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A Textual History of the King James Bible

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A Textual History of the King James Bible ATextual History of the King James Bible David Norton has recently re-edited the King James Bible for Cam- bridge, and this book arises from his intensive work on that project. Here he shows how the text of the most important Bible in the English language was made, and how, for better and for worse, it changed in the hands of printers and editors until, in 1769, it became the text we know today. Using evidence as diverse as the marginalia of the origi- nal translators in unique copies of early printings, and the results of extensive computer collation of electronically held texts, Norton has produced a scholarly edition of the King James Bible for the new cen- tury that will restore the authority of the 1611 translation. This book describes this fascinating background, explains Norton’s editorial prin- ciples and provides substantial lists and tables of variant readings. It will be indispensable to scholars of the English Bible, literature and publishing history. david norton is Reader in English at Victoria University of Wellington. He is the author of AHistory of the Bible as Literature, 2vols. (Cambridge, 1993; revised and condensed as AHistory of the English Bible as Literature, 2000). ATextual History of The King James Bible david norton Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge ,UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridg e.org /9780521771009 © David Norton 2004 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2005 - ---48811-5 OCeISBN - ---- hardback - --- hardback - ---- - --- Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of s for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. For WardAllen Friend, inspiration and wonderful correspondent And thy word was a perfect worke (2 Esdras 6:38) Contents List of illustrations [page x] Acknowledgements [xi] List of abbreviations [xii] part 1 the history 1Making the text [3] Introduction [3] The beginnings of the King James Bible [4] Setting-up the work [6] Companies at work [11] MS 98 [15] Making the final version: John Bois’s notes [17] The annotated Bishops’ Bible [20] Acontribution from the printer? [25] The final copy [26] Conclusion [27] 2Pre-1611 evidence for the text [29] Introduction [29] MS 98 [30] Bois’s notes [34] The Bishops’ Bible of 1602 [35] Bod 1602 [37] 3Thefirst edition [46] A‘Bible of the largest and greatest volume’ [46] Aspecimen page [47] Initials and space [51] Typographical errors [54] ‘Hidden’ errors [57] 4The King’s Printer at work, 1612 to 1617 [62] Introduction [62] The second folio edition or ‘She’ Bible (H319) [65] The early quartos and octavos [73] The 1613 folio (H322) [76] The 1616 small folio, roman type (H349) [78] viii Contents The 1617 folio (H353) [79] Conclusion [81] 5Correcting and corrupting the text, 1629 to 1760 [82] The first Cambridge edition, 1629 (H424) [82] The second Cambridge edition, 1638 (H520) [89] Spelling in the Cambridge editions [93] Commercial competition and corruptions [94] A standard – or a new revision? [96] Ahundred years of solicitude [99] 6Setting the standard, 1762 and 1769 [103] Three Bibles [103] What Parris and Blayney did to the text [106] Why did Blayney’s become the standard text? [113] 7Thecurrent text [115] Introduction [115] Should the text have been changed? Thomas Curtis and the Universities [116] The American Text [119] F. H. A. Scrivener and the Cambridge Paragraph Bible [122] Conclusion: a fossilised concord [125] part 2 the new cambridge paragraph bible 8Variants and orthography [131] Twoprinciples [131] The beginning of The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible [131] The variant readings [133] ‘Mere orthography’ [133] Names [146] Conclusion [148] 9Punctuation and other matters [149] The original punctuation [149] The received punctuation [153] Punctuation in The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible [155] The italics [162] The margin, headers and chapter summaries [163] part 3Appendices 1Printer’s errors in the first edition [167] 2 First and second edition variations [173] 3The King’s Printer’s list? [180] Contents ix 4 Selective collation of the 1613 folio (H322) with the first and second editions [184] 5 Selective collation of the 1617 folio (H353) with the first and second editions [188] 6Kilburne’s list of errors [192] 7Blayney’s ‘Account of the collation and revision of the Bible’ [195] 8Variant readings in the KJB text [198] 9Spelling changes to the current text [356] Bibliography [362] General index [368] Word index [372] Index of biblical references [376] Illustrations 1 Genesis 