This copy of the King James Bible New Testament, published during the time of the presidency of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), was printed in New York in 1807 by Duyckinck and Mesier. Photo credit: Scott Huck, university photographer
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This copy of the King James Bible was printed by John Thompson in Philadelphia in 1798, the first hot-pressed printing of the Bible in the American colonies. This copy was re-bound in leather in 2004 by the artisans at the Ohio Book Store...
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This original page from a King James Bible is from a copy printed in Philadelphia in 1782, Robert Aitken's only edition of the first English Bible printed in America. The page measures about 6 inches by 4 inches, making the Bible small...
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This copy of the King James Version, a large quarto edition printed in Cambridge in 1762, is considered to be the "standard" edition of the King James Version, becoming, along with the Blayney Oxford edition of 1769, the foundation of the...
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This copy of the King James Version, a large quarto edition, is the first Cambridge (England) printing of the KJV. It was the first printing since the first edition in 1611 in which editors included a number of revisions, chiefly...
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This copy of the King James Bible is a large folio lectern Bible printed in 1617 by Robert Barker in London, the third unrevised edition of the 1611 first printing. Thus this copy is essentially what a first edition looks like. This...
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This copy of the King James Bible is a first black letter quarto version published by Robert Barker in London in 1613, one year after the first Roman letter quarto version was printed in 1612. This edition is called a "He" Bible because of...
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These pages from first editions of the King James Bible are taken from editions or fragments which could not be sold as complete Bibles, because they were already missing pages when found. These fragment sections and pages are often used...
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The King James Version of the Bible was not the first English language translation of the Scriptures, but the culmination of extensive translation activity in the 1500s, including the likes of the Tyndale Bible, the Great Bible, the Geneva Bible, and the Bishops' Bible. In 1604, King James came to power unifying a divided England. In order to settle disagreements over reforms in the Church of England, he authorized a new translation of the Scriptures building on the previous English Bible translation work and using the best Hebrew, Greek, and Latin texts and manuscripts available. The work, undertaken by a total of 54 scholars, was completed and the first edition published in 1611. Since the mid-17th century, the King James Bible has been the Bible of the English-speaking church. Even though more recent modern translations have in popularity, the KJV stills stands as the masterpiece of the English language. Over four hundred years after its first printing, the King James Bible continues to have worldwide influence, retaining its place as the most influential book and Bible ever published. The exhibit includes a collection of rare King James Bible editions from the 17th and 18th centuries, the earliest from 1613, pages from the first edition, and other rare English language Bibles which were forerunners of the King James version.
The Biblical Heritage Gallery where these items were exhibited closed in 2019 to make way for the Warren and Betty Wiersbe Library and Reading Room, which opened in the fall of 2019. The items in the on-line exhibit described below are housed in Special Collections at the Centennial Library at Cedarville University and are available for use by the public on request. Follow this link to contact the University Archivist.
