Pile of bibles
© Cog App

2. The Bible’s title page was designed by Cornelius Boel, a Belgian artist who painted portraits of several members of the royal family.

3. The printing and proofreading errors in the King James Bible were denounced by William Kilburne in 1659, in his work Dangerous Errors In Several Late Printed Bibles To The Great Scandal And Corruption Of Sound And True Religion.

4. An error in the 1631 edition was in Exodus 20:14, where one commandment stated “Thou shalt commit adultery”. In a 1682 edition, the Parable of the Vineyard became the Parable of the Vinegar.

5. After 1616, all printing of the King James Bible’s predecessor, the Geneva (or “Breeches”) Bible, stopped in England. However, the book was still imported from Holland in vast quantities.

6. In 1831, Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, caused a stir at his diocesan conference when he told his fellow clergy that the King James was “not the Bible”. He then – accurately – pointed out that it was a mere translation of the Bible.

7. Author Iris Murdoch declared that the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer were “great pieces of literary good fortune, when language and spirit conjoined to produce a high unique religious eloquence”.

8. The Manchester house of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence – an international order of gay and lesbian “nuns” and “monks” – use their own Polari version of the King James Bible in their ceremonies (www.thesisters.demon.co.uk/bible). Polari (or Palare) is a gay slang language which was used by the UK gay community before homosexuality was decriminalised.

9. The Wycliffite Bible, 1384, “The Lord gouerneth me, and no thing to me shal lacke” became in the King James Bible “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”.

10. One of its 47 translators, preacher Lawrence Chaderton, lived to be 103.