29 October 2015, The Tablet

More than a mistake


 
Can you spot the mistake in this extremely rare seventeenth-century reprint of the King James Bible pictured on the right?The 400 year-old bible – known as the “Sinners’ bible” or “Wicked bible” – urges its readers to commit adultery due to a typo – the absence of a “not” – in the Ten Commandments, found in Exodus 20. The controversial bible, one of a series printed in 1631, is up for auction at Bonhams for between £10,000 and £15,000. The printing error of the KJV’s seventh commandment went undiscovered for a whole year after publication. When it was noticed, a furious King Charles I ordered the entire run of 1,000 copies to be burned. It was published under the direction of the Royal Printers, Robert Bar
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