On Monday, the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library opened an exhibition to celebrate the Bible. “Great and Manifold: A Celebration of the Bible in English” is running until June 3 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first printing of the King James Version. The free exhibit includes more than 90 items ranging from the Codex Torontonensis circa 1070, to the Robert Crumb graphic novel, The Book of Genesis Illustrated, published in 2009.

“[The King James Version] achieved iconic status by being the one thing that united a fractured English Protestantism from the mid-sixteenth to the twentieth centuries” says organizer Pearce Carefoote. This exhibit comes “400 years after the summoning of the convocation at Hampton Court by King James at which the decision to translate was first made.” The project has been in the works since 2004.

Included in the collection is a first edition of the King James Version, which is also known as the Authorized Version, even though King James never insisted that this be the only version of the Bible allowed in England. Also of interest is The Wicked Bible from 1631, which was ordered to be destroyed after only 1000 copies were made. It was realized that the omission of the word “not” from Exodus 22:14 meant that the Bible said, “Thou shalt commit adultery.” This is one of the rarest Bibles in the world. The Wicked Bible, along with the first edition King James Version, belongs to the library’s permanent collection.

Carefoot is very proud of the Coronation Bible they have displayed that originally belonged to Governor General Vincent Massey. Printed under the direction of Charles Batey, Printer to the University of Oxford, this Coronation Bible is number 17 of the 25 that were made. “[The Coronation Bible has] one of the most amazing design bindings in the exhibition — very startling for a Bible.”

The collection also includes a first copy of the King James Version to be printed and bound in Canada, and only dates back to 1944.

Carefoot suggests that the King James Version is more than a religious book; it is a work of literature designed to be read aloud possessing a “melody, rhythm, and cadence that subsequent translations have not been as successful in achieving.”