John Bois' Notes on Revelation as it pertains to Revelation 16:5

Translating for King James: notes made by a translator of King James' Bible, translated and edited by Ward Allen, purports to be a transcription and light editing of the notes of John Bois.  As you may know, John Bois was charged with translating the Apocrypha (which were in Greek) and also served as a translator for part of the Old Testament (which was in Hebrew).  These notes, however, are from a further role he played as one of the editors of the KJV.

According to the title page of Allen's 1969, Vanderbilt University Press work, William Fulman made a hand copy of Bois' notes, which serve as the basis for Allen's work.

Below, I offer a few observations.  Those observations come with the caveat that I found at least one odd transcription error in Allen's work in transcribing the translators' notes in a Bishops' Bible (as mentioned here).  So, there is the possibility of error by Allen and/or (in this case) by Fulman.  Moreover, if I read Fulman's notes correctly, he himself was working from a copy made by an "unskillful hand."  In this case, however, Allen's work includes a facsimile of Fulman's notes, so the interested reader should be able to at least check that far without difficulty.

The notes themselves only include Romans to Revelation.  Moreover, there at least two sections relevant to Revelation: "Apocalypse of John" (beginning at p. 99) and "Added to Notes, Apocalypse" (beginning at p. 113).  Allen also created a "References Cited in John Bois's Notes," with the sub-section for Apocalypse found on p. 123.

In terms of the amount of notes, Bois' notes on Romans occupy 3 and 3/4 pages in Fulman's hand, whereas his notes on Revelation are about 2 and 1/2 pages.  

The only reference cited in Revelation (per Allen) is Arethas' commentary (as printed in 1532).  There is, however, frequent citation of the views of Andrew Downes (one of his fellow editors from the "Committee of Revisers"). Bois also mentions "Hutch," which apparently was a nickname of John Harmar, another of the Committee of Revisers. Harmar, or "Hutch," was on the "Second Oxford Company" assigned to translate the Gospels, Acts, and Revelation (link to source). 

Although the notes on Revelation address verses from nearly ever chapter, there are no notes on Revelation 1:4, 1:8, 4:8, or 16:5.  The only note on Revelation 11:17 relates to "and hast entered thy kingdom" (I've changed the spelling).  Thus, as it pertains to my main reason in consulting Bois' notes with respect to the reading at Revelation 16:5, it seems that the difference between Stephanus and Beza was not of any particular interest to the Committee of the Revisers (or at least to Bois).

Bois seems to have some interest in the manuscripts.  At Rev. 3:1 he comments that "Some codices do not have" the word for seven.   At Rev. 13:3 he comments that another manuscript has the word for "he will make war." Other than these two, though, I did not find any others in Revelation.  Neither of these textual observations are derivable from Beza's annotations.

Stephanus' 1550, however, has (at Revelation 3:1):

(source)

Whereas Beza's 1598 has: 

(source)

Similarly, at Revelation 13:5

(source)

Whereas Beza's 1598 has:

(source)

The observation provided by Stephanus does not exactly align with the notes provided by Allen/Fulman, but certainly the presence of a variant is asterisked by Stephanus.  It would be an interesting matter of further study to sort out whether Bois' notes (as per Furlman) have any actual manuscript support as they pertain to Revelation 13:5.

Unless we are to assume that Bois and his fellows independently noted these things, it seems reasonable to suppose that Bois and others did (at least occasionally) compare Beza and Stephanus and thus may have been aware of the difference between them at Revelation 16:5.

The most interesting note to me (on this read-through) was a note at Revelation 13:8, that both Downes and Harmar had the view that "from the foundation of the world" should modify "written" not "slain."  Obviously, on this point, Bois won out over the opinion of his fellow revisers.