INTRODUCTION
Any serious examination of the printed history of the King James Bible (KJB) must proceed with care, humility and a willingness to observe what the historical record actually presents. In this regard, video lectures by Bryan Ross have provided a helpful overview of the transmission and printing of the Authorized Version (yes, spelt with a “z”), particularly as it relates to the work of Cambridge University Press and the broader editorial history of the text from the seventeenth century to the modern era.
Much of what Ross has presented has been quite good, especially with his emphasis on historical process and editorial development, as well as his resistance to extreme or speculative claims.
We still must point out that Ross does approach with certain presuppositions and therefore can have wrong interpretation and conclusions. That is evident in how he approaches the specific form of the King James Bible that emerged in the early twentieth century that is now commonly referred to as the Pure Cambridge Edition (PCE).
After giving a general examination on Scrivener’s Cambridge Paragraph Bible, his next lesson turned to the PCE. This is lesson 271 in his long series addressing the topic of assessing the printed history of the KJB text. While Ross has usually followed a normal, empirical and analytical approach, he instead took a decision to criticise a position (of Bible Protector), rather than to start by examining the historical printed history and reality of Cambridge’s printing of the KJB in the 20th century.
This shows two things. First, that Ross is now approaching an idea with his presuppositional biases rather than discussing empirical facts about the literal “printed history”. Second, and more tellingly, in doing so, that is, in undertaking to discuss the view put forth about Matthew Verschuur, he is essentially placing and recognising Verschuur and his views as part of the “printed history” of the KJB, as much as Norton, Scrivener, Curtis, Blayney, etc.
THE EDITORIAL REALITY
It is now acknowledged by critics and defenders alike that the King James Bible has a genuine history of editorial and manifest alterations in printing. From the early folios of the King’s Printer, through the Cambridge revisions of 1629 and 1638, and through to the major editorial work of Benjamin Blayney in 1769, the English text of the KJB has been subject to correction, standardisation and refinement.
It is right to recognise that the text of the KJB through its editions was carefully tended by generations of printers and editors who believed they were custodians of a received English Bible. What is equally clear is that editorial traditions developed, particularly within Cambridge University Press (CUP), that distinguished its text from Oxford and other printers.
It is within this Cambridge tradition that we find the Pure Cambridge Edition as the product or result of a long history of both major editorial works, and the internal work within CUP.
SCRIVENER’S WORK
One important point of agreement concerns F. H. A. Scrivener’s Cambridge Paragraph Bible. Whatever its alleged scholarly merits, Scrivener’s edition was never adopted as the standard printing text for the King James Bible. Even Cambridge itself recognised this, as evidenced by the caveats placed in the front of the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges series explaining why its Scrivener-based KJB text differed from ordinary Bibles.
This is significant because it highlights a key distinction: the King James Bible has been preserved primarily through usage and printing. Importantly, the “authoritative” text of the KJB, historically speaking, is not the one that best approximates a theoretical 1611 original, but the one that was actually printed, read and received by the English-speaking church.
However, Scrivener’s work was not completely in vain. Clearly there was a need for further revision beyond 1769. Clearly a conservative execution of Burgon’s welcome for a slight revision held some merit. So, it was right that the Pure Cambridge Edition came to be, which advanced beyond the normal Victorian Edition contemporary with Scrivener and present at the beginning of the twentieth century. The Victorian Edition was essentially the 1769 Edition in Cambridge clothes, with a few spelling and other very minor differences here or there.
THE EMERGENCE OF THE PCE
In the early twentieth century, Cambridge University Press undertook further editorial refinements to its ordinary KJB text, standardising to a new Edition. These changes were not radical innovations, nor were they publicised. Rather, they reflect a continuation of Cambridge’s longstanding editorial practice.
By or in 1911, the distinct form of the Cambridge text emerged known as the Pure Cambridge Edition, which differed in identifiable and consistent ways from the Cambridge Victorian Edition and from Oxford printings. This form would dominate Cambridge and Collins printings for much of the twentieth century, appearing in a wide range of formats, including Cameos, Turquoise Reference Bibles, Pitt Minions and other editions styles and sizes from Cambridge and its Pitt press.
Today, this text is commonly referred to as the Pure Cambridge Edition, not because CUP officially named it so, but because it represents a stable, coherent, and internally consistent form of the Cambridge KJB editorial English text.
