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The Wicked Bible?
Did you know that at one time, a printer lost his business just because he accidentally omitted a single, three-letter word from the Bible?
You probably know that the first book ever printed on a printing press was the Bible. But the quality and methods of printing in those years were very primitive, leading to many printing errors in these early Bibles. Although most didn’t cause any serious theological confusion, some of them were still worth a smile.
That is, until 1631 – when King Charles I ordered 1,000 Bibles from an English printer named Robert Barker. Only after the Bibles were delivered did anyone notice this serious mistake: In Exodus 20:14, a very small word was forgotten by the printers --- “not”. That might seem like a small mistake in a book with more than 700,000 words. But Exodus 20:14 happens to be one of the Ten Commandments. This little error changed the 7th commandment to say: “Thou shalt commit adultery”! This legendary edition became known as the “Wicked Bible”.
King Charles was not amused by the infamous printing blunder. He ordered the Bibles recalled and destroyed, took away Barker’s license to print Bibles, and fined him 300 pounds, a lifetime of wages in those days. Only 11 of the original 1,000 Wicked Bibles exist today.
Click here to read more Amazing Facts about the Ten Commandments.
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