The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible with the Apocrypha is a newly edited edition of the King James Version of the Bible

King James Version of the Bible

The Authorized Version, commonly known as the King James Version, King James Bible or KJV, is an English translation of the Christian Bible by the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611...

 published by Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...

 in 2005. This 2005 edition was printed as The Bible (Penguin Classics) in 2006. The editor is David Norton, Reader in English at Victoria University of Wellington

Victoria University of Wellington

Victoria University of Wellington was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a former constituent college of the University of New Zealand. It is particularly well known for its programmes in law, the humanities, and some scientific disciplines, but offers a broad range of other courses...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

. Prof. Norton is author of A History of the Bible as Literature (1993) revised and condensed as A History of the English Bible as Literature (2000). He wrote A Textual History of the King James Bible as a companion volume to the New Cambridge Paragraph Bible.

The original Cambridge Paragraph Bible

A previous edition of the KJV called the Cambridge Paragraph Bible was published in 1873. That volume was edited by F.H.A. Scrivener

Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener

The Reverend Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener, LL.D. was an important text critic of the New Testament and a member of the English New Testament Revision Committee which produced the Revised Version of the Bible...

, one of the translators of the English Revised Version and a noted scholar of the text of the Bible. For a long time it was perhaps best known as the KJV text in the standard reference work The New Testament Octapla edited by Luther Weigle, chairman of the translation committee that produced the Revised Standard Version

Revised Standard Version

The Revised Standard Version is an English translation of the Bible published in the mid-20th century. It traces its history to William Tyndale's New Testament translation of 1525. The RSV is an authorized revision of the American Standard Version of 1901...

. But more recently, the publisher Zondervan

Zondervan

Zondervan is an international Christian media and publishing company located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Zondervan is a founding member of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association .- History :...

 has attempted a revival of Scrivener's text by conforming all its newer editions of the KJV to it, such as its Zondervan KJV Study Bible. And the popular Logos Bible Software

Logos Bible Software

Logos Bible Software is a Bellingham, Washington software company and electronic publisher specializing in Bible study. Their flagship product is Logos Bible Software 4, a bible study software application for Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, iPhone/iPad and Android platforms...

 includes an electronic text of the Cambridge Paragraph Bible as of certain editions of version 3 of its Bible program.

Considerable honour is due to Scrivener for his work on the 1873 Cambridge Paragraph Bible. Nevertheless, there are some instances of misrepresentation of the original KJV text in Scrivener's work, since, as Norton suggests, he felt himself entitled to "correct" what the translators wrote. For example,

• in Matthew
  Gospel of Matthew
  The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
  
   23:24, Scrivener changes KJV's "strain at a gnat" to "strain out a gnat" (emphasis added) on the basis of the belief that it was a printer's error or a mistranslation, as it is commonly known that hulizō means "to filter".

• he changes Hebrews
  Epistle to the Hebrews
  The Epistle to the Hebrews is one of the books in the New Testament. Its author is not known.The primary purpose of the Letter to the Hebrews is to exhort Christians to persevere in the face of persecution. The central thought of the entire Epistle is the doctrine of the Person of Christ and his...
  
   10:23's "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith" to "Let us hold fast the profession of our hope" (emphasis added); this change was allegedly to fix a translator error;

• there are instances of spelling that are intentionally left unmodernized, such as "ebeny" for "ebony
  Ebony
  Ebony is a dense black wood, most commonly yielded by several species in the genus Diospyros, but ebony may also refer to other heavy, black woods from unrelated species. Ebony is dense enough to sink in water. Its fine texture, and very smooth finish when polished, make it valuable as an...
  
  " and "mo" for "more";

• Additionally, the passage in 1 John 5:7–8 often referred to as the Johannine Comma
  Comma Johanneum
  The Comma Johanneum is a comma in the First Epistle of John according to the Latin Vulgate text as transmitted since the Early Middle Ages, based on Vetus Latina minority readings dating to the 7th century...
  
  is thrown into italics by Scrivener because of its disputed authenticity, although the original translators left no indication that they doubted its genuineness. (This italicization has been removed from Zondervan's reprints of the Cambridge Paragraph Bible text but can be seen in the New Testament Octapla's reprinting.)

