In 1643, a “pocket Bible” – The Souldiers Pocket Bible – was issued for use by the soldiers in Cromwell’s army. Some few still think this was an entire Bible, but it was in fact a pamphlet with excerpts of different Bible verses related to the army, soldiers, and war. The pamphlet was 5-1/2" X 3" with approximately 125 Bible verses on 16 pages. There is one verse on the title page. Writers usually claim that it contains verses from the Geneva Bible – which is generally correct, with at least two exceptions (and with the understanding that sometimes the verses in Geneva and King James are the same).[i]
“The Soldier’s Pocket Bible was composed of just 16 pages which contained 150 verse quotations from the Geneva Bible.”[ii]
“Originally published in 1643 during the English Civil war, the booklet is a collection of 125 verses from the Geneva Bible translation to encourage soldiers in Oliver Cromwell’s army.”[iii]
Here are a few excerpts. The Souldiers Pocket Bible did not always contain complete verses, and perhaps not always exact replicas of either version. For examples:
- Deuteronomy 23:9, When thou goest out with the host against thine enemies, keepe thee then from all wickednesse.
- KJV: When the hoste goeth foorth against thine enemies, then keepe thee from every wicked thing.
- GNV: When thou goest out with the hoaste against thine enemies, keepe thee then from all wickednesse.
- 1 Samuel 17:45, Then said David unto the Philistine, Thou commest to me with a sword, and with a speare, and with a shield, but I come unto thee in the name of the Lord of hoasts, the God of Israel...
- KJV: Then said David to the Philistine, Thou commest to mee with a sword, and with a speare, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the Name of the Lord of hostes, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.
- GNV: Then said David to the Philistim, Thou commest to me with a sword, and with a speare, and with a shield, but I come to thee in the Name of the Lord of hoastes, the God of the hoast of Israel, whom thou hast rayled upon.
- 1 Samuel 18:17, Be valiant and fight the Lords battels.
- KJV: ...onely be thou valiant for me, and fight the Lords battels...
- GNV: ...onely be a valiant sonne unto mee, & fight the Lords battels...
In his facsimile reprint of The Souldiers Pocket Bible, Francis Fry
quotes George Livermore’s observation about the pamphlet.
“The selections from Scripture are almost all from the Genevan version…Only one text (Eccles. ix. 2.) is unquestionably from the latter version [i.e., King James, rlv]. The variations from the Genevan consist in a occasional transcription of words, the substitution of a synonym, or similar looseness of quotation, as if memory alone had been relied on.”[iv]
- Ecclesiastes 9:2, All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked, to the good and to the cleane, and to the unclean, to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner: and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
- KJV: All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the cleane, and to the uncleane, to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner, and hee that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
- GNV: All things come alike to all: and the same condition is to the just and to the wicked, to the good and to the pure, and to the polluted, and to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner, and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
Perhaps even Fry and Livermore had not paid close attention to the Bible verse on the cover page (Joshua 1:8) which, other than a few words left out of the last clause (which are in both Geneva and KJV), matches the text of the King James Bible rather than the Geneva Bible.
- Joshua 1:8, This Book of the Law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou maiest observe to doe according to all that is written therein, for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and have good successe.
- KJV: This book of the law shal not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to doe according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good successe.
- GNV: Let not this booke of the Law depart out of thy mouth, but meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe and doe according to all that is written therein: for then shalt thou make thy way prosperous, and then shalt thou have good successe.
It seems there was no “grand conspiracy”
to exclude all use of the 1611 translation. Though the preponderance of verses
favor the Geneva Bible, there are places where the KJV and Geneva match, and places
in the pamphlet that do not match either translation. Furthermore, Hamlin and Jones suggest
that Cromwell was not deeply committed to use only the Geneva Bible.
“Although one might think that the Puritan Commonwealth would have been committed to the Bible most associated with English Puritans (the Geneva), even Oliver Cromwell now favored the KJB (printed by John Field, first Printer to Parliament and then ‘one of His Hignes [i.e. Cromwell’s] Printers’)’...Even before the end of the Commonwealth, no one was printing anything but the KJB, and its domination of the English Bible market was assured for the next 250 years.”[v]
For whatever reason – hatred of the KJV, love of the Geneva, sloppy research, repetition of “Christian urban myths,” riding the bandwagon, assumption the “scholars” are right – often the transition from the use of the Geneva Bible to the use of the King James Bible is presented in very controversial terms that are not cleanly supported by all the facts.
[ii] The Significance of Cromwell’s Soldiers’ Pocket Bible, Khanh Nguyen, page 1.
[iii] They Read the Same Bible: Bibles from the American Civil War.
[iv] Francis Fry quoting George Livermore of Boston, Massachusetts, who owned a copy. “Introduction,” The Souldiers Pocket Bible, 1643, Reproduced in Facsimile, Edmund Calamy, Francis Fry, London: Willis and Sotheran, 1862, pp. v-vi.
[v] “Introduction: the King James Bible and its reception history,” by Hamlin and Jones, in The King James Bible After Four Hundred Years: Literary, Linguistic, and Cultural Influences, edited by Hannibal Hamlin, Norman W. Jones. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 8.
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