The Wicked Bible

I like the asterisk before some of the verses, as if the printer wanted it to say "Honor thy father and mother*
Thou shalt not kill**
Thou shalt not covet thy nighbours house, thou shalt not covet thy nighbours wife***
*Exception apply when thy father or mother is beating thee to excess, is neglecting thee or is teaching thee to disobey the word of God, or if thy father is touching thy private parts in a sexual fashion
**Except for food production, self-defense or if thy are a selected Government official on duty
***Exception apply if thy nighbour is way richer than you and his wife, man-servant or maid-servant fancy you. Verse number 13 and 15 still apply

Well, at least verse 13 should come with an annotation, as the word translated into English as a blanket "kill" is a bit more subtle than that in the original. It's not exactly limited to "murder", but it does indeed not cover killing the enemy in a war. (And given how often Israel was at war back then, sometimes even at the direct command of God, that would've been impossible.)

They're reference marks, of course. I was curious and looked it up, and yep, Matthew 5:21 does quote this verse. Ditto for the others - in fact, Deuteronomy 5 repeats the lot.

By the way, it seems that there are now fifteen surviving copies known. Who knows what else lies sleeping in some country-house library? It seems that they rarely have a complete index.

Also, this is not the only misprinted bible. Good Omens lists a dozen or so of them, two fictional, the rest real.

Any writer will tell you that even the most careful poofreading will miss things, especially when checking to see if you any words out.

My favorite is called The Printer's Bible. It says Printers (instead of Princes) will persecute you.

@Yudith -- Johnny Carson said a religion in LA updated it to: Thou shalt not kill, except in defense of your family, in defense of your home, or if caught in the inside lane of the freeway during rush hour.

@Phideaux indeed "the most careful poofreading will miss things"

@Teri -- I've been using that for years. You'd be amazed how many people don't catch it. I have to take extra care when I don't mean to use it because it's in all my spillcheckers as being right.

Phideaux, I think you meant spelchecker. Our brains fill in missing words, and we go merrily on our way.

@Virtual -- That's so very true! There's a whole science to perception, and misperception. Accordion to a recent survey, replacing words with the names of musical instruments in a sentence often goes undetected.

I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.
Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.
-- Mark Eckman, et al

(For a longer version, Google " Candidate for a Pullet Surprise")

What if this is the correct version and all the other Bibles have it wrong?? Food for thought...

@Phideaux: it's even worse when you check your own work. I used to work for a newspaper publisher, and it was a rule that nobody checked his own copy - you gave it to the professional proofreaders, or at a pinch, a colleague. A typo that you'd have spotted immediately in someone else's work, you'd overlook ten times in a row in your own writing. (It's just as true in computer programming, which was my job there and still is now.)