A brother of mine, whom we shall call Robert, for that is his name, is on the hunt for a Bible. Not just any Bible, mind you, but a specific Bible, or at least a specific edition of the Bible, and that even older than the ones produced by Mr Murdoch. He is desperate to locate a 1885 edition of the King James Bible, the precise title and publishing details of which are:

The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and the New Testaments: translated out of The Original Tongues, and with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised (New York: American Bible Society, Instituted in the year MDCCCXVI, 1885)

The edition sought has a page layout like this:

Why is he looking for a copy? He is just about to complete three months sabbatical leave during which he has been engaged with creating a digitised version of the Cook Islands Maori Bible. It is a journey he has been taking with the Uniting Bible Societies (South Pacific/NZ/Australia) and Cook Islands Christian Church in Rarotonga.

Over the past year, volunteers from NZ, Australia and Rarotonga have been manually typing the text into a Word document in preparation for transfer to the programme Paratext, and subsequent editing etc. The Cook Islands ‘Hard Copy Bible’ has reference columns inclusive. Robert has identified the KJV edition mentioned above as that which was used by the translators in producing the original Cook Islands Maori Bible and believes that availing himself of the reference information in that edition is now vital in taking his project forward. So if anyone can assist Robert in locating a copy of the KJV in question, he would be most delighted to hear from you. You can leave a comment below or email Robert directly.