A Textual History of the King James Bible

by David Norton

• ISBN13: 9780521771009
• ISBN10: 0521771005
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-01-10
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

David Norton has recently re-edited the King James Bible for Cambridge, 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 manuscript work of the original translators, 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 century that will restore the authority of the 1611 translation. This book describes this fascinating background, explains Norton's editorial principles and provides substantial lists and tables of variant readings. It will be indispensable to scholars of the English Bible, literature, and publishing history.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	x
Acknowledgements	xi
List of abbreviations	xii
PART 1 THE HISTORY
Making the text	3	(26)
Introduction	3	(1)
The beginnings of the King James Bible	4	(2)
Setting-up the work	6	(5)
Companies at work	11	(4)
MS 98	15	(2)
Making the final version: John Bois's notes	17	(3)
The annotated Bishops' Bible	20	(5)
A contribution from the printer?	25	(1)
The final copy	26	(1)
Conclusion	27	(2)
Pre-1611 evidence for the text	29	(17)
Introduction	29	(1)
MS 98	30	(4)
Bois's notes	34	(1)
The Bishops' Bible of 1602	35	(2)
Bod 1602	37	(9)
The first edition	46	(16)
A 'Bible of the largest and greatest volume'	46	(1)
A specimen page	47	(4)
Initials and space	51	(3)
Typographical errors	54	(3)
`Hidden' errors	57	(5)
The King's Printer at work, 1612 to 1617	62	(20)
Introduction	62	(3)
The second folio edition or 'She' Bible (11319)	65	(8)
The early quartos and octavos	73	(3)
The 1613 folio (H322)	76	(2)
The 1616 small folio, roman type (H349)	78	(1)
The 1617 folio (H353)	79	(2)
Conclusion	81	(1)
Correcting and corrupting the text, 1629 to 1760	82	(21)
The first Cambridge edition, 1629 (H424)	82	(7)
The second Cambridge edition, 1638 (H520)	89	(4)
Spelling in the Cambridge editions	93	(1)
Commercial competition and corruptions	94	(2)
A standard - or a new revision?	96	(3)
A hundred years of solicitude	99	(4)
Setting the standard, 1762 and 1769	103	(12)
Three Bibles	103	(3)
What Parris and Blayney did to the text	106	(7)
Why did Blayney's become the standard text?	113	(2)
The current text	115	(16)
Introduction	115	(1)
Should the text have been changed? Thomas Curtis and the Universities	116	(3)
The American Text	119	(3)
F.H.A. Scrivener and the Cambridge Paragraph Bible	122	(3)
Conclusion: a fossilised concord	125	(6)
PART 2 THE NEW CAMBRIDGE PARAGRAPH BIBLE
Variants and orthography	131	(18)
Two principles	131	(1)
The beginning of The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible	131	(2)
The variant readings	133	(1)
`Mere orthography'	133	(13)
Names	146	(2)
Conclusion	148	(1)
Punctuation and other matters	149	(213)
The original punctuation	149	(4)
The received punctuation	153	(2)
Punctuation in The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible	155	(7)
The italics	162	(1)
The margin, headers and chapter summaries	163	(4)
PART 3 APPENDICES
1 Printer's errors in the first edition	167	(6)
2 First and second edition variations	173	(7)
3 The King's Printer's list?	180	(4)
4 Selective collation of the 1613 folio (H322) with the first and second editions	184	(4)
5 Selective collation of the 1617 folio (H353) with the first and second editions	188	(4)
6 Kilburne's list of errors	192	(3)
7 Blayney's 'Account of the collation and revision of the Bible'	195	(3)
8 Variant readings in the KJB text	198	(158)
9 Spelling changes to the current text	356	(6)
Bibliography	362	(6)
General index	368	(4)
Word index	372	(4)
Index of biblical references	376