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Cambridge Bibles and the University Press
1534 The Royal Charter
The Royal Charter of the Cambridge Press, or, technically speaking, the Letters Patent granted to the University of Cambridge by Henry VIII on 20 July 1534. The text is in Latin. The University is given the perpetual right to appoint three stationers or printers or booksellers, with the right to print 'all manner of books', provided that these are approved by the Chancellor or his deputy and three doctors. The University is also free to sell the books so printed inside and beyond the kingdom.
The University had had its licensed stationers since the middle ages, before the invention of printing. They had official status; they bought, sold, bound and valued manuscripts, and sold writing materials. In 1534, during a time of religious and political strife, printing could spread dangerous new ideas: in giving Cambridge this right, the monarch was also proposing a method of control - approval by the Vice-Chancellor and the three doctors.
Fifty years passed before the University exercised the right to print, but it now regularly appointed its stationers, as if in preparation.
Meanwhile, in London, the printing and allied trades were controlled by the Stationers' Company, itself given a royal charter in 1557. The stage was set for a long contest between the holders of conflicting rights. It was important that Cambridge could say that it had the older charter.
1591 The first Cambridge Bible
The first Cambridge Bible was printed by John Legate in 1591. The version used was the Geneva Bible, prepared by Calvinist exiles in Europe and first printed in 1560. Though officially frowned on, it was popular with puritan readers. When the official versions were large folios in blackletter type it also had the advantage of portable small format, readable roman type, verse-numbers for easy reference, and useful editorial matter. It was the Bible of Shakespeare and Bunyan and the first settlers in North America.
Meanwhile, in London, Christopher Barker had acquired a virtual monopoly of Bible-printing by virtue of his patent as Royal Printer, granted in 1577. Legate and the University of Cambridge were here claiming that they were exempt from that monopoly. It is no accident that the ornamental border on the title-page displays both the royal arms and those of William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, who happened to be Chancellor of the University. These were the authorities which would be invoked in any quarrel with the London printers.
1629 The first Cambridge King James Bible
The King James Bible - also known as the Authorized Version - was printed in London in 1611 by the then King's printer, Robert Barker. There were two printings, produced in haste, and containing a number of inconsistencies and errors. The equally hasty reprints which rapidly followed further debased the text. The Cambridge folio Bible of 1629, printed by Thomas and John Buck, was significantly more accurate, and started a Cambridge tradition of care for the text.
In 1628 King Charles I had at the University's request conferred a new charter confirming Henry VIII's charter of 1534. There had been disputes between the London Stationers and the University over printing rights: the new charter and an order of the Privy Council authorised this edition.
Another Cambridge folio Bible of 1638, printed by Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel, improved the text further, using surviving members of the original translators of 1611 as revising editors.
The buck in the central medallion at the foot of the engraved title-page is a punning reference to the printers' names.
1763 The Baskerville Bible
John Baskerville began his career as a writing-master in Birmingham, which accounts for his interest in letter-forms and design. He made a fortune in the trade in 'japanned' (lacquered) goods, which would have interested him in ink-manufacture and fine finished effects. He began to design his own type in 1750, and then set out to print books which were consciously fine pieces of printing. In order to achieve his 'highest ambition' of printing a folio Bible and handsome Book of Common Prayer in the days when only the Royal Printer and the two University Presses had that right, he had to become University Printer at Cambridge in 1758. In effect he rented the title for five years, sent two presses and workmen to Cambridge, and in 1763 produced one of the most beautiful Bibles ever printed, using his own types and printed ornaments. The ink and the paper were also specially manufactured, and after printing the sheets were hot-pressed to give them smoothness and gloss. The Bible was sold by subscription to wealthy patrons, though it is doubtful if Baskerville recovered all his costs.After his death his punches went to France, where he had admirers. They were presented to Cambridge in 1953. The modern typeface called Baskerville was recut by the Monotype Corporation in 1923, and it and its computerised successors have been very effectively used in Cambridge printing.
1806 The Cambridge Stereotype Bible
From the printer's point of view, the Bible is a million words to be set in type - the equivalent of at least ten long books. For centuries, few printers had enough type to set a whole Bible, and could prepare only a few pages at a time. Those who had enough type could not afford to keep so much precious metal locked up in one book once it was printed. The type had to be dispersed and used again for other work. So the text had to be set again every time there was an edition. Each time, the introduction of even a few printing errors - perhaps corrected, but perhaps repeated with others in the next setting - cumulatively corrupted the text. By 1800 the three privileged English Bible-publishers were effectively printing different texts: there were thousands of variants between them.