AWARENESS OF THE CAMBRIDGE KJB
There was really no scholarship on this topic until Matthew Verschuur launched the Bible Protector ministry in 2007, but we have some sources. For example, some information from Darlow and Moule in their Catalogue, that describes some printings from 20th century that are PCE.
David Norton indicated in his 2005 book the state of the Cambridge Edition in 1931. He did not go into any detail on it, though he knew that such an Edition existed, which is now known as the Pure Cambridge Edition. He showed how many millions of copies of the Ruby size alone had been made.
For much of the twentieth century, this Edition went largely unremarked—not because it was insignificant, but because it was normal. It was simply “the Cambridge Bible.”
Then, from the 1980s, we had a wave of general information which promoted or identified that Cambridge was better than Oxford. In those days the questions were around Jeremiah 34:16 and Joshua 19:2.
Early Bible software such as The Online Bible used a Cambridge text. Prominent KJB advocates generally preferred Cambridge over Oxford, even if they did not articulate the precise nature of the differences. D. A. Waite and Peter Ruckman preferred the Cambridge. From the contrary side, James White’s anti-KJB book came through in favour of the Cambridge.
By the early 2000s, increased attention to textual variation within KJB printings brought this Edition into sharper focus. Discussions of “subtle changes” (one article) and “counterfeit” KJBs (another article) had the effect of drawing attention to the fact that not all KJB editions in current use were the same.
Information about this was re-uploaded in 2014, but was written some years before that, see: https://www.bibleprotector.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=55
Between 2000 and 2006 the PCE was being identified, and in 2007 to 2011, the PCE began to be known in KJB circles. Even critics acknowledged its existence. Gail Riplinger even stated some years after that, though she herself knew of the existence of the PCE, though not by that name. Her “Settings” article which included reference to the PCE was written in 2011.
AWARENESS OF THE PCE
Thus, we can show that there was a general knowledge of “the Cambridge” prior to 2007, and that that in the period of 2007 to 2011 the PCE was brought to awareness in King James Bible circles. That is, to identify that there was a distinct Edition which was commended to be taken as a standard.
So, we know that between 1911 and 1999 Cambridge printed this Edition. Not all the time, but many times, in many editions.
Yet, Cambridge University Press barely knew of it, in fact, could hardly confirm anything about a Bible that they had literally printed multiple millions of times, in a whole range of sizes, from 1911 to the year before they launched their website.
From the 1930s Collins had also been printing the PCE, in most of its printings. Between 2000 and 2007, you could get a PCE from Collins. LCBP, TBS and the KJV Store all for certain loyalty to Cambridge’s post-PCE printings generally refused to print or stock PCEs. But they were around. There were some LCBPs that were PCE. There were second hand and surviving stock TBSes which were PCE.
Even today, Cambridge don’t say much about the Edition they published for nearly a century. Actually their illuminated Gospels which they have currently been releasing are PCE.
So we have a solid period of many decades where the Pure Cambridge Edition dominated most Cambridge printings and most Collins printings. The Victorian Edition did linger in some examples to the 1940s, and in the 1960s, the Concord Edition appeared, along with the Compact C. R., and the Crystal Reference, which also had the Concord text.
However, Cambridge made a decision in 1985 to change the case of the word “spirit” at 1 John 5:8 to “Spirit”. The changes did not happen in every one of their editions immediately, but they began.
Then in 1990, CUP gained the Queen’s Printer, Eyre and Spottiswoode, and a variety of other editions started appearing from Cambridge, including the influence of changes such as at Acts 11:12 and 28 where “spirit” was haphazardly altered to “Spirit”.
Rick Norris, who has tried to study this area, can identify the PCE in a vintage Pitt Minion bold figure reference edition, but he’s also motivated to try to make an as worst case as possible. Norris is good on the data but hopeless on the analytics.
Lawrence Vance has also written a book touching on the subject, in which he certainly knows the Pure Cambridge Edition exists, though he, like Will Kinney and Gail Riplinger, prefer the post-pure Cambridge, favouring the capital “S” reading at 1 John 5:8.
This means we have arrived at the place where there are King James Bible advocates who are broadly accepting of the PCE, or of the post-PCE Cambridge text, or of either. Vance and Riplinger both refer to the Cameo (reference or plain text):
Genesis 41:56 And Joseph (PCE) — and Joseph (Cameo)
1 Chronicles 2:55 Hemath (PCE, pre-1940s Cameos) — and Hammath (Cameo)
1 Chronicles 13:5 Hemath (PCE, pre-1940s Cameos) — and Hamath (Cameo)
Amos 6:14 Hemath (PCE, pre-1940s Cameos) — and Hamath (Cameo)
1 John 5:8 spirit (PCE, pre-1985 Cameos) — Spirit (Cameo)
(And now, Acts 11:12 and Acts 11:28 may also be an issue, but it wasn’t in the Cameos here being discussed from the 1980s to early 2000s.)
