The claim that the Bible is inerrant, and in particular that the manuscript tradition used by the King James translators was divinely preserved so as to avoid error, isย implausible for a number of reasons. But there is one simple fact that is particularly relevant:
There have been Bibles which contained typos.
Of course, anyone who has studied the manuscript history of the Bibleโs transmission will know that there have been copying errors.
But that involves making mistakes whenย copying by hand. I am talking here about typos in the strict sense: errors in the typography, in the printing process. There have been many, and that is no surprise unless one implausibly insists that people involved in writing, copying, and printing the Bible were somehowย rendered foolproof. Even printings of the King James Version have had errors โ too bad for the KJV-only crowd.
Josh Mann shared a number of examples a while back, after a Washington Post article appeared which drew examples from a famous article by Bruce Metzger. Peter Head also mentioned it. Here are the majorย examples given inย the WPย article:
In the Geneva translation of the Bible, John 6:67 is supposed to say: โThen Jesus said to the twelve, will ye also go away?โ But in some copies, printed in 1611, it says this instead: โThen Judas said to the twelve, will ye also go away?โ
โฆTheย Folger Shakespeare Libraryย has a King James Bible with the same error in Matthew 26:36. In that case, the printers covered the mistake by pasting a little piece of paper over โJudas.โ This edition, with this mistake, is often called the โJudas Bible.โ
โฆThereโs the โWicked Bible,โ a 1631 London King James printing in which Exodus 20:14 reads: ย โThou Shalt commit Adultery.โย (Thereโs a pretty crucial โnotโ missing there.) โIn that case the printers were fined and ordered to destroy the copies!โ according to Fraas.ย Some copies survived, thankfully.
A 1612 edition of the King James, fittingly, reads: โPrinters have persecuted me without cause.โ That line, from Psalm 119:161, should say โprinces,โ not โprinters.โ
Thereโs a 1682 edition of the King James that was justย an unholy mess. In Deuteronomy 24:3, it said โif the latter husband ate herโ instead of โhate.โ It read โkingsโ instead of โkeepersโ in Esther 6:2. And Jeremiah 13:27 reads โadversariesโ instead of โadulteries.โ
Thereโs more: Jeremiah 16:6 ย substitutes โgladโ for โbald,โ so the line reads: โBoth the great and the small shall die in this land: they shall not be buried, neither shallย menย lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves gladย for them.โ
Jeremiah 18:21 reads โswineโ instead of โfamine,โ and โ because why not at this point? โ Ezekiel 18:25 says โis equalโ instead of โis not equal.โ Oh well.ย
A 1795 London-issued Bible readsย โLet the children first be killedโย (instead of โfirst be filledโ) in Mark 7.27.
The โMurderers Bibleโย (1801) has โmurderersโ instead of โmurmursโ (Jude 10).
And the โWife-Hater Bibleโย of 1810 replaces โlifeโ with โwifeโ in Luke 14:26 and reads: โIf anyโฆhate not his own wife also.โ
โฆA 1950 Old Testament printed by the Episcopal Committee of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine claims that the skunk, and not the skink (a type of lizard), is an animal that swarms upon the ground in Leviticus 11:30.
And a 1966 Jerusalem Bible says โPay for peaceโ instead of โpray for peace.โ
โPrinters have persecuted me without causeโ is probably my favorite of the bunch. Which is yours? Are you aware of others?
The photo aboveย of the hand-correction of โJudasโ to โJesusโ comes from the University of Pennsylvaniaโs Library and was taken by Mitch Fraas.