Textus Receptus Bibles
Geneva Bible 1560/1599
| 20:1 | The Lord also spake vnto Ioshua, saying, |
| 20:2 | Speake to the children of Israel, and say, Appoint you cities of refuge, whereof I spake vnto you by the hand of Moses, |
| 20:3 | That the slaier that killeth any person by ignorance, and vnwittingly, may flee thither, and they shall be your refuge from the auenger of blood. |
| 20:4 | And he that doeth flee vnto one of those cities, shall stand at the entring of the gate of the citie, and shall shewe his cause to the Elders of the citie: and they shall receiue him into the citie vnto them, and giue him a place, that hee may dwell with them. |
| 20:5 | And if the auenger of blood pursue after him, they shall not deliuer the slaier into his hand because hee smote his neighbour ignorantly, neither hated he him before time: |
| 20:6 | But hee shall dwell in that citie vntill hee stande before the Congregation in iudgement, or vntill the death of the hie Priest that shall be in those daies: then shall the slaier returne, and come vnto his owne citie, and vnto his owne house, euen vnto the citie from whence he fled. |
| 20:7 | Then they appointed Kedesh in Galil in mount Naphtali, and Shechem in mount Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba, (which is Hebron) in the mountaine of Iudah. |
| 20:8 | And on the other side Iorden toward Iericho Eastward, they appoynted Bezer in the wildernesse vpon the plaine, out of the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead, out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan, out of the tribe of Manasseh. |
| 20:9 | These were the cities appoynted for all the children of Israel, and for the stranger that soiourned among them, that whosoeuer killed any person ignorantly, might flee thither, and not die by the hande of the auenger of blood, vntill hee stoode before the Congregation. |
Geneva Bible 1560/1599
The Geneva Bible is one of the most influential and historically significant translations of the Bible into English, preceding the King James translation by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of 16th century Protestantism and was the Bible used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John Knox, John Donne, and John Bunyan. The language of the Geneva Bible was more forceful and vigorous and because of this, most readers strongly preferred this version at the time.
The Geneva Bible was produced by a group of English scholars who, fleeing from the reign of Queen Mary, had found refuge in Switzerland. During the reign of Queen Mary, no Bibles were printed in England, the English Bible was no longer used in churches and English Bibles already in churches were removed and burned. Mary was determined to return Britain to Roman Catholicism.
The first English Protestant to die during Mary's turbulent reign was John Rogers in 1555, who had been the editor of the Matthews Bible. At this time, hundreds of Protestants left England and headed for Geneva, a city which under the leadership of Calvin, had become the intellectual and spiritual capital of European Protestants.
One of these exiles was William Whittingham, a fellow of Christ Church at Oxford University, who had been a diplomat, a courtier, was much traveled and skilled in many languages including Greek and Hebrew. He eventually succeeded John Knox as the minister of the English congregation in Geneva. Whittingham went on to publish the 1560 Geneva Bible.
This version is significant because, it came with a variety of scriptural study guides and aids, which included verse citations that allow the reader to cross-reference one verse with numerous relevant verses in the rest of the Bible, introductions to each book of the Bible that acted to summarize all of the material that each book would cover, maps, tables, woodcut illustrations, indices, as well as other included features, all of which would eventually lead to the reputation of the Geneva Bible as history's very first study Bible.