The revision was completed, as the revisers themselves tell us, in “twice seven times seventy-two days and more;” that is to say, in about two years and three-quarters; and if to this be added the nine months spent in a final revision and preparation for the press, we have then only a period of three years and a half. The new Bible was published in 1611; the work, therefore, could not have been commenced before 1607. Although the men who engaged in this important undertaking are called “translators,” their work was essentially that of revision. This is clearly shown both by the rules laid down for their guidance, and by the statement of the translators themselves, who say in their preface, “Truly, good Christian reader, wee never thought from the beginning that wee should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one,” “but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principall good one, not justly to bee excepted against; that hath beene our indeavour, that our marke.”[50] Further, this revision was a more extensive and thorough revision than any which had been heretofore undertaken. In former revisions, either the work had been done by the solitary labours of one or two, or when a fair number of competent men were engaged in it no sufficient provision had been made for combined action, and but few opportunities had been given for mutual conference. In this revision a larger number of scholars were engaged than upon any former, and the arrangements were such as secured that upon no part of the Bible should the labour of fewer than seven persons be expended. The revisers were divided into six companies, two of which met at Westminster, two at Cambridge, and two at Oxford. The books of the Old Testament, from Genesis to 2 Kings inclusive, were assigned to the first Westminster company, consisting of ten members; from 1 Chronicles to Song of Solomon, to the first Cambridge company, consisting of eight members; and from Isaiah to Malachi, to the first Oxford company, consisting of seven members. The Apocryphal books were assigned to the second Cambridge company, which also consisted of seven members. Of the books of the New Testament, the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Apocalypse were given to the second Oxford company, in which as many as ten members were at different times associated; the Epistles were entrusted to the seven scholars forming the second Westminster company.[51]