Bible: The Story of the KJV

I am reading Oxford University Press's new 2010 book entitled Bible The Story of the King James Version 1611-2011 by Gordon Campbell.

 

The back cover states: "Marking the 400 year anniversary of the Authorised Version of the English Bible--better known to many readers across the globe as the King James Version--this is the remarkable story of one of the most influential works ever publlished in the English language.

It is the story of politics as well as religion; of supremely talented translators; of printers' errors, accidental and deliberate; of changing fortunes and changing belief down the centuries; of fierce arguments over revisions to the text; of a Bible that has known both adulation and deprecation."

 

The chapter titles on the contents page include: (p. v)

The commissioning of the King James Version
Translators and Translating
Translation
The first edition
The Seventeenth Century
The Eighteenth Century
The Nineteenth Century
The Cambridge Paragraph Bibles
The Bible in America

 

Chapter 7--the Eighteenth Century

Gordon Campell referred to "Blayney's modernized text in 1769" (p. 146) and "Blayney's modernization of the text" (p. 145). Campbell noted that Blayney "modernized archaic idioms, so 'was a building' becomes 'was building' (2 Chronicles 16:6)" (p. 140).

This book is interesting and informative, but it does have at least two or three factual errors. Here is one example of an error.

Campbell claimed that "a few of Blayney's errors still pop up in modern editions at Joshua 19:2, for example Blayney printed 'and Sheba' instead of 'or Sheba', and the misprint has proved to be remarkably difficult to extirpate" (pp. 141-142).

The example that Campbell cited is incorrect since Blayney's 1769 Oxford edition actually has "Beer-sheba, Sheba" at Joshua 19:2 and it did not have either "and" nor "or."

The rendering "Beer-sheba, and Sheba" is much earlier found in an edition of the KJV printed by the King's printer in London in 1617, and this rendering was kept in the standard 1629 Cambridge, 1638 Cambridge, 1743 Cambridge, and 1762 Cambridge editions. It was not an error introduced or even repeated by Blayney. It is found in many later Oxford editions printed after 1828, but it was not introduced or made by Blayney.