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Whether you are a believer or not, the KJB — King James Bible of 1611 — is one of the world's greatest books and its publication changed the world. Therefore,
by hilbert42 5y ago
Whether you are a believer or not, the KJB — King James Bible of 1611 — is one of the world's greatest books and its publication changed the world. Therefore, here's one's chance to see a copy of it close up and in reasonable detail.
Unlike so many later facsimiles, this version retains its original late Middle Ages/Early Renaissance English spelling. To put this into perspective, Shakespeare lived from 1564 to 1616, so this 1611 edition was published whilst he was still alive.
(As many know, this Bible was the work of a committee and remarkably—unlike the work of so many committees—it actually turned out to be a remarkable work of literature in its own right.)
The Bible opens with a combined frontispiece/title page. An ornate line drawing fills most of the page but is blank at the centre except for its title which is at the centre top and spread over three lines. Immediately underneath is additional text including its publications date. Here is the frontispiece/title text in full:
THE
HOLY
BIBLE,
Conteyning the Old Testament,
AND THE NEW:
Newly Translatd out of the Originall
tongues: & with the former Translations
diligently compared and reuised by his
Maiesties Speciall Comandement.
Appointed to be read in Churches.
Imprinted at London by Robert
Barker, Printer to the Kings
most Excellent Maiestie
Anno Dom. 1611
This is immediately followed by a dedication to the King from its Translators, following that comes 'The Epistle', 'Dedicatorie', 'The Translators to The Reader' followed by various religious calendar dates, lessons for special days, alphabetical list of names, maps of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, etc. It is not until about page 39 that we actually get to 'The First Book of Moses called GENESIS.'
There is much information included in this 1611 Edition which is not included in the recent and otherwise well annotated editions of the KJV such as the important Scofield Editions. This alone makes this work a feast for both religious scholars and book antiquarians alike.
This PDF version that I downloaded consists of 1506 pages and its file size is 1,923,870,199 bytes. The scan resolution is quite good but not excellent which is a shame. Moreover, little or no attempt has be made to straighten or make pages linear, which is shame. I will attempt to download the jp2 (jpeg 2000) version later and see if it is any better.
There is a smaller PDF that also includes the text but like most Internet Archive OCR attempts it is dismally inaccurate and full of errors.
- thefounder 5y ago>> is one of the world's greatest books and its publication changed the world. What would make it one of the world's greatest books if it's full of made up/fake/pseudohistory stuff? I, being a non-beliver find all the cult books sickening, especially those that are still used as absolute truth. While it can showcase quality craftsmanship it's no better than an old and "good" tabacco commercial for kids.
- redis_mlc 5y agoBecause: - a lot of the history in the Bible is either true, or the most accurate recorded. Most of the mentioned ancient cities have been found. The more you study history, the more compelling the Bible is. - it gives absolute guidance on how to behave, in opposition to current cultural Marxism, which is destroying Western society. Given a choice between the Bible and Marxism, I'll take the Bible every time. - regardless of who you think Jesus was, his behavior and actions define him as a worthy role model