Misprints in the Bible

From SkepticWiki

1 Definition
2 Examples
3 Links and References
4 Related Articles

[edit] Definition

There have been misprints in the Bible ever since people started printing it. Some of the best-known printers' errors are listed in the section below.

[edit] Examples

The Denial Bible (1792) The name "Philip" is substituted for "Peter" as the apostle who would deny Jesus. (Luke 22:34) [1]

The Discharge Bible (1806) : 1 Timothy 5:21 says, "I discharge thee... that thou observe these things", instead of "I charge thee". [2]

Ears to Ear Bible (1810) : Matthew 13:43 reads "Who hath ears to ear, let him hear". [3]

The Fool Bible (1763) : One of the prize typographical blunders of all time, the "Fool Bible" substitutes the word "a" for "no" in Psalms 14:1. Which means that it reads: "The fool hath said in his heart there is a God". The edition was suppressed and the printers were fined £3000, a princely sum in those days. [4]

The Forgotten Sins Bible (1638) This changes Luke 7:47 to "Her sins which are many, are forgotten" (rather than "forgiven"). [5]

The Idle Shepherd (1809) : The "idol shepherd" of Zechariah 11:17 becomes "the idle shepherd". This is rather better grammar than the original, but it is not what the Bible says. [6]

The Judas Bible (1611) : The edition manages to confuse, of all people, Jesus and Judas, in Matthew 26:36. [7]

The Lions Bible (1804) This contains a number of prize howlers, including "The murderer shall surely be put together" instead of "to death" (Numbers 25:18); "…but thy son that shall come forth out of thy lions…" instead of "out of thy loins" (Kings 8:19); and "For the flesh lusteth after the Spirit," instead of "against the Spirit" (Galatians 5:17). [8]

The More Sea Bible (1641) : This makes the Apocalypse sound damper than has usually been supposed: Revelation 21:1 has been changed to "the first heaven and the first earth were passed away and there was more sea", instead of "…there was no more sea." [9]

The Murderers Bible (1801) : Has "murderers" for "murmurers" in Jude 1:16. [10]

The Printers Bible : A peculiarly appropriate typographical error in Psalm 119:161 says "Printers have persecuted me without a cause", instead of "princes" [11]

The Rebekah's Camels Bible (1823) : Gives Genesis 24:61 as "Rebekah arose, and her camels", instead of "her damsels". [12]

The Sin On Bible (1716) : Jesus' advice to the adulterous woman in John 5:13 is given as "Go and sin on more" instead of "sin no more." [13]

The Standing Fishes Bible (1806) : Ezekiel 47:10 has "And it shall come to pass that the fishes shall stand on it" instead of "fishers". [14]

The Religious Bible (1637) : An error in Jeremiah 4:17 leads God to complain that Jerusalem has been "religious" rather than "rebellious" [15]

The To Remain Bible (1805) : A proofreader queried a comma in Galatians 4:29 and the editor wrote the words "to remain", meaning that the comma should be left in the text. Instead, the proofreader incorporated the words "to remain" into the text, making the passage read: "he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit to remain, even so it is now". [16]

The Unrighteous Bible (1653) In 1 Corinthians 6:9 the word "not" was omitted, leaving us with the message that "the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of god" and, consistently enough, in this edition Romans 6:13 warns us "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of righteousness". [17]

The Vinegar Bible (1717) : This has been described as a "basketful of printers' errors", the most celebrated of which is the chapter heading to Luke 20, which reads "Parable of the Vinegar" rather than "of the vineyard". [18]

The Wicked Bible (1632) : This contains the world's most famous misprint --- the omission of the word "not" from the Seventh Commandment (Exodus 20:14), leaving us with a solemn injunction to commit adultery. The printer, one Robert Barker, was fined £300 (a considerable sum in those days); his mistake ruined him financially. Ironically, today a Wicked Bible is very valuable to book collectors; to buy a copy would leave you with precious little change out of $100,000. [19]

The Wife-hater Bible (1810) : In this edition, Luke 14:26 reads "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own wife also, he cannot be my disciple." The second "wife" should be "life". [20]

Mention should also be made of the third edition of the Bishops' Bible, published in 1572, which deserves some sort of special award for typographical stupidity above and beyond the call of mere incompetence. As was the custom of the time, the printer used ornate initials, done in woodcut, to imitate the illuminated initials of handwritten manuscripts. This in itself was a good idea, but he decided to economize by reusing the initials designed for a previous work. In most cases, this would not have presented a problem, but it happened that the previous work was Ovid's Metamorphoses, a classical work neither Christian nor delicate in its nature. Which is why, amongst other things, the initial letter of the Epistle to the Hebrews is decorated with the scene of the Greek god Zeus committing rape in the form of a swan.