959, 1977 Baker paperback edition), p. 183:

[John Rainolds wrote in a previously unpublished letter:] Divinity, the knowledge of God, is the water of life...God forbid that you should think that divinity consists of words, as a wood doth of trees...True divinity cannot be learned unless we frame our hearts and minds wholly to it...The knowledge of God must be learned of God...We have to use two means, prayers and the reading of the holy Scriptures, prayers for ourselves to talk with God, and reading to hear God talk with us...We must diligently give ourselves to reading and meditation of the holy Scriptures...I pray God you may.