The new translation of the Bible was no huge success when it was
first published. The English preferred to stick with the Geneva
Bibles they knew and loved. Besides, edition after edition was
littered with errors. The famous Wicked Bible of 1631 printed
Deuteronomy 5:24—meant to celebrate God's "greatnesse"—as "And
ye said, Behold, the Lord our God hath shewed us his glory, and
his great asse." The same edition also left out a crucial word
in Exodus 20:14, which as a result read, "Thou shalt commit
adultery." The printers were heavily fined. But by the mid-1600s
the King James had effectively replaced all its predecessors and
had come to be the Bible of the English-speaking world. As
English traders and colonists spread across the Atlantic and to
Africa and the Indian subcontinent, the King James Bible went
with them. It became embedded in the substance of empire, used
as wrapping paper for cigars, medicine, sweetmeats, and rifle
cartridges and eventually marketed as "the book your Emperor
reads." Medicine se