Wicked Bible
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox book The Wicked Bible, sometimes called the Adulterous Bible or the Sinners' Bible, is an edition of the Bible published in 1631 by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the royal printers in London, meant to be a reprint of the King James Bible. The name is derived from a mistake made by the compositors: in the Ten Commandments in Template:Bibleverse, the word "not" was omitted from the sentence, "Thou shalt not commit adultery".
ErrorsEdit
The Wicked Bible is best known for the omission of the word "not" in the sentence "Thou shalt not commit adultery" (Template:Bibleverse), thus changing the sentence into "Thou shalt commit adultery".
The 1886 Reports of Cases in the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission (which gives the Bodleian Library manuscript Rawlinson A 128 as its source) lists this as one of the "two grossest errors", among "divers other faults".<ref name="Gardiner" /> The other is a misprint appearing in Deuteronomy 5: the word "greatness" appearing as "great-asse", leading to a sentence reading: "Behold, the Template:LORD our God hath shewed us his glory and his great-asse".<ref name="Gardiner">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="auto2">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="auto">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Gordon Campbell reports that there are no surviving copies of the book that contain the second error ("great-asse"), but that in three of the surviving copies there is an inkblot where the missing "n" would be, suggesting such a mistake may have been covered up in these copies. He also notes that, at the time of the Wicked Bible's publication, the word "asse" only had the sense of "donkey".<ref name=":1" /> Rob Ainsley of the British Library, in a 2009 letter to the London Review of Books, suggested that the existence of this second error was highly dubious.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Diana Severance, director of the Dunham Bible Museum at the Houston Baptist University, and Gordon Campbell have suggested that the potential second error could indicate that someone (possibly a rival printer) purposely sabotaged the printing of the Wicked Bible so that Robert Barker and Martin Lucas would lose their exclusive license to print the Bible.<ref name="auto2" /><ref name="auto" /><ref name=":1" /> However, Campbell also notes that neither Barker nor Lucas suggested the possibility of sabotage in their defence when they were arraigned.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref>
About a year after publication, Barker and Lucas were called to the Star Chamber and fined Template:GBP and deprived of their printing license.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The Wicked Bible is the most prominent example of the bible errata which often have absent negatives that completely reverse the scriptural meaning.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Public reactionEdit
The case of the Wicked Bible was commented on by Peter Heylyn in 1668:
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The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot expressed anger at both errors.<ref name="calendar">Template:Cite book</ref>
Origin of the nameEdit
The nickname Wicked Bible seems to have first been applied in 1855 by rare book dealer Henry Stevens. As he relates in his memoir of James Lenox, after buying what was then the only known copy of the 1631 octavo Bible for fifty guineas, "on June 21, I exhibited the volume at a full meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of London, at the same time nicknaming it 'The Wicked Bible,' a name that has stuck to it ever since."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Remaining copiesEdit
The majority of the Wicked Bible's copies were immediately cancelled and destroyed, and the number of extant copies remaining today, which are considered highly valuable by collectors, is thought to be relatively low.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref> One copy is in the collection of rare books in the New York Public Library and is very rarely made accessible; another can be seen in the Dunham Bible Museum in Houston, Texas.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The British Library in London had a copy of the Wicked Bible on display, opened to the misprinted commandment, in a free exhibition until September 2009.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In 2023, a researcher at the University of Canterbury identified a potential copy held at the National Central Library of Rome.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> This copy was digitised in 2013 and is available online on Google Books.
There are fifteen known copies of the Wicked Bible today in the collections of museums and libraries in Britain, North America and Australasia:<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Britain (seven copies)
- The British Library
- University of Glasgow Library
- University of Leicester David Wilson Library<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
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- Cambridge University Library<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
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- University of Oxford, Bodleian Library
- University of Manchester, John Rylands Library
- The Library at York Minster<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
North America (seven copies)
- New York Public Library
- Yale University, Sterling Memorial Library
- Houston Christian University, Dunham Bible Museum<ref name="auto2" />
- D.C. Museum of the Bible
- University of Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library
- The Lilly Library, Indiana University Bloomington<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- Princeton University Library, Special Collections<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
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New Zealand (one copy)
- University of Canterbury, owned by the Phil and Louise Donnithorne Family Trust.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> A digital facsimile was published in 2024 by Canterbury University Press and the UC Arts Digital Lab.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
|CitationClass=web }}</ref>
A number of copies also exist in private collections. In 2008, a copy of the Wicked Bible went up for sale online, priced at $89,500.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A second copy was put up for sale from the same website which was priced at $99,500 as of 2015.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In 2014, William Scheide donated his library of rare books and manuscripts to Princeton University, with a copy of the Wicked Bible among its holdings.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In 2015, one of the remaining Bible copies was auctioned by Bonhams,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and sold for £31,250 (Template:Inflation).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In 2016, a copy of the Wicked Bible was auctioned by Sotheby's and sold for $46,500.<ref name="sothebys2016">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The same copy was auctioned again by Sotheby's in 2018, selling for $56,250.<ref name="sothebys2018">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Cultural referencesEdit
The partially fictionalized content of the Wicked Bible features prominently in the plot of the 2025 American heist action adventure film Fountain of Youth.