Bible Errata - Fictional Bible Errata

Fictional Bible Errata

• In the novel Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett created the "Buggre Alle This Bible" of 1651 (and the Charing Cross Bible). The typesetter replaced Ezekiel 48:5 with a rant complaining about his job. It also has three extra verses at the end of Genesis 3 about the loss of the flaming sword by the angel Aziraphale, added by Aziraphale himself, a character in the story. Passages from the Buggre Alle This Bible are:

  (Ezekiel 48:5)

  "Buggre Alle this for a Larke. I amme sick to mye Hart of typesettinge. Master Biltonn is no Gentlemann, and Master Scagges noe more than a tighte fisted Southwarke Knobbesticke. I telle you, onne a daye laike this Ennyone with half an oz. of Sense shoulde bee oute in the Sunneshain, ane nott Stucke here alle the livelong daie inn this mowldey olde By-Our-Lady Workeshoppe. @*Ǣ@;!*

  (Genesis verses 3:25–27)

  25. And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying Where is the flaming sword which was given unto thee?

  26. And the Angel said, I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down some where, forget my own head next.

  27. And the Lord did not ask him again.

• In the UK television show Red Dwarf, an obscure fundamentalist Christian sect on Io based its worship on a Bible wherein 1 Corinthians 13:13 reads "Faith, hop, and charity, and the greatest of these is hop." The sect is consequently known as "Seventh Day Advent Hoppists" and members spend every Sunday hopping. Arnold Judas Rimmer's parents were members of this sect and raised him accordingly, but he appears to have left the faith.
• In an episode of M*A*S*H, Fr. Mulcahey has to return a shipment of Bibles that say "Thou shalt commit adultery", i.e., containing the same error as in the Wicked Bible.
• The Poisonwood Bible is a 1998 bestselling novel by Barbara Kingsolver which mentions some of the famous "misprint Bibles" such as the Camel Bible, the Murderer's Bible, and the Bug Bible. The novel's title refers to the character of Nathan Price, a missionary in the 1950s Belgian Congo who creates his own "misprint" by mispronouncing the local expression "Tata Jesus is bängala", meaning "Jesus is most precious". In his pronunciation, he actually says "Jesus is poisonwood!"
• "The Pain – When Will It End?" comic from 9 July 2008, in reference to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN shows protesting Christian Fundamentalists, one of whom carries a placard saying "Thou Shalt not comingle the Boson and the Fermion; for it is an Abomination in MY Eyes- Deuteronomy 59:12"
• A joke (which appeared in Reader's Digest in the 1980s) concerns a monk discovering that the word "celibate" in the Bible was originally "celebrate". In another version, The Pope is the one who makes the discovery.
• In the Family Guy episode Holy Crap, two cardinals discuss a fictional error in the bible. One cardinal remarks to another, "Hey, did you ever notice this? On page 375, it says 'Jebus'." The other cardinal replies, "It's supposed to say Jesus, right?"
• In the American Dad! episode "The One That Got Away", Roger sabotages an alter ego character of himself who is a Bible salesman by sneaking an edit into a new print run of Bibles. The boss is not happy when Genesis starts "In the beginning God created the Heavens and a transvestite who pooped mozzarella dinosaurs."