Verschuur's PCE is Not a Diplomatic Edition

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1 April 2023 index-topical-hb

The "Pure Cambridge Edition" isn't quite "pure" in the sense one might thing, and it isn't quite an "edition" in the sense one might think either. The simplified version of the story might be that, after the 1769 edition of the KJV left some errors here and there, over the intervening century and a half Cambridge polished off the rough spots until it had an extremely uniform text, which we have every reason to treat as the standard KJV from now on.

The story becomes somewhat more complicated when one considers that the "edition" is not so much an edition in the normal sense of the term as it is a collection of very similar but not quite identical Bibles. And so, when Matthew Verschuur presents to the world his electronic "presentation" of the Pure Cambridge Edition, he is not simply producing an exact copy of any actual physical Bible in existence.

He is instead performing a sort of spiritual text-critical editing task, as he outlines in his own pamphlet, "The Revelation of the Pure word":

There have been in various presentations of the Pure Cambridge Edition, whether the historically printed books or electronic texts, which may be found to contain a small number of differences. These differences are either the result of random typographical errors and errata which are restricted to a single issue or set of printing plates, or there are very slight textual variations in various presentations of the Pure Cambridge Edition text. The standard text of the Pure Cambridge Edition is not merely that first one which came off the press somewhere around 1900, nor is it in the handwritten notes of the editor, nor is it in any volume or text printed or produced since that time at Cambridge University Press. ... It has only been the invention and application of the merging of electronic documents that has allowed all accidental typographical errors to be eliminated from an electronic text. ... The Elders of Victory Faith Centre, in their guardianship of the Pure Cambridge Edition, have produced an electronic text of the Pure Cambridge Edition which is completely free of any such errors whatsoever. ...

As for variations in the Pure Cambridge Edition, these have also been settled and resolved by the Elders of Victory Faith Centre in their apostolic office of the guardianship of the Pure Cambridge Edition. There are several minor variations, some of which have come in by accidental adherence to the Oxford Edition, that may be found in some presentations. Seven variations which may be found in a significant proportion of the presentation of historically printed Pure Cambridge Editions from Cambridge and Collins have been examined, and resolved and settled in the standard text of the Pure Cambridge Edition. The existence of any variation, or the mere possibility of them is also resolved by the standard text as produced by the Elders of Victory Faith Centre.

The seven common variations of the Pure Cambridge Edition were resolved by the Pure Cambridge Edition Guardians, who examined renderings at each place, and judged what was correct.

In reproducing Mr. Verschuur's table above, I only regret that I do not have the means here to render the "variation" in the last four verses properly in small caps.

The end point I wish to leave you with is not that the Pure Cambridge Edition is a bad attempt at a KJV -- it may well be the best-proofread example on the internet. But it is not simply a reproduction of any existing printed text. It is the outcome of specific editorial decisions made by specific people, producing a text which may not correspond precisely to any printed text in existence.