A curious numerology in the King James Bible that launched a 400-year authorship theory.
Documented
The KJV has a genuine paper mystery
The 1611 King James Version was produced by six companies of translators, about 47 men whose names are known. Almost none of their working papers survive: the records of the era's greatest publishing project are missing, which is unusual. The Psalms do contain shake at position 46 and spear at position 46-from-end in early editions.
Assessment: The missing records and the word positions are documented fact. What they mean is where the theories begin.
Interesting claims
Bacon's signature in the text
Manly P. Hall, in a 1929 lecture, claimed the KJV was edited under Bacon's hand and bears more Mason's marks than Strasburg Cathedral. William Smedley and later Tony Bushby's The Bible Fraud built the case: Bacon revised the translation, encoded Rosicrucian emblems in its ornaments, and signed Psalm 46 for his 46th year. The theory persists in decoder circles, including broadcasts in the lineage Gaiters represents.
Assessment: The word positions are real; everything after is inference. The alignment requires specific early printings and ignores that earlier English versions land differently. No scholar of the KJV, including its standard historian Gordon Campbell, finds evidence of Bacon's involvement. A signature that can only be found by those already convinced is decoration, not evidence.
Stories
The Shakespeare variant
The better-told version of the cipher story has Shakespeare, not Bacon, signing the psalm: he turned 46 in 1610, and the theory says the translators let him polish the Psalms, and he left his name where counters would find it. It is the favorite parlor version of the claim.
Assessment: No evidence places Shakespeare anywhere near the translation, and the word positions shift between editions. The story endures because Shakespeare-shaped mysteries are a genre unto themselves, and this one fits the slot.
Sources and further reading
King James Version, Psalm 46, 1611: shake 46th word from the start, spear 46th from the end
Geneva Bible 1599 and Bishops' Bible 1568, where the count fails
Worth asking
The translators' records of the 1611 Bible vanished, every notebook, every draft. Is the shake-spear alignment Bacon signing the text, or is it proof that if you count long enough, any text confesses?