[Original version posted 29 March 2007]
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ne of the many unfinished projects I lost a few years back
along with a large part of my library (collected over many years) was something
I had tentatively titled Dubious
Documents. The chain of links between the creation and reception of a text
is fraught with peril, and errors in transmission, translation, and
interpretation can render a document toxic. The idea was to examine a number of
documents that aren't what they’re cracked up to be, and to see what exactly
went wrong in each case. One of the texts I was considering is the (so-called)
Bible of the Revolution, the 1782 Bible printed by Robert Aitken.
Now my files are lost, I have no office, and my notes are
irretrievably gone, but in this case, however, I really lucked out. Somehow or
other I stumbled onto an account of the “Bible of the Revolution” by Chris
Rodda, the author of Liars for Jesus: The
Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History.
What Chris Rodda has done is extremely neat, and I hope more
authors in the future follow up on this approach. She put her footnotes on line. I can't emphasize this enough—she
has given us her sources, and not just simple citations, but actual images of
pages or documents so that the readers can examine her evidence directly for
themselves. This practice alone, if followed by others (I’m looking at you, David Barton), would eliminate much
bogus scholarship—cargo-cult scholarship I called it once in connection with
those who support the so-called Byzantine Majority Text of the New Testament.
So in this case I want to emphasize that whatever research I
may have done in the past on this subject, for this piece I acknowledge that I started
by simply taking Chris Rodda's research as the basis for my account. (Not of
course that she’s in any way responsible for my take on the issues involved.)
Okay, so what's the story on the Bible of the Revolution? What
is the shadow that hangs over it? This version comes from William Federer’s America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of
Quotations:
Robert Aitken (1734-1802), on January 21, 1781, as publisher of The Pennsylvania Magazine, petitioned
Congress for permission to print Bibles, since there was a shortage of Bibles
in America due to the Revolutionary War interrupting trade with England. The
Continental Congress, September 10, 1782, in response to the shortage of
Bibles, approved and recommended to the people that The Holy Bible be printed
by Robert Aitken of Philadelphia. This first American Bible was to be “a neat edition
of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools”.
The story has been around for awhile. It got a boost in 1930
when two guys had one of these rare bibles dismembered and the pages
individually bound along with an account of this story and facsimiles of
related documents. Chris Rodda cites one account (W. P. Strickland, History of the American Bible Society from
its Organization to the Present Time) from 1849:
In 1781, when, from the existence of the war, an English
Bible could not be imported, and no opinion could be formed how long the
obstruction might continue, the subject of printing the Bible was again
presented to Congress, and it was, on motion, referred to a committee of three.
The committee, after giving the subject a careful investigation,
recommended to Congress an edition printed by Robert Aitken, of Philadelphia;
whereupon it was “Resolved, That the United States, in Congress assembled,
highly approve the pious and laudable undertaking of Mr. Aitken, as subservient
to the interests of religion; and being satisfied of the care and accuracy of
the execution of the work, recommend this edition to the inhabitants of the
United States.”
What is particularly interesting is that this account gives
the text of a key document in the story, the actual resolution by Congress. The
document is a bit puzzling, however, in that Congress merely approves Aitken’s
undertaking, and recommends his volume. What practical effect this might have
is unclear. Also the document as printed doesn’t have that line in it about it
being a neat edition for use in schools given in the later account.
Now fortunately—and this isn't always the case with historical
documents, far from it—the original archives still survive. So in this case we
can check the text of this version against the original, and when we do, we
find that the text of this document has been unaccountably garbled in
transmission. The resolution actually read:
Whereupon, Resolved,
That the United States in Congress assembled, highly approve the pious and
laudable undertaking of Mr. Aitken, as subservient to the interest of religion as well as an instance of the progress of
arts in this country, and being satisfied of the care and accuracy in the execution of the work, they recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the
United States, and hereby authorise him
to publish this recommendation in the manner he shall think proper.
[passages omitted by Strickland in bold]
The first thing that jumps out—and this is a low end version
of what is called redaction criticism—is that the Strickland version omits two
key passages—the first giving a secular reason for Congress’s action (“an
instance of the progress of arts in this country”), and the second giving a
practical consequence of the resolution (Aitken is authorized to publish the
recommendation of Congress based on the care and accuracy taken in the work).
