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Bible Typos

Bible Typos

The Washington Post has a piece entitled, “When ‘Jesus’ was ‘Judas’ and other pretty stupendous Bible typos.” The most interesting thing about the article to me was that much of its material was taken from a journal article written by the foremost scholar of New Testament textual criticism at the time, Bruce Metzger. Good for the Post.

How about these typos?

There’s the “Wicked Bible,” a 1631 London King James printing in which Exodus 20:14 reads:  “Thou Shalt commit Adultery.”

A 1612 edition of the King James, fittingly, reads: “Printers have persecuted me without cause.” That line, from Psalm 119:161, should say “princes,” not “printers.”

There’s a 1682 edition of the King James that was just an unholy mess. In Deuteronomy 24:3, it said “if the latter husband ate her” instead of “hate.” It read “kings” instead of “keepers” in Esther 6:2. And Jeremiah 13:27 reads “adversaries” instead of “adulteries.

A 1795 London-issued Bible reads “Let the children first be killed” (instead of “first be filled”) in Mark 7.27.

Although errors are less common in modern Bibles, the newer editions are hardly immune. A 1950 Old Testament printed by the Episcopal Committee of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine claims that the skunk, and not the skink (a type of lizard), is an animal that swarms upon the ground in Leviticus 11:30.

And a 1966 Jerusalem Bible says “Pay for peace” instead of “pray for peace.”

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