The Vinegar Bible and The Printer's Bible

Innocent mistakes are common in books of all kinds, but today’s Bible publishers employ so many proofreaders as to make mistakes almost entirely impossible. It wasn’t always so.

The so-called “Vinegar Bible” is one of the more unfortunate early editions of the KJV, in that it was a gorgeous production, one of the most beautiful of its time. Approximately five inches thick, this Bible was 19.5˝ tall by 12.75˝ wide, printed at Oxford University by John Baskett in 1717. But it was full of small typos, none of which were severe enough to condemn the printers, but sufficient to show their carelessness. In the headline above Luke chapter 20, rather than “The Parable of the Vineyard,” it reads, “The Parable of the Vinegar.”

Sometimes these typos were inserted deliberately, as is likely the case in what’s called “The Printer’s Bible,” an edition of the KJV that appeared around 1700. Psalm 119:161 read: “Printers have persecuted me without cause” rather than “Princes have persecuted me without cause.” The theory goes that a typesetter, at the last moment, changed the word as a passive/aggressive recourse against the greedy printers/publishers who had taken advantage of him.

Similar theories have been floated for an edition published in 1716 in which John 8:11 reads, “Go and sin on more” rather than “Go and sin no more.” Could this have been an instance of a playful copyist having some fun?