As you can see, we all tend to use Cameo texts that don’t have “Hemath”, which itself makes Bryan Ross’ accusation of “verbatim identicality” an overstatement, because we all know that God is blessing us despite if we have printed Bibles with “Hammath”, which does not have any historical precedent in the editorial history of the KJB.
SPECIFIC EDITORIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PCE
The Pure Cambridge Edition is not defined by sweeping doctrinal alterations, but by specific, repeatable editorial features, such as:
- A number of restored Hebrew-based spellings in place names from 1611
- Specific spellings (e.g., rasor, counseller, expences, ancle)
- Consistency in minor variations like Jeremiah 34:16 and Nahum 3:16, etc.
- Retention of lowercase spirit in passages such as Acts 11:12, verse 28 and 1 John 5:8, consistent with the 1769 tradition
- Some minor punctuation and italic points
Notably, many deviations from the PCE found in later Cambridge “Concord” editions arose from consultation with Oxford, reflecting an editorial decision to attempt parity, which obviously was not reciprocated from Oxford. This includes changes that are grammatically or contextually questionable, such as the removal of the question mark in Jeremiah 32:5.
More important differences between Oxford and Cambridge are:
Matthew 9:27, “Son of David”, but the Oxford has “son” in all such places. (This could be construed as an anti-deity issue.)
Joshua 19:2, if it is “and Sheba” then the count of 13 cities and villages is wrong, but if it is “or” it is consistent that Beer-sheba and Sheba are overlapping concepts (e.g. the well is called Shebah in Gen. 26:33, so the Oxford is wrong to make it “and”.)
A recurring problem in some discussions of KJB editorial work is the tendency to appeal directly to Hebrew or Greek to examine or suggest changes. This approach largely goes against the idea of an internal printed history of the KJB which focuses on the English.
So, it was correct that Blayney may have looked at the Hebrew and Greek, though this would have related to italics. But it would not be correct to make foolish comments about the case of the word “spirit” in relation to the Greek. For example, I have seen multiple times people refer to this issue trying to argue from the fact that Greek has uniform lettering. According to such logic, we could then write the KJB in all English uncials/capitals or minuscules/lower case, but we now find logically that English lettering is both a convention of translation and of editorial precision!
CONCLUSION
What distinguished the Blayney tradition, and the later Cambridge editors (excluding Scrivener and Norton), was the commitment to the stability and integrity of the KJB’s editorial English text.
It is right to want to have consistency, standardisation and a typographically correct text. It’s right to desire this kind of purity. That is what the Pure Cambridge Edition offers, it offers a standard form for KJB believers to use which meaningfully, rightfully, correctly and exactly represents the KJB as a product of proper received tradition.
We can argue that it is the will of providence.
The Pure Cambridge Edition does not require extravagant claims to justify its significance. Its case rests on history, continuity, and observable fact. For many decades, it functioned as the dominant Cambridge text of the King James Bible. It reflects deliberate editorial choices rooted in the Cambridge tradition, and it exhibits a level of internal consistency that merits recognition.
We can therefore embrace the continuation of the PCE, because it is something to hold to as an inheritance rather than an invention, and something that is a reliable form that can be considered to be a proper representation of the very version and translation of 1611.
I commend it to people like Bryan Ross, that he should hold a preference to the PCE, that he should see the PCE as a genuine representation of the KJB fit and worthy to be accepted as a common standard.
For more information, see https://www.bibleprotector.com/blog/?page_id=1226
APPENDIX
Some places where the Concord Edition will differ to the PCE, the PCE renderings are shown.
Genesis 24:57, inquire
Exodus 23:23, and the Hivites
Numbers 6:5, rasor
2 Samuel 15:12, counseller
2 Samuel 18:29, Is [italic] the
Ezra 2:26, Geba
Ezra 6:4, expences
Jeremiah 32:5, prosper?
Ezekiel 47:3, ancles
Mark 2:1, Capernaum, after
Acts 11:12, spirit
Acts 11:28, spirit
Romans 4:18, nations; according
1 Corinthians 15:27, saith, all
1 John 5:8, spirit