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THE FOUR MAIN EDITIONS OF THE 1611 KING JAMES BIBLE: 1629, 1638, 1762, AND 1769
BY RYAN HICKS © 1996-2001 Ryan Hicks |
After seven years of prayerful translation the King James Bible translators had completed the King James Bible and had it printed. As with most printing of this time there were printing errors (not errors in the text). These errors of the printer needed to be corrected, thus calling for a new edition, not a revision as many falsely claim, for there were no revisions made.
The following four main editions were released: the 1629, 1638, 1762, and 1769 editions. There were others from various printers but I will deal with the main ones that are commonly claimed to be revisions.
- The 1629 edition - This edition was simply put forth in order to correct the printer's errors. Two of the King James Bible translators, Dr. Samuel Ward and John Bois, assisted in this edition.
- The 1638 edition - This edition also dealt with the printers' errors, mainly the whole words and phrases accidentally left out by the printers. Approximately 72% of the around 400 textual corrections made to the King James Bible were completed and included in the 1638 Cambridge edition.
- The 1762 edition - This edition was simply to correct the spelling according to the standardization of spelling. The spelling of 1611 was often different from person to person and there was no set standard of spelling. By 1762 the English spelling of words had been standardized and the 1611 was corrected.
- The 1769 edition - This edition was only 7 years after the 1762 edition's correction of the spelling. This edition was only the final completion of the spelling corrections.
So as can be seen by any fair-minded individual, these four supposed revisions are nothing more than editions, and constitute no new translations. The 1769 edition is just as much a 1611 King James Bible as the original 1611 is, but the 1769 is the completion of the work God completed in 1611. Man's mistakes in printing did not stop the powerful force of the word of the Living God as it became the Bible unto all generations. No "bible" translation after the King James Bible has ever been able to accomplish what the King James Bible has, simply due to the fact there is only one book that contains God's word and it is the King James Bible.
The printers' errors can be understood when we think of the ease of publishing today and yet there are still mistakes with spell-checks, grammar checks, etc. Imagine the immense time and effort it would take to print a book in the 1600's. Imagine if that book was as large as the Bible with its close to 800,000 words. As you can clearly tell this would be extremely difficult and errors would be more likely than not.
THE REAL CHANGES IN THE KING JAMES BIBLE
Some examples of some of the corrections of the text from the printer's errors are:
GOTHIC TYPE VERSUS ROMAN TYPE
All who have had the honor of seeing some of the original pages of the first few King James Bibles have noticed immediately the type used in its printing. They used the Gothic typeset which makes the "s" anywhere from the beginning to the second to the last letter in a word look like our Roman type "f." Thus, "Psalms" looks like "Pfalms;" "also" like "alfo;" "escape" like "efcape;" etc. The Gothic "v" looks like our Roman "u", while the Gothic "u" looks like our Roman "v." Thus, "even" looks like "euen;" "us" like "vs;" "seven" like "seuen;" "evil" like "euil;" "unto" like "vnto;" "uprightness" like "vprightness;" "love" like "loue;" etc.
SPELLING CHANGES
The spelling changes made in the last two editions of the King James Bible were simply based on the final standardization of the spelling of words in the English language. Changes like "hee" to "he;" "mee" to "me;" "citie" to "city;" "yee" to "ye;" "sonnes" to "sons;" "sinne" to "sin;" "booke" to "book;" "sinnes" to "sins;" "zeale" to "zeal;" "naturall" to "natural;" "evill" to "evil;" etc. These changes constitute no corrections for they are only an updating of the words to the spelling standard set many, many years after the King James Bible was first made.
