Earliest known draft of the King James Bible discovered

Why Italian?

I'm ignorant enough to have only read the first five books (Genesis through Deuteronomy), Ecclesiastes, and a scattering of quotes from other books of the bible. I started reading that piece of the old testament after going through some translated Sumerian/Babylonian works and commentary about the relation of the old testament to other pan-Mesopotamian theology, and I feel like it's pretty interesting from that perspective. Yahweh is clearly Enki/Ea with some aspects of Marduk sprinkled in. The flood stories are funny, because in When The Gods Instead Of Man we have a story about a bunch of gods deciding to kill all humans and one god (Ea) deciding to warn the flood hero (Atrahasis) about the flood; when all the other humans die and Atrahasis is the only one sacrificing food to the gods, the other gods realise their mistake and are thankful. In the old testament version they have to tell the same story with only one god, so the same god who wants to kill everybody also wants to save a specific person/family due to their righteousness, rather than as an act of desperation in the face of other gods' foolish plans. That whole sacrificing-food-by-burning-it thing carries over into the old testament too, with god consuming offerings in the tabernacle via flames. It also struck me how human the Sumerian/Babylonian gods were. Before creating humans they had to grow their own food, one of the gods was in charge of controlling a canal. Like, that's some mundane shit. Then you have the old testament being super unsure of how to portray god. Sometimes he seems abstract, he'll appear as a burning bush if he feels like it, sometimes he seems to consume people/offerings in flames, and a couple of times (Moses looking at his back, Jacob wrestling with him) he appears downright human. The book Who Wrote The Bible? has an interesting take on the first five books of the old testament (the "Torah of Moses") being written by at least five separate people/groups and compiled by Ezra the lawgiver. I know that some people think Ezra is entirely mythical, and there are other objections to some details of that book, but I still think it's an interesting take. It claims that the early books often repeat themselves because they're a blending of two earlier narratives meant to unify the people of Israel after a north/south divide. Since one group said that Noah sent out a dove, and one group said a raven, he just does both. There are a lot more examples of things that look like two versions of the same story spliced together. I place no religious significance in the texts, and I haven't cared enough to read more (though I might read through Jeremiah/Baruch's works at some point), but I think it's a fascinating work just due to the age. Ecclesiastes is legitimagely beautiful, and while I wouldn't say it's unparalleled for it's time (props to Lao Tzu) I think it's one of the few works of that era I've been exposed to which I found that beautiful.

I'm Christian, KJV in all uses I've seen of it is simply the "default" version. It's not treated as more correct than any other version.

I grew up in a religious family and community and I asked the same question! There was a debate among people about which version to use and anything but the King James version was wrong.

Why?

Because of Revelation 22:18,19

18. For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:

19. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

So my first question was: The King James version is a translation, so it had to be changed at some point. No translations are perfect!

Their responses to the question ranged from: King James didn't experience those plagues, he must have translated it correctly, ... to the King James version is the first one translated into English and since The Living Bible or another version is different, then King James must be right as the change happened between the time of the King James and the subsequent translations.

There is a small but very convinced group that believes that the King James Bible is "perfect", preserved by God to be the only true scripture for Christians.

This is just my opinion, after many hours of researching this phenomenon myself: They mean well, but they're very wrong. The translators of the King James Bible themselves, specifically and without ambiguity stated in the introduction to the KJV that it's important for scholars to update the texts from time to time to allow current culture to understand what ancient writers meant. There are a lot of archaic words in the KJV that don't mean today what they meant back when it was written, for instance.

I used to work with a KJV-onlyist and I had a few debates with him over lunch about it. I gave him a verse with an archaic word in it, and asked him to explain it. As I expected, he interpreted it using the modern definition which made no sense at all. When I pointed out that I had basically tricked him, he flat out refused to even admit he was wrong.

My take on this find is that it's nice and all, but it's a rather minor 'find' in terms of how useful it will be.