Article January 11, 1900 Issue

Who May Print the English Bible?

Charles Welch

The Christian Register

A copyright case was decided last summer in the London courts, which establishes the question of who it is that really holds the right to publish either the old "authorized" or the new revised version of the New Testament. The universities of Oxford and of Cambridge together paid to scholars and divines over £20,000 ($100,000) for their work in the preparation of the revised version, and they had taken all the necessary precautions to secure for themselves the fruit of their labors on this great enterprise, so that, when Messrs. Gill & Sons, an enterprising firm of educational publishers in England, put forth editions of the Gospels of St. Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, they were at once restrained, and had to pay costs and damages.

It may be interesting in this connection to recall the conditions under which the Bible—in the authorized version, for the old version is still the "authorized" version in the hearts of the people of England and the revised version is slow to take its place—is printed in that country. The authorized version of the Holy Scriptures can only be legally printed in England by the Queen's printer, Messrs. Eyre & Spottiswoode, the University Press of Oxford, and the University Press of Cambridge. Such a limitation was necessary in so important a work, if only as a means of giving the best possible guarantee for strict accuracy and for preventing any wilful tampering with the sacred text.

But there is no work of man into which defects and errors will not creep in course of time. More than a hundred and fifty years after the authorized version had been first issued, various printers' errors had crept in; and at the recommendation of Bishop Seeker a revision was undertaken by several learned persons of the University of Oxford in connection with the delegates or governors of the University Press of that city. The result was the publication in 1769 of two editions of the Bible, commonly known as Dr. Blayney's edition, one in folio, the other in quarto, the former of which was decided upon as the standard for the authorized version.

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