This Bible's purpose was to replace the Great Bible, the official Bible of England, as the Protestant Geneva Bible, being more popular, was undermining both the inferior Great Bible, but also the authority of the bishops.

The revisers' penchant toward borrowing from the excellence of the Geneva and balancing it with "enough" of the party-line Great Bible ended in a weaker product. Scholars did not find the translation satisfying.

The Bishops' Bible:

Challenging the Geneva

Matthew Parker had been Anne Boleyn's chaplain. By 1544 he had been elected master of Corpus Christi College on Henry VIII's recommendation. Parker was given care of Elizabeth when her mother, Anne Boleyn was executed.

Parker was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1559, as Elizabeth now occupied the throne. In his present position, Parker was able to act on his conviction that not only was the Geneva Bible undermining the prestige of the Great Bible (England's official Bible), but was also weakening the authority of the bishops. So he organized eight or nine of his best qualified bishops, divided the Bible up into parcels and instructed the men to "peruse and collate" the text, creating a new translation from the "common English translation used in the churches" (meaning the Great Bible).

The results of the work followed the Great Bible to a large extent, but it is evident that the Geneva Bible provided a distinct influence. It was also evident that shying away from all controversy and not being obvious that the Bible they were seeking to replace wasn't the source reduced the textual quality. To compensate, the printers used the heaviest papers and finest vellums, together with the very best printing facilities available. The resulting Bishops' Bible included a large number of woodcuts, a description of the Holy Land and a chart of St. Paul's journeys. The title page had an engraving of Queen Elizabeth.

Due to the rules and manner of work, it turned out to be inharmonious and uncoordinated -- to say nothing of quite expensive to produce. Parker assumed he would obtain royal favor for his efforts. He arranged for the Secretary of State to present Her Majesty with a copy to license as the sole edition for public reading in the churches. She never granted him his desire: the proclamation read, "Every archbishop and bishop should have at his house a copy of the Holy Bible in the largest volume, lately printed in London." The Bible referred to was the Great Bible, and the "public reading in churches" came from Parker himself, without royal authority. Ergo, the Bishops' Bible was never officially accepted. It was considered the weakest of the Reformation translations in spite of lasting forty years and going through twenty editions!