History mystery: Wicked Bible

To err is human and everyone tends to be a victim to this folly. Anyone can make printing, writing or typing errors including the editors and companies printing the Holy Bible. Over the ages, some have even made mind twisting typographical mistakes and printing errors together with peculiar translation which have appeared in Bibles published. These genuine mistakes have appeared in copies of Bible text which were printed years ago after the autographs, stating that God only uttered the original text of the Scripture and not the copies.

Hence only the original texted copy is minus any error while the copies made thereafter have resulted in typographical errors but this does not change the contents of the original. King James Version Bible is one of the most rare collector’s item where the printers were fined 300 sterling pounds and deprived of their license to print, for their typographical error done in printing the Ten Commandments in omitting the most important word `Not’ rendering one of the commandments causing the text to read as `Thou shall commit adultery’ instead of `Thou shall Not commit adultery’, after which 1000 copies were destroyed with the exception of a few copies which escaped destruction, thus making them the rarest of the rare copies available.

Termed as the Wicked Bible, it was meant to be a reprint of King James Bible but due to the blunder in the print, all copies were ordered to be destroyed though a copy is in the collection of the New York Public Library and is very rarely made accessible, while another copy is available in the Bible Museum in Branson, Missouri. Yet another coy can be seen in the Dunham Bible Museum in Houston, Texas, USA and the British Library in London had a copy on display which was opened to the misprinted commandment in a free exhibition to the people.

The Bible had also appeared on display for a short time period at the Ink and Blood Exhibition in Gadsden, Alabama around 15 August to 1st September 2009, a copy of which was displayed until June 18 2011 at the Cambridge University Library exhibition in England on the occasion of the 400 year anniversary of the KJV. This edition of the King James Bible since then has been referred to as the Adulterous Bible or Sinner’s Bible, besides being called the Wicked Bible which was published in 1631 by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas who were the royal printers in London with the intention of making a reprint of King James Bible.

 These are the only ones for sale costing around $99,500. This erroneous print caused great chaos and such a flagrant mistake outraged Charles I and George Abbot the Archbishop of Canterbury resulting in the majority of the copies to be cancelled and destroyed and depriving the printers of their license.

The omission of a single `not’ to the seventh commandment of the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai was a set of biblical principles which were related to the worship ethics playing an important role in Christianity and Judaism. It also included the instructions to worship only God, keeping the Sabbath holy, prohibiting idol worship, blasphemy, murder, theft, dishonesty including adultery.