The Bishops Bible, last quarto, 1584
The Holy Bible in English (Bishops Bible) Christopher Barker: London. 1584.
Quarto in later full brown leather, with raised bands and paper label on spine. Three leaves of preliminaries, beginning with The Whole Scripture is Divided….” New Testament preceded by map of the Holy Land and A Table to make plaine the difficultie that is found in S. Matthew, and S. Luke, touching the generation of Iesus Christ .... Epistle to the Romans preceded by The order of times. The gospel of Mark preceded by A Table for the better understanding of the xxvi. Chapter of S. Matthewe, the xiiii. Of Saint Marke, the xxii. Of Saint Luke, and the xix of Saint John. Embellished capitals commence each book of the Bible. Several points of marginalia showing devotional use, as well as ink scrawling (in an early hand) in blank spaces here and there. Prior owner’s stamp on ffep. 1688 prior owner’s inscription along lateral margin of Proverbs ch x.
The canonical book of Psalms (leaves 2D7 – 2H2), which, in this edition would not have been the Bishop’s translation but that of the Great Bible, to correspond to the BCP, has been extracted (perhaps to be used as a BCP, as it was issued with its own title page in this edition) at some point. Lacking: a-d8 (general title, if one existed, and all but 6 leaves of prelims), NT title (4A1), 2D7 (title leaf for the canonical book of Psalms) through 2H2, and final leaf 4P2. First leaf (e2) strengthened at gutter. No BCP (which would have been 24 leaves). Some marginal tears not affecting text, and some tears of lower outer corners with some text loss. Some closed tears (particularly first leaf of Genesis). Margins mostly well retained, though some trimmed at top edge and fore-edge into marginal notes and titles. Scattered mild brown staining, though text is still perfectly readable throughout. Set in black letter in two columns with 70 lines per column. Marginal notes and titles set in Roman font. References in italics. Measures approximately 8 3/8 x 6 ½ x 2 3/8.
Herbert 186. “Apparently the last quarto edition” of the Bishop’s Bible. Herbert reads, “No general title is known,” and also, “Probably thirty-six preliminary leaves.”
First published in 1568, the Bishop’s Bible was an Anglican translation authorized for use in public worship services in the Church of England. For about 40 years it was the primary rival English translation against the Geneva version. The 1602 edition of the Bishops translation was used as the reference English translation for the translators of the Authorized version (King James Version) of 1611, which was a new translation from Greek and Hebrew. [Although, it should be noted, that though instructed to use the 1602 Bishops Bible, the KJV translators clearly borrowed from other English versions, and did not limit their original language studies to the Greek NT and Hebrew OT, but consulted the Vulgate and the Septuagint as well during their translation work.]
The Bishops version of the canonical book of Psalms was a poor translation and quickly abandoned. It was not published again after 1572, but was replaced with the version found in the Great Bible, as that had pride of place being the version found in the Book of Common Prayer (already ubiquitously used in the Church of England)
