Robert Aitken Bible, the first King James Bible published in America in 1792

Christopher  Sauer Bible, 1743

Most English-speaking people—Americans, Canadians, Britons or Australians—reflexively associate the Bible with the King James Version. So, it might seem odd to most Americans that the first Bible printed in North America was not the “Authorized” King James Version, nor any English version at all. The only competitor to the King James Version, the Geneva Bible preferred by the Puritans, was banned from England by the Stuart monarchs and later eclipsed by the commercially successful King James Version.

Why wasn’t the King James Version of the Bible published in America? The reason was that the King held the copyright. The “royal”privilege of printing the King James Version of the Bible was given to the King’s Printer, Robert Barker, who held a monopoly on printing English translations of the Bible throughout his life. A serious misprint in 1631 resulted in the so-called “Wicked Bible,” which told readers of the seventh commandment in Exodus 20: 14, “Thou shalt commit adultery.” This mistake cost the printers Robert Barker and (partner) Martin Lucas a hefty fine. The quality of the printing improved little when, in 1675, the King James Version was printed by the Oxford University Press. Oxford printer John Bastkett produced, among other errors, the infamous “Vinegar Bible,” so-called because of its reference in Matthew 20 to the “Parable of the Vinegar” instead of the “Parable of the Vineyard.” Critics joked that the printer’s Bibles were “a Bastkett-full of Printer’s Errors!”

So, what was the first Bible published in America? The first complete Bible published in the Americas was
Martin Luther’s German Bible, published by Christopher Sauer in Germantown, Pennsylvania in 1743. The first American edition of the King James Bible would have to wait until American independence, when Scottish immigrant publisher Robert Aitken printed it in Philadelphia in 1782. Aitken, who sought Congressional authorization, hoped to establish a printing monopoly as Robert Barker had done in England one hundred and seventy years earlier. Instead, he lost money, when undersold by cheaper British editions imported after the Revolutionary War.

Dr. Iren Snavely looks at Bibles in the Rare Collections’ Archivist’s Office

If you would like to learn more about the Bible in America, make an appointment to see our collection of rare Bibles. The Rare Collections of the State Library of Pennsylvania contains a large number of seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century English, German and Latin Bibles. The Collection has editions of the Latin Vulgate, the Geneva Bible; multiple editions of the King James Version, including Pennsylvania’s 1739 Assembly Bible and Robert Aitken’s 1782 American edition; Christopher Saur’s 1743 Germantown edition of Martin Luther’s Biblia, as well as other German translations. The Rare Collections also has copies of the Koran, while the General Collections contain the writings of other major World religions, including their founders and their scriptures. If you would like to see any of these resources, please contact Rare Books Librarian Iren Snavely (717) 783-5982.