The editing of the text appears to have been done to give the impression that
Congress was more intimately involved with the project than it was—to make it
look, in fact, as though Congress was sponsoring Aitken’s bible. The
surrounding text shows that is exactly what Strickland wants us to understand,
and his conclusion is especially striking:
Who, in view of this fact, will call in question the assertion that
this is a Bible nation? Who will charge the government with indifference to
religion, when the first Congress of the States assumed all the rights and
performed all the duties of a Bible Society long before such an institution had
an existence in the world!
The changes, in other words, help make the document support
Strickland’s position. Whether he is the perpetrator of this new version of the
Congressional resolution, or merely a victim of some other editor, is
immaterial. The key point is that the text was altered, and that the alteration
was made in the interest of religious politics.
Which, in turn, casts some doubt on the rest of the story.
Fortunately, we don’t have to leave it there. The documents exist and give us
that story. Remember that phrase about the Aitken Bible being a neat edition of
the Holy Scriptures intended for schools? That wasn’t in the resolution. Where
did it come from? It came from a record of Congress, says one source, which is
technically true (though extremely misleading). It came, in fact, from a
memorial of Robert Aitken of the city of Philadelphia, printer, to the Congress
of the United States. He started by noting
That in every well regulated Government in Christendom The Sacred
Books of the Old and New Testament, Commonly called the Holy Bible, Are printed
and published under the Authority of the Sovereign Powers, in order to prevent
the fatal confusion that would arise, and the alarming Injuries the Christian
Faith might Suffer from the spurious and erroneous Editions of Divine
Revelation.
Aitken, in other words, was thinking of the United States as
functioning somewhat in the manner of England, which had an officially
established church, and in which publishing the authorized version of the bible
was a prerogative of the Crown. He then goes on
That your Memorialist has no doubt but this w[ould] be an Object
worthy the attention of the Congress of the United States of America, who will
not Neglect spiritual security, while they are virtuously contending for
temporal Blessings. Under this persuasion your Memorialist begs leave to inform
your Honours, That he hath begun and made considerable progress in a neat
Edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools, but being cautious of
suffering his copy of the Bible to Issue forth without the sanction of
Congress, Humbly prays that your Honours would take this important Matter into
serious consideration & would be pleased to appoint one Member or Members
of your Honourable Body to inspect his work so that the same may be published
under the authority of Congress. And further your Memorialist prays, that he
may be Commissioned or other wise appointed & authorised to print and vend
Editions of the Sacred Scriptures, in Such manner and form as may best suit the
wants and demands of the good people of these States, provided the same be in
all things perfectly consonant to the Scriptures as heretofore Established and
received amongst us, And as in Duty bound your Memorialist shall ever pray
So it looks as if Robert Aitken, printer, had visions of being
the authorized bible publisher for the new nation, “appointed ... to print and
vend Editions of the Sacred Scriptures”; the possibility of getting the
contract for supplying school bibles must have seemed especially attractive. He
seems to have been traditional enough not to want anything to do with an
edition that was not “perfectly consonant to the Scriptures as heretofore Established”.
I find this proviso interesting. Did he imagine that Congress might come up
with its own version of the Holy Scriptures? It seems to speak of a certain
lack of confidence in the soundness of their religion, anyway.
So, how did Congress respond to these requests? Did it
recommend that Aitken’s bible be used in schools? Well, no. Did it commission
Robert Aitken, printer, to print and vend editions of the Holy Scriptures?
Again, no. Did it have the work published under its authority? Once again, no.
What Congress did was have the chaplains check the book for accuracy, and allow
Aitken to publish a statement that Congress found it to be carefully and
accurately done. And that’s all Congress did. They pointedly did not authorize
its use in schools, for example. In the end Congress did not even buy copies
for distribution to the troops, as Aitken hoped. The edition lost money, and
its poor sales are the reason it is so rare today.
Documents become corrupt for a variety of reasons. This
example at least shows how religious politics can distort the text of one
document, cloud the origins of another, and at least imply an authority for a
third that it never possessed. In point of fact the “Bible of the Revolution”
is simply a failed speculation on the part of an obscure printer in the late
eighteenth century.
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