Millions of individuals read the New Testament printed with the words of Jesus in red. Most people don’t realise that it is a fairly modern evangelical tradition. This is the story …
Louis Klopsch
The idea was developed by a person 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 often known as “Prophet Baxter” due to his frequent end-time predictions, and within the 1870s he supported Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey after 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 began 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 change into its proprietor. In 1901 the New York Christian Herald was renamed The Christian Herald by which era it had grown to have a big cross-denominational readership peaking at nearly 1 / 4 of 1,000,000.
Klopsch became friend to distinguished evangelical leaders on the time like Thomas De Witt Talmage, Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey. The Herald alerted readers to crises around the globe 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), in addition to 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 within the King James Version where Jesus said: “This cup is the brand new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.” This gave him the thought of printing the very words of Jesus in the color of blood i.e. red.
Rubrication
The strategy of colouring some words in red, often known as rubrication, was not in itself recent. Klopsch could have been aware that rubrication had been common in medieval manuscript to stress certain passages, and was used to mark liturgical directions in Orthodox texts, however it was not the practice in printed Protestant Bibles. The ‘rubrication’ term comes from the Latin word ‘rubricare’ intending to color red, related to the word ruby.
At the time just about the one 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, within the KJV it was not obvious what was speech and what was not speech. Modern Bible versions now insert speech marks, but these didn’t exist within the King James Version, and so using red letters served a helpful purpose on the time.
First Red Letter Bible
Consulting various Bible scholars, Klopsch decided which parts to color red. In 1899 the Christian Herald printed the primary 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 highly regarded so in 1901, The Christian Herald printed the primary 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 complete conviction that it would meet the needs of the coed, the employee, and the searchers after truth in all places.” In the history of the Bible, this makes it a comparatively modern innovation, and now it has change into an evangelical tradition.
Red Sections
Some red letter Bible editions only include the words of Jesus within the 4 