The story behind the red letters in your Bible

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Millions of people read the New Testament printed with the words of Jesus in red. Most people do not realise that this is a fairly modern evangelical tradition. This is the story ...

Louis Klopsch

The idea was developed by a man called Louis Klopsch (1852-1910) who was born in Prussia on March 7, 1852. After his mother died in 1853, his father Dr Osmar Klopsch took the family to the US in 1854 and he was brought up in New York. Louis left school and worked in journalism rising through the ranks.

The Christian Herald

In 1874, a British weekly newspaper called "The Christian Herald and Signs of Our Times" was founded by Anglican clergyman Rev Michael Paget Baxter (1834-1910). He was popularly known as "Prophet Baxter" because of his frequent end-time predictions, and in the 1870s he supported Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey when they were in Britain. The Christian Herald was based at 1 Bakehouse Court, St Paul's Chain, London.

In 1878, an American edition called The New York Christian Herald was started by Joseph Spurgeon, a cousin of the famous preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon, based at 63 Bible House, New York. In 1898 Louis Klopsch became the editor, and in 1899 ended up buying it to become its proprietor. In 1901 the New York Christian Herald was renamed The Christian Herald by which time it had grown to have a large cross-denominational readership peaking at nearly a quarter of a million.

Klopsch became a good friend to prominent evangelical leaders at the time like Thomas De Witt Talmage, Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey. The Herald alerted readers to crises around the world and rallied Christian support for relief, raising huge sums for famines in Russia (1892), India (1897), Cuba (1898), Sweden and Finland (1903), and Japan (1906), as well as an earthquake in Italy in 1908. In 1904, Klopsch received the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal First Class for services in India from King Edward VII, and in 1907 he received the Order of the Rising Sun from the Emperor of Japan.

The Inspiration

On June 19, 1899, Klopsch was working on an editorial when he read Luke 22:20 in the King James Version where Jesus said: "This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you." This gave him the idea of printing the very words of Jesus in the colour of blood i.e. red.

Rubrication

The process of colouring some words in red, known as rubrication, was not in itself new. Klopsch may have been aware that rubrication had been common in medieval manuscript to emphasise certain passages, and was used to mark liturgical directions in Orthodox texts, but it was not the practice in printed Protestant Bibles. The 'rubrication' term comes from the Latin word 'rubricare' meaning to colour red, related to the word ruby.

At the time pretty much the only Bible translation in normal use was the Authorized or King James Version. This Bible dated back to a time before quotation marks were used as punctuation. Thus, in the KJV it was not obvious what was speech and what was not speech. Modern Bible versions now insert speech marks, but these did not exist in the King James Version, and so using red letters served a helpful purpose at the time.

First Red Letter Bible

Consulting various Bible scholars, Klopsch decided which parts to colour red. In 1899 the Christian Herald printed the first red letter New Testament, with a print run of 60,000. It was entitled "The New Testament . . . With All the Words Recorded Therein, as Having Been Spoken by Our Lord, Printed in Color". This proved very popular so in 1901, The Christian Herald printed the first red letter Bible entitled "The Holy Bible: Red Letter Edition".

In the 1901 Bible, Klopsch wrote: "The Red Letter Bible has been prepared and issued in the full conviction that it will meet the needs of the student, the worker, and the searchers after truth everywhere." In the history of the Bible, this makes it a relatively modern innovation, and now it has become an evangelical tradition.

Red Sections

Some red letter Bible editions only include the words of Jesus in the four Gospels, but others also colour sections in red in Acts and the epistles. For example some editions colour parts of Acts red where Jesus is quoted talking to St Peter in Acts 10:13 and Acts 11:7 and 9, to St Paul in Acts 10:15 and Acts 18:9-10, and where Jesus is quoted in Acts 11:16. Some editions also colour red where Jesus is quoted at the Last Supper in 1 Corinthian 11:24-15 and where Jesus is quoted in 2 Corinthians 12:9.

Some Bibles colour verses red in Revelation where John is spoken to in his vision e.g. Revelation 1:8, 11, 17-20 and whole of Revelation chapters 2 and 3, Revelation 4:1, Revelation 16:15 and Revelation 22:12-13, 16 and 20.

Problems

However there are a number of problems with red letter Bibles. One issue is that it implies to the reader that we know exactly where speech started and finished. In most cases it is clear, but sometimes it is not. There was no punctuation or speech marks in the original Greek. Where to start and stop the red letters is the decision of the editor. As a result, not all red letter editions are the same, and different editions colour different sections in red. For example in the third chapter of John, scholars disagree as to whether Jesus ends his message at verse 15 or at verse 21.

The use of red letters can give the idea that the red text is more important than the black text which it sits in. For some people this is like a canon within the canon. The danger is that red letter editions of the Bible serve to create the idea that one part of the New Testament is more important than others. It can give the idea that the words of Jesus in red are the primary text and the rest in black is secondary. The colour of the text isn't meant to elevate one section over another, although it may have that effect in some people's minds. From a practical point of view adding red ink makes the Bible more expensive to produce.

Advantages

For some people the idea of red letters for the words of Jesus is that it seems to honour Christ. The real advantages of red letter Bibles is in old versions like the King James Version which did not include speech marks, and so the red letters are helpful to quickly and easily identify the words of Jesus. For many people it helps them to study by highlighting the words of Jesus.

On a practical level, looking at pages of black text is daunting. Modern Bibles break up the text into paragraphs and add sub-headings to make it easier to read and navigate. Adding colour can also break up the page and make it visually more attractive and interesting.

Death

By the time that Louis Klopsch died in New York 1910, aged 57, his idea had already been copied. He has no large memorial, just a granite stone with a small plaque. His greatest memorial is that today many Bible publishers produce red letter editions.