15–16, fol. A5v.from the 1602 Bishops’ Bible (Bib. Eng. 1602 b. 1), with annotations by the KJB translators, courtesy of the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford page 39 2 First edition KJB, Genesis 16–17, by permission of the Bible Society and of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library 48 3 Five unusual initials from the first edition of the King James Bible, by permission of the Bible Society and of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library 52 4 Second edition KJB, Genesis 16–17, by permission of the Bible Society and of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library 68 5 Ezekiel 40:42 from the first edition KJB, by permission of the Bible Society and of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library 134 Acknowledgements Paul Morris, for his insistence before this work was thought of that I should learn some Hebrew, his patience with my slow learning, and his help with understanding problems in the text; Graham Davies and Arthur Pomeroy for their help with the original languages. Any errors are in spite of their efforts. Alan Jesson and the staff of the Bible Society Library: models of congenial helpfulness. F. H. A. Scrivener, colleague from the nineteenth century, on whose shoul- ders I havestood. Victoria University of Wellington, for sabbatical leave, and Clare Hall, Cambridge, for a visiting scholarship, both in 1998. Abbreviations ABS American Bible Society Apoc. Apocrypha Bod 1602 1602 Bishops’ Bible with KJB translators’ annotations BS Bible Society Library (Cambridge) CUL Cambridge University Library H A. S. Herbert, Historical Catalogue of Printed Editions of the English Bible 1525–1961. KJB King James Bible MS 98 Lambeth Palace Library MS 98 NT NewTestament OED Oxford English Dictionary OT Old Testament part 1 The history 1 Making the text Introduction The text of the KJB is commonly thought to be the fixed and stable work of one collection of translators. This is not the case. First, as the translators recognised, it is a revision of earlier work. In the Preface, they declare: Truly (good Christian Reader) wee neuer thought from the beginning, that we should neede 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 iustly to be excepted against; that hath bene our indeauour, that our marke.1 The KJB, first printed in 1611 by the King’s Printer Robert Barker, is the culmination of a sequence of work begun by William Tyndale and con- tinued by Miles Coverdale, the Great Bible, the Geneva Bible, the Bishops’ Bible and the Rheims New Testament(to name only the chief predecessors). Second, the development of the text did not stop with the publication of the translators’ work in 1611. Changes – sometimes deliberate, sometimes accidental, some for the better, some not – were made in subsequent print- ings by the King’s Printer. From 1629 on, editorial work on the text began to be a major factor in creating the texts that we have today: the spelling was modernised, changes were made in the translation, and the punctua- tion was revised. Most of the changes were made by 1769, but work of this sort has never quite ceased. As a result, modern versions differ constantly from the 1611 text, though most of these differences are minor matters of spelling. Moreover, there are variations between currently available editions, especially between English and American editions. As well as thinking of the KJB as the culmination of nearly a century of translation work, therefore, we should think of the text itself as continuing to develop, and as never quite settling either into one stable form or into the best form it might take. There are two stories here. The first, the story of the development of English translations through to the KJB, has been frequently told, and there are good studies of the indebtedness of the KJB to its predecessors, and of its particular characteristics as a translation. The 1 ‘The translators to the reader’, fol. B1v. 4ATextual History of the King James Bible second, the story of the history of the KJB text itself from 1611 on, has, until now, only once been studied and told, in F. H. A. Scrivener’s The Authorized Edition of the English Bible (1884; originally the introduction to The Cambridge Paragraph Bible). When the present edition of the KJB was first considered by Cambridge University Press, it seemed a good idea to reissue Scrivener’s book with an additional chapter dealing with the new work. But, as work went on, it became clear that a new book was needed even though Scrivener’s work still contained a great deal of real value. As a history of the text it has some significant errors, and some sections that can be usefully developed.
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