THE MAKING OF THE BIBLE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5861, 1 May 1897, Page 7

THE MAKING OF THE BIBLE.

The "Making of the Bible "forms the subject of an especially interesting paper in Pearson's Magazine for March, from -which one learns that the printing standard of the Clarendon press (where most bibles come from) is very high. It aims, indeed, at nothing short of infallibility. When an edition of .the Bible is issued a guinea is paid to the discoverer of any mistake. About five guineas per year are thus paid out as a reward of diligence. When one person discovers an error and gets his guinea, some thousands discover it after him, and this entails much correspondence of a diplomatic character and much postal expense. Once after an edition of 50,000 Bibles had been printed, it was discovered that early in the printing two letters had broken out of one of the electroplates. The first was "t" turning teaching into "eaching." The second was "e" turning eaching into "aching." In finally read through, most of the edition " Christ aching in the Temple." Some thousands had been bound and sent out to the trade. These were recalled and a special stamper, a unique, unparalleled and wonderful stamper was set to work, and stamped into nearly 50,000 Bibles the letters "t" and "e" by hand. It seems that there are fashions, fads if you will, in Bibles. The American churchgoer likes a Bible with a pocket or slide in the cover for the prayer book. These the English devotee will have none of, but desires only two attached volumes. The American Bible. reader wants a single reference column down the centre of the page, the English reference columns at the two sides. Neither reader will have the others favourite at any price. The output of Oxford Bibles averages 20,000 per week, or say, 1,000,000 per year. The weekly shipment to America is five and a half tons, and is increasing. There are seventy-one editions of the Oxford Bible, ranging from mighty folios for pulpits to tiny little squares in "brilliant." The reiriaod version, though, it has boen. fifteen •years before the public, makes slow progress. The setting generation — even the rising generation — prefer the old version with the verses. You may remember that Dr Wright mentioned the same fact in connection with the authorised version of 1611. It was forty years before it began to seriously displace its predecessor. j