The Wicked Bible, sometimes called the Adulterous Bible or the Sinners' Bible, is an edition of the Bible published in 1631 by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the royal printers in London, meant to be a reprint of the King James Bible. The name is derived from a mistake made by the compositors: in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:14, the word "not" was omitted from the sentence, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," causing the verse to instead read, "Thou shalt commit adultery."
An edition of the Wicked Bible
Wicked Bible (1631 KJV) Exodus 20, with the typographical error highlighted
A picture of the Deuteronomy 5:24 passage in the University of Cambridge copy of the Wicked Bible (201.C31.6) showing no misprint.
Robert Barker was a printer to James I of England and son of Christopher Barker, who had been printer to Queen Elizabeth I. He was most notably the printer of the King James Bible, one of the most influential and important books ever printed in the English language. He and co-publisher Martin Lucas published the infamous "Wicked Bible", which contained a typographical error omitting the word not from the sentence Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Reproduction of part of the title-page of the first edition of the King James Bible highlighting Robert Barker
The 'Judas' Bible in St Mary's Church, Totnes, Devon, England. This is a copy of the second folio edition of the Authorized Version, printed by Robert Barker in 1613, and given to the church for the use of the Mayor of Totnes. This edition is known as the 'Judas' Bible because in Matthew 26:36 'Judas' appears instead of 'Jesus'. In this copy the mistake (in red circle) has been corrected by a slip of paper pasted over the misprint.