The first step towards providing an accurate and stable text was the invention of a process which prevented this variation over time. Stereotyping was the answer. It involved taking a mould - at first of plaster, later of papier-mâché, which was more flexible - of each whole page of type as it was set. From this mould, plates could be cast and used as a printing surface. They could be used again and again, and when they were worn out new plates could be cast from the mould, and they would be identical.
The process was perfected by Earl Stanhope, and he communicated the secret to Cambridge, which in 1806 issued the Cambridge Stereotype Bible.
1873 The Cambridge Paragraph Bible
The Cambridge Paragraph Bible was edited by the Rev. F. H. Scrivener, Prebendary of Exeter and Vicar of Hendon, and was published in 1873. Scrivener's Introduction, an important book in its own right, and still read, was separately published in 1884. It begins: 'A critical edition of the Authorized Version of the English Bible ... indicating the changes for good and ill introduced into the original text of 1611 by subsequent reprints, would have been expedited long ago, had this version been nothing more than the greatest and best known of English classics.' Scrivener's point was that because the Bible was seen as divinely inspired both in the original languages and in the translation of 1611, it had been so reverently regarded by everyone except printers that nobody had paid attention to the text as something which had been - to put it in a word - corrupted; and that it now needed to be treated like any other classic, and properly edited. That is what he did. He scrupulously collated the early and later printings, tracing the history of gradual and unconscious change - as well as attempts, notably at Cambridge in 1629 and 1638 and after, to undo the damage.
He showed that it was not possible simply to reprint the original text of 1611 because it was itself inaccurate. A critical and editorial process was needed, to identify early and later corruptions. His own text did that, and was accepted as a standard in later Cambridge printing. Combined with stereotyping, this kind of care could arrest and reverse over 250 years of textual decline.
1885 The Revised Version of the Bible
At the meeting of the Press Syndicate on 1 July 1870 it was agreed to publish the forthcoming Revised Version of the Bible which had just been undertaken by the Convocation of Canterbury. It was also agreed to enter into partnership with the Oxford University Press, so that the two Presses would finance the large cost of revision by a considerable body of scholars over several years, and then the costs of publication. In return the Presses acquired the copyright. A modern legal copyright was an important step away from the old system of 'privileged printing' under which the Royal Printer had the monopoly, while the Presses were exempt.
As the name implies, the Revised Version adhered as far as possible to the text and language of the 1611 Bible. Its style was considered classical, even sacrosanct, though the revisers aimed to introduce consistency into the translation of particular Hebrew or Greek words. The translation thus became more literal, and can be used as a kind of crib.
The New Testament was published in 1881, the whole Bible in 1885. It was an enormous best-seller, and both printing-houses found themselves producing reprint after reprint.
The Revised Version has had a twentieth-century influence. It lies behind the American Standard Version of 1901, the Revised Standard Version of 1952 and the new Revised Standard Version of 1989 which continue the tradition of the 1611 Bible into modern times.
Cambridge University Press has been publishing the Bible for more than 400 years. This began with the Geneva Bible in 1591, and the tradition has continued without interruption to the present day. Cambridge University Press' list of Bible editions is large and varied, ranging from the King James Version of 1611 to the 1989 New Revised Standard Version. The choice of bindings is equally impressive. Cambridge has adopted a graduated approach to the variety of bindings available, beginning with economical hardback editions. In most cases the next step up is to Cabra bonded leather, the finest-quality part-leather substitute. Then comes the attractive genuine-leather French Morocco, which is used to produce reasonably priced gift bindings. Finally, there are the exquisite calfskin and goatskin bindings for which Cambridge is renowned.
Bible versions
Geneva, KJV (King James Version), Interlinear (KJV/Revised Version), RSV (Revised Standard Version), NEB (New English Bible), NIV (New International Version), REB (Revised English Bible), NRSV (New Revised Standard Version.
All information here was taken directly from the Cambridge University Press website
My ministry does not necessarily agree with the university press
My ministry does agree with the KJV bible