INFALLIBLE?.................... PERHAPS NOT!
A typo in some copy for this edition of St Oswald’ s magazine set me thinking about other unfortunate failures of the printers’ art!
Everyone makes mistakes, even the folks who print Bibles. Over the years, these people have made some mindtwisting typographical errors.
Here are a few errors that have turned up in various editions of the Bible:
A Bible printed in 1562 contains the following mistake in Mark 5:9 –“ Blessed are the placemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” The correct word, of course, is“ peace-makers.”
A Bible printed in 1653 reads:“ Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the Kingdom of God?” The passage, Corinthians 6:9, should read“ shall not inherit.”
A Bible printed in 1862 botched a passage in Revelation, recording the number of the Beast, or Antichrist, as“ 999” instead of“ 666”
A Bible printed in 1914 listed“ Thou shalt kill” as one of the 10 commandments. Of course, it should have been“ Thou shalt not kill.”
Oddly enough, a Bible printed in 1631 blew another commandment, which led to the most famous typo of all:“ Thou shalt commit adultery.”
Coined“ The Wicked Bible”, it was meant to be a reprint of the King James Bible. The publishers were punished with a £ 300 fine( around £ 35,000 at today’ s value) and their printer’ s license revoked. King Charles I was incensed, and George Abbot, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said:
“ I knew the tyme when great care was had about printing, the Bibles especially, good compositors and the best correctors were gotten being grave and learned men, the paper and the letter rare, and faire every way of the beste, but now the paper is nought, the composers boyes, and the correctors unlearned.”
Almost all the Wicked Bible’ s copies were burned, but eleven survived. One copy is in the collection of the New York Public Library and another in the Bible Museum in Branson, Missouri.
If you’ re really interested, a copy was recently sold for £ 15,000 in London.... so not all bad – if you find one!
Anon
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