1573 Bishops' Bible

Printed: London

Measures: 9 x 6.5 x 3

The Bishops' Bible succeeded the Great Bible of 1539, the First Authorized Bible in English, and the Geneva Bible published by Sir Rowland Hill in 1560. The thorough Calvinism of the Geneva Bible offended the High-Church party of the Church of England, to which almost all of its bishops subscribed. This was due to the nature of the marginal notes. The Bishops' Bible was first published in 1568, but was then re-issued in an extensively revised form in 1572. In the revision a number of switches were made to the New Testament in the direction of more "ecclesiastical" language.

In this edition, Queen Elizabeth I is flanked by allegorical virtues of Faith and Charity; Elizabeth therefore represents Hope. Beneath the portrait is a Latin text from Romans 1:16.

After it was published in 1611, the King James Version soon took the Bishops' Bible's place as the de facto standard of the Church of England. Later judgments of the Bishops' Bible have not been favorable; the Bishops' Bible, was an important stage in moving English people from prohibited Bible reading to being a Bible-reading people. Each English Edition of the Bible reflects the labors by the English people to give God's book to God's people in a language they could understand.