Counting down the 10 worst typographical errors in Bible that you should be aware of

Christian devotees read the Bible with a lot of care and attention. Even harmless errors due to typographical mistakes have become an integral part of the content. Since its source materials date back to thousands of years and have been translated in several foreign languages; both misprints and mistranslations are serious issues.

In 1631, Robert Barker and Martin Lucas published a version of the Bible that was so terribly bad that it cost Barker his life. He lost his printing license, was fined, and died in jail.

David Shariatmadari of The Guardian, with some help from the International Society of Bible Collectors, is counting down the Top 10 Worst Bible Typos:

Some of the most prominent typos are as follows:

1. “Let the children first be killed” – Mark 7:27

This line is indeed awkward as it was supposed to mean “filled” instead of “killed”.

2. “If the latter husband ate her”

This is a typo from a printing that was done in 1682 and changes the original passage completely. The word “hate” has been mistakenly typed as “ate”

3. “Sin on more”

The phrase appears in an edition of 1716 and is also referred to as the “Party Bible’. Here the phrase “Sin no more” has been replaced by “Sin on more”. About eight thousand copies of the edition were printed before someone could actually spot the typo.

4. “Printers have persecuted me”

The phrase appears in an edition that was published in 1612 where the word “princes” have been mistakenly replaced with “Printers”.

5. “Jesus”

It seems as if the original word was “Joshua” that originates from the Hebrew word “Yeshua”.

6. “Out of thy lions”

Though, Bible has plenty of lions, this phrase appeared in an edition published in 1804.

7. “Holy ghost”

It is a perfect example of the pitfalls involved while translating the Bible. Pneuma in Greek means spirit or breath. While translating in a version by King James, it was wrongly translated as “ghost”. So while translating the notion of Holy Spirit becomes chaotic.

8. “Owl husband”

An edition published in 1944 by King James actually altered the commandment “…submit yourselves to your own husbands” to “…Submit yourselves to your owl husbands”.

9. “To remain”

A term needs to be invented by us for this particular phenomenon. This is whenever there are words that are meant as advice; persuade themselves as flattery within the text.

10. Peace on Earth and good will toward men”

According to a version by the King James, this phrase was addressed to some shepherds by an angel near Bethlehem. However, the correct translation would have been “Peace on Earth to people he favors”.

If you thought predictive text was bad: "The 10 worst typos in the Bible" https://t.co/0OzFa8TPfI — Haran Ras (@HaranRas) October 22, 2015

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