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RARE EDITIONS
By LINDA M. LINONIS
TOLEDO
“It’s all about the word,” said Ed Hill of the two first-edition copies of the King James Bible on display at Toledo Museum of Art.
Hill, a curatorial assistant in the Works of Art on Paper department, said the museum bought the 400-year-old Bibles in 1939 and 1954.
The edition bought in 1954, Hill said, is described as “complete” because it contains 70 pages of material in addition to the Bible text. That material includes preliminary notes of the translators, genealogy and calendar. The edition bought in 1954 was rebound in 1890 and also has a new cover and gold leaf. That edition also contains a woodcut engraving folio, a distinctive element.
Information from the museum explained that “most copies of the first edition, printed by ‘Printer to the King’ Robert Barker, contain an engraved title page by Cornelius Boel (Flemish, 1576/80-1621) but Toledo’s folio has an elaborate woodcut border instead. That border was used for only a few of the earliest copies while the Boel engraving was being finished.”
Hill said museums shy away from putting a monetary value on such items. There may be fewer than 200 first editions in existence, he said, noting a website that tries to track editions. Their rarity makes them valuable, and literally priceless.
Hill said these Bibles weren’t earmarked for home use; they measure 16-by-10 inches. “They are large books meant for lecturns,” he said. And, he added, the paper, made of linen and cloth rags, is not brittle and has remained fairly white in the antique Bibles.
Hill said he did extensive research about the Bible and history of the time. Accompanying information povides on viewpoints from those of a collector, historian and theologian.
For the collector, he noted, a first-edition is a treasured item. For the theologian, it is about translation and how it helps readers understand the words. For the historian, the Bible was produced during what Hill termed “a very complex time” in England; why the Bible was printed plays a role in history.
Hill set the stage of how the King James Bible came to be and why it is called that. He said Queen Elizabeth, Henry VIII’s daughter, died with no heir. Research was conducted and King James VI of Scotland was found to be Henry’s great-great nephew and in line for the throne. He became King James I of England in 1603.
Hill said in the early 1600s, the Geneva Bible was “popular at the time.” But, he added, it “wasn’t a book to make a monarch happy” in that notes in the margins disputed the “divine right of kings.”
King James believed another English translation would help build a bridge between Puritans and the Church of England. The Puritans believed in rule from the bottom up while the Church of England promoted control from the top down. The project began in 1603 and completed in 1611.
Hill said King James assembled six committees with eight members on each to work on the translation “word by word.” He said these scholars were fluent in Hebrew, Aramic and Greek and other languages. “The translation was created by committee,” he said.
Then, two members of each committee went through the translation again; then two were selected to examine the text again then one person repeated the process. “It was layers of checking and rechecking,” Hill said.
But though that process was painstaking, Hill said “mistakes by printers” resulted in various “nicknames” for editions.
The two editions at the Toledo museum are termed the “he” Bible because they contain a mistake in a pronoun in Ruth 3:15 (correct version), “Also he said, Bring the vail that [thou hast] upon thee, and hold it. And when she held it, he measured six [measures] of barley, and laid [it] on her: and she went into the city.” The Toledo Bibles have “he went into the city” and it should be she.
Some copies of a 1631 edition of the Bible are called the “wicked” Bible because one of the 10 Commandments is incorrect — reading “thou shalt commit adultery.”
The King James Bible was not the first English translation of the Bible, but as a museum press release noted, “it remains one of the most familiar and widely read.” It is considered a literary and religious classic; many common English phrases can be traced to the book. The phrase peace offering can be traced to Leviticus 3:6, “And if his offering for a sacrifice of peace offering unto the Lord be of the flock; male or female, he shall offer it without blemish.”