Publishing whatever you deem appropriate in the Christian Holy Book may not meet the wrath of the Lord that may have befallen you when the famed 10 Commandments were dished out at the mountain of Sinai. Rather, you may face other stern measures such as a fine in the form of coin, like two London printers found out for themselves in 1631 in what came to be known as The Wicked Bible, aka The Sinners’ Bible, aka The Adulterous Bible.
Wicked-Bible-version-of-Robert-Barker-and-Martin-Lucas
The two printers were Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, London Royal printers and they had meant to reprint a version of the King James Bible. It wasn’t at all intentional, but just a simple typo they made. Instead of writing the legendary ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’, they omitted the ‘not’ and published it as ‘Thou shalt commit adultery’.
The mistake was spread in a number of copies and it took a year for the Wicked Bible printers to be summoned to the Star Chamber to answer to their adulterous claims. They verdict led to a fine of £300 (the equivalent of about £33,800 today) and a revocation of their printing license. The King himself – Charles I – as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury George Abbot – were outraged by such a blatant mistake and they reacted in some harsh words directed to the two printers saying; ‘the paper is nought, the composers boys, and the correctors unlearned’.
Wicked-Bible-version-of-Robert-Barker-and-Martin-Lucas
The two printers were Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, London Royal printers and they had meant to reprint a version of the King James Bible. It wasn’t at all intentional, but just a simple typo they made. Instead of writing the legendary ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’, they omitted the ‘not’ and published it as ‘Thou shalt commit adultery’.
The mistake was spread in a number of copies and it took a year for the Wicked Bible printers to be summoned to the Star Chamber to answer to their adulterous claims. They verdict led to a fine of £300 (the equivalent of about £33,800 today) and a revocation of their printing license. The King himself – Charles I – as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury George Abbot – were outraged by such a blatant mistake and they reacted in some harsh words directed to the two printers saying; ‘the paper is nought, the composers boys, and the correctors unlearned’.
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