Although Scrivener's text has been highly regarded since its appearance, it has not had a major influence on current editions of the KJV, which are essentially reprints of the 1769 Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

 edition by Benjamin Blayney. Therefore, current KJV printings feature certain post-1611-edition editorial changes, 18th century spelling, an enhanced system of "supplied words" (the words printed in italics as having no equivalent in the original Biblical texts but added for clarity), and emended punctuation.

The reasons for a new recension

In his Textual History, Prof. Norton gives a fascinating look into the process by which Cambridge University Press commissioned the New Cambridge Paragraph Bible. The beginning dates back to 1994, when the press' Bible Publishing Manager needed to decide on any changes or corrections that would have to be made to the KJV text published by Cambridge, given that the film from which the press printed its text was becoming worn and in need of replacement. Two possibilities that emerged were to use Scrivener's text or to simply adopt Cambridge's own Concord KJV edition as the basis; however, neither gave exactly the translator's text or used consistent modern spelling. Cambridge eventually chose a different option, to have the KJV edited afresh. This also provided the opportunity to give the KJV a new formatting, one which follows the path broken by Scrivener in the first Cambridge Paragraph Bible but is by no means bound to his decisions regarding presentation; instead, the formatting of the volume has been completely reworked by Norton.

Features of the new edition

Using such sources as the first edition published in 1611, a manuscript preserved from the first stage of the KJV men's work (known as Lambeth Palace MS 98), and a complete Bishops' Bible

Bishops' Bible

The Bishops' Bible is an English translation of the Bible which was produced under the authority of the established Church of England in 1568. It was substantially revised in 1572, and this revised edition was to be prescribed as the base text for the Authorized King James Version of...

 annotated by them (known as Bodelian Library Bibl. Eng. 1602 b. 1), Norton re-edited the KJV. His edition:

• divides the text into paragraphs (and poetic line-divisions for poetic portions like the Psalms
  Psalms
  The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...
  
  );
• introduces modern spelling in preference to that of the 18th century—"assuaged" rather than "asswaged," "music" rather than "musick," "show" instead of "shew," etc.;
• adds quotation marks for dialogue and words indicated as spoken in the Bible text;
• restores certain readings of the 1611 edition that were modified by later editions.

At the same time, Norton's recension is for the most part quite conservative. For example, no readings are introduced from the above-mentioned manuscripts that only occur in them, though the annotations they contain are used to support 1611 first edition readings as demonstrating a deliberate decision by the original translators that has been overruled by subsequent hands. Norton writes in the introduction, "Except where there are good reasons to think that the first edition does not represent the readings the translators decided on, first edition readings are restored" (2005, p. ix). Also, other than the quotation marks, the punctuation—where changed from that of the current standard KJV text—mainly provides a simple restoration of 1611's punctuation.

One of the more radical changes is to eliminate the main text's differentiation of the "supplied words" usually printed in italics in current KJVs. (Such words are, however, intentionally retained in the marginal notes.) Norton points out that the original edition's supplied words, printed in Roman type in 1611 as opposed to the black-letter of the main text, were very inadequately marked; although many subsequent editors have tried to revise them (especially Scrivener), Norton feels that they are misunderstood by most readers and are ineffective even for those who know their purpose.

In summary, the New Cambridge Paragraph Bible is a valuable edition of the KJV text, and Prof. Norton's editing represents an important contribution to both religious and English literature

English literature

English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....

. Although it may be too soon to measure the full impact of this volume, it seems safe to say that Norton's work, and his companion study in Textual History, will necessarily have a far-reaching influence on any subsequent scholars who deal with the King James Version's history or its text.

External links

• The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible, with the Apocrypha, Cambridge University Press.