CrossWire KJV

This page is a work in progress.

Introduction

The KJV module was one of the earliest to be released and distributed by CrossWire after The SWORD Project was launched. It remains one of the most frequently downloaded modules in all our repositories.

The KJV module text is based substantially on the 1769 Oxford Edition (the basis for all modern editions), not the original 1611 first edition. See our FAQ.

This is the only module maintained by CrossWire volunteers. It is marked up in OSIS XML. All other modules are based on source text from external providers.

Provenance and Acknowledgements

Strong's numbers provide a useful means for looking up the exact original language word in a lexicon that is keyed to Strong's Concordance.

Morphology data provides a means to understand the structure of the original language's morphemes and other linguistic units.

• The Strong's numbers in the OT were obtained from The Bible Foundation
• The Strong's data in the NT was obtained from the KJV2003 Project at CrossWire.

Special thanks to the volunteers at Bible Foundation for keying the Hebrew/English data and of Project KJV2003 for working toward the completion of synchronizing the English phrases to the Stephanas Textus Receptus, and to Dr. Maurice Robinson for providing the base Greek text with Strong's and Morphology.

We are also appreciative of formatting markup that was provided by Michael Paul Johnson.

Their time and generosity to contribute such for the free use of the Body of Christ is a great blessing and this derivitive work could not have been possible without these efforts of so many individuals. It is in this spirit that we in turn offer the KJV2003 Project text and its successors freely for any purpose.

We are also appreciative for the feedback reports over the years from several individuals that have enabled us to fix minor text and markup issues by comparison with the reference texts.

Reference Text

The CrossWire KJV is meant to be the faithful e-text edition of Benjamin Blayney's 1769 Oxford edition of the KJV (hereafter called 1769 KJV). To that end we required it to be diligently checked against a reference standard for accuracy. Finding a reference text was a daunting task. What is known today as the KJV has been changed on a regular basis since it's first publication to today. Some of these changes are well known; others are quietly done by publishers.

There also was a need to have a reference for red-letter text. This too varied from one modern KJV to another.

See also User:Dmsmith/KJV_2.6#Reference_text_policy.

Need for a reference text

Ideally, the reference standard would be a faithful electronic copy of 1769 KJV. When CrossWire's KJV2006 Project was started there was no such text either as a facsimile or eText. In lieu of that, finding an acceptable text was needed to arbitrate the claims that "my KJV is right and it is different from what you have."

We compared our text with two independent 1769 KJV eTexts (CCEL and InterLeaf). All of the other eTexts we found seemed to be one of these three. Those comparisons yielded differences that needed to be verified in an independent text. Thus the need for *a* dead tree text. While working on the KJV2006 release, several websites that were dedicated to producing a "true" text were abandoned with chagrin that it is not a doable task apart from having a facsimile of the 1769 KJV, which was not known.

One criteria was finding a text that the KJV-only adherents felt was more accurate 1769 KJV text. Using various listings of differences between current and "true", dozens of dead tree texts in several stores were examined. Also, it was important to avoid copyright claims based upon minor changes in the text. Both combined to come up with the Public Domain Old Scofield Study Bible. The Biblical text was thought to be one of the most faithful copies of the 1769 Oxford Edition. It was published in 1917, which was important in terms of USA copyright law. It was also considered to be a faithful red-letter text.

We are in the process of obtaining a hard copy facsimile of the "Blayney" 1769 KJV text. This will be the reference text going forward.

Need for a reference red-letter text

Red-Letter text is a fairly recent addition to the 1769 KJV. In 1899, Louis Klopsch proposed rendering the words of Christ in red letters. His work was published in 1901. Recently (2016-01-28), we've obtained Louis Klopsch's 1901 edition of the KJV and will use that as the future reference for red-letter text.

Notes:

Chosen Texts

The public domain Old Scofield Study Bible was used for version 2.3 to 2.10 for text and for version 2.3 to 2.9 for red-letter markup.

The Louis Klopsch 1901 KJV is used for red-letter markup for 2.10 and later.

The 1769 KJV facsimile is used for text, front-matter, notes, cross-references, titles, .... for versions after 2.11.

