The King James Bible was published in 1611. Before that time, the common man had little access to the Word of God. It was much more difficult to discern truth from error. Before that time, you may or may not be familiar with an early author by the name of Dante. He published a work called the Divine Comedy back in the fourteenth century. In it, he said there were nine levels of hell that the sinner must face after death. The ninth level was for the most heinous of crimes. Sinners would suffer the worst torture and misery on that level. For lesser sins, you would go to a higher level until at the first level, there was little discomfort at all. Many people in the past might have believed this was a factual account of the afterlife, but thank God, we now have the Bible to help us distinguish truth from error.