• The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments: Volume 1 of 4, ISBN: 9781171169826
• The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments: Volume 2 of 4, ISBN: 9781171169819
• The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments: Volume 3 of 4, ISBN: 9781171169802
• The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
  Translated Out of the Original Greek:
  And with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised,
  by His Majesty's Special Command. Appointed to by Read in Churches.
  Volume 4 of 4, ISBN: 9781171169796

A scanned copy of the 1769 KJV is also available at http://www.originalbibles.com/1769-king-james-bible-benjamin-blayney/

Copyright

Any copyright that might be obtained for this effort is held by the CrossWire Bible Society © 2003-2016 and the CrossWire Bible Society hereby grants a general public license to use this text for any purpose.

CrossWire's KJV module is an amalgamation of different source material. Each has its own copyright or is in the public domain.

• The actual text validated against 2 independent eTexts and found differences against our hard-copy reference for such.
• The Red Letter markup of the words of Christ have been validated against our hard-copy reference for such.
• The Strong's numbers in the OT are from The Bible Foundation.
• The Strong's numbers in the NT are from Dr Maurice A. Robinson, Senior Professor of New Testament and Greek at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina.
• The OSIS XML markup is a unique effort that began with our KJV2003 project – Copyright © 2003-2016 The CrossWire Bible Society.
• The tagging of Strong's numbers to the NT text is a unique effort of our KJV2003 project – Copyright © 2003-2016 The CrossWire Bible Society.

Crown copyright, Letters Patent and the KJV

In the United Kingdom, the text of the Authorized King James Version of the Bible is protected by royal prerogative. "There is a small class of materials where the Crown claims the right to control reproduction outside normal copyright law due to Letters Patent issued under the royal prerogative. This material includes the King James Bible, and the Book of Common Prayer." See Crown copyright.

In most of the world, the Authorized Version has passed out of copyright and is freely reproduced. In the United Kingdom, the British Crown restricts production of the Authorized Version per transitional exemptions from the Copyright Act 1775 (which implemented this clause) in the Copyright, Designs and patents Act 1988 (Schedule I, section 13(1)), which expire in 2039. Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, HarperCollins and the Queen's Printers have the right to produce the Authorized Version. See King James Bible.

The British & Foreign Bible Society (based in the UK) respects this copyright status, although many American organisations do not respect it and treat it wrongly as if it were public domain. In reality, the many editions of the KJV used in the USA are a revision of the text made by the American Bible Society and the rights for this revision are still held by ABS.

Notes:

Distribution License

Currently the files kjv.conf and kjva.conf contain the following key:

DistributionLicense=General public license for distribution for any purpose

This form of words does not match any of the defined options listed in Copyright & Licensing related elements. We should change this to one of the specified items.

Margin Notes

In a study of the marginal notes in the 1611 KJV, Scrivener counted:

• 6637 in the OT
• 1018 in the Apocrypha
• 0767 in the NT
• 8422 in total

Of the 767 notes in the NT, 35 are explanatory notes or brief ex­positions, 582 give alternative translations, 112 give a more literal ren­dering of the Greek than the translators judged suitable for the text, and 37 give readings of different manuscripts.

The KJV module (2.10 wip) currently has the following study notes:

• 6959 in the OT of which a few are duplicates on the same "page" for similar verses.

Literatura Bautista have an article entitled An exhaustive listing of the marginal notes of the 1611 edition of the King James Bible. This is a very useful resource for checking our module and comparing with the 1769 Reference Text. David Haslam has created an Excel worksheet for this purpose. We have identified up to 22 places where an OT note may be missing from the KJV module.

Notes:

Cross references

The KJV module currently lacks any cross-references, apart from one or two that happen to be included in the margin notes. There were extensive cross-references in the 1611 first edition, and the same quantity or more in the 1769 Oxford edition. Whereas margin notes used superscripted numerical tags, the cross-references generally used lowercase letters tags, likewise superscripted and usually in italics.

Road Map

First we must decide how to markup the observed differences betweem the present text and the Blayney 1769 Oxford edition.

List briefly the further enhancements we would like to make in the future beyond the next release.

KJV module:

• Add Greek equivalent to Strong's numbers. (3.0)
• Mark all proper names with the name element; with type person, geographic, etc.
• Use the foreign element to mark text that was transliterated from (e.g.) Aramaic to Greek in the NT.
• Use the inscription element to mark text that reports a written inscription.
• Tentative. Split KJV into KJV and AV where AV is an orthographic representation of the 1769 KJV. E.g. long s, ae, oe, fl, ffl, ....

Further thoughts based upon having the Blayney edition:

• Audit OT notes and make any necessary corrections.
• Move each note element to the start of its "catch word" in the verse (or title) text.
• Add the special note symbols († ‖ ⁕) from Blayney.
• Add front-matter: dedicatory and preface, OT intro, NT intro, ....
• Add any end titles. e.g. The End of the /PROPHETS/. (after Malachi).
• Add column breaks and page breaks. These would be milestone elements with either type="column" or type="pb".
• Add chronology (found at the top of page margins) as note to chapter starts (probably in first verse or verse 0.)
• Add NT chapter descriptions.
• Add OT chapter descriptions.
• Add xrefs and notes to NT.
• Add xrefs to OT.

Notes:

KJVA module:

KJVA is not being rebuilt when KJV is updated. It should be.

• Create the OSIS XML file for just the DC (deuterocanonical) books. Done. David Haslam
• Add bookGroup title and bookGroup end title.
• Update the book main titles to match those in 1769 KJV.
• Move the main title for EsthAdd to chapter 10 and change to type="section".
• Insert a horizontal ellipsis in the 12 empty verses before EsthAdd.10.4
• Change the title of the Epistle of Jeremy in Baruch 6 to type="section".
• Add chapter labels as per 1769 KJV. Use Roman numerals for chapter numbers.
• Add the two prologues to Sirach: one "made by an uncertain Author"; the other "of the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach."

---

• Audit DC books text and markup. Look especially for added words printed in italics.
• Check a printed edition for any Pilcrows and add them if found.
• Add DC study notes. There are none in the existing module!
• Add DC chapter descriptions. Restore pilcrows corresponding to verses tagged therein.
• Add DC xrefs. cf. Blayney's Bible included DC xrefs in the PC (protocanonical) OT & NT books.
• Build KJVA and KJV from same XML file.

Notes:

History

Text Development Stages

From the time the KJV module was first released, text and markup development has been done in several major stages:

• The original KJV2003 Project – user page no longer exists
• The KJV2006 Project
• The KJV2011 Effort
• The KJV 2.6 Effort – begun in 2013 and ongoing...

Module Versions

While the KJV was a module at CrossWire prior to version 2.0, this is the earliest for which dates can be determined.
Dates prior to version 2.3 are best estimates. (For changes in versions 1.x, refer to the file kjv.conf)

Revision	Date	Description
2.10	Being prepared	Improved OSIS markup. Minor textual changes to notes and titles. Details: (with progress marker) Update our custom OSIS schema to properly validate type values in rdg element. Correct type="alternative" (2.9) to "alternate". Move sID before osisID in verse elements. Add a final full-stop to all notes previously lacking one. Add a final full-stop to each book title, as observed in the Blayney edition. Mark all the abbreviations for "LXX", "Gr." & "Heb." found in notes using the abbr element. Add a space after the ¶ in the milestone marker. Add the hitherto missing ¶ in NT books: Romans—Revelation. Change red ¶ to black (i.e. within text marked as "words of Jesus") Make minor corrections to a few notes. Add the comma after ": or" and ": that is" that was missing from some notes. Add osisRef to catchWord, using the @s grain operator (for now at least, mainly for single keywords). Improve markup for colophon div in each Pauline epistle. Add osisID to the canonical Psalm titles. Add bookGroup div elements for OT & NT. Add majorSection div elements for the five books in the Psalter (but without titles) Remove the redundant chapterTitle attribute from the chapter element. Make canonical the first attribute in div & title elements. They line up better! Mark up the title element for each chapter & psalm to mimic the way that Blayney did it. Use Roman numerals for chapter & psalm numbers. Update Strong's numbers and lemma.TR to the latest TR from Maurice Robinson. Judiciously update Words of Christ (aka red letter markup) to match Louis Klopsch's 1901 edition. Update the 66 book titles to match those in the Blayney edition. Add osisID & n attributes to each note element. Add some few notes missing from the OT (less than 22). Review notes not found in the 1611 by comparison with the list from SB. Identify all notes for which the catchWord text doesn't match anything in the verse text (e.g. Job 8:20). Check the notes order for verses with multiple notes. Move some notes from Psalms verse 1 to the canonical title element. Review our policy regarding milestone type "x-extra-p" (729 items). Record file history in the OSIS header using the revisionDesc element Review and update conf file where required. Add Feature=GreekParse and Feature=HebrewParse.
2.9	2016-01-21	Improved OSIS markup. Details: Added catchWord and reading (rdg) markup to notes. Improved markup placement for Selah in 13 places.
2.8	2015-12-20	Improved OSIS markup. Details: Moved Ps 119 acrostic titles before verse number. Changed double spaces to a single space. Changed "Heb " to "Heb. " in notes. Added Feature=NoParagraphs.
2.7	2015-08-09	Fixed bugs preventing the display of some Strong's Numbers in the Old Testament. Improved markup of Strong's numbers in 2 Cor 15.
2.6.1	2014-02-15	Added GlobalOptionFilter for OSISLemma
2.6	2013-10-05	Fixed bugs. Added Greek from TR.
2.5	2013-02-02	Fixed bugs. See: KJV2011 Details: Fixed markup of added words. Fixed more Words of Christ markup. Fixed punctuation, apostrophes, dashes and placement of spaces. Fixed the markup of a word that was split into two parts. Other bug fixes.
2.4	2009-05-29	Fixed bugs. Updated red-letter markup of Words of Christ.
2.3	2006-10-09	Fixed bugs. See: Project KJV2006 Goals: Faithful representation of the KJV. Each book of the Bible is well-formed xml. Each book of the Bible is valid OSIS xml according to the 2.1.1 schema. The markup conforms to OSIS best practices as mentioned on the Sword-devel mailing list and the OSIS 2.1.1 user's manual Strong's markup normalized. Details: The xml is now well-formed. The xml is now valid OSIS 2.1.1 Strong's numbers have been normalized. Fixed the missing 's in the OT Moved whitespace and puncutation to a more sensible location and fixed whitespace problems. Positioned the pilcrow symbol ¶ at the start of verses. Validated against Old Scofield Study Bible for all differences found by comparing against the KJV encoded by Tim Lanfear for CCEL. Validated against Old Scofield Study Bible for all differences found by comparing against the KJV encoded Interleaf Bible. Fixed all existing titles and added missing ones. Fixed paragraphing Tagged all inscriptions Fixed and tagged all divine names Added xlit to w elements for the acrostic in Psalm 119 Hyphenated names Fixed names with Æ and æ Fixed a bug in osis2mod that incorrectly encoded the last verse of each book Removed Strong's number H00 as it does not exist.
2.2	2004-07-25	Updated to 20040121 snapshot of KJV2003.
2.1	2003-06-24	Changed Old Testament to use OSIS tags, removing the last of the GBF markup. Also updated to 20030624 snapshot of KJV2003. Compressed.
2.0	2003-01-08	Changed New Testament to use a snapshot of the KJV2003 Project

Note:

See also

• Reporting module issues
• English: KJVA module – KJV with Apocrypha

External links

• Origin of Red-Letter Bibles – CrossWay blog, March 23, 2006. Somewhat more informative than the Wikipedia page.
• Fenwick, George (1759), Thoughts on the Hebrew titles of the Psalms : and on some of those in the Septuagint, endeavouring to discover the meaning, and point out the use of them
• Benjamin Blayney, T. Wright and W. Gill; and sold by R. Baldwin, and S. Crowder, London; and by W. Jackson, in Oxford, 1769 – Google books digitisation (only Gen-Exod to date; accessed 2016-02-09).
• An 1872 edition of the KJV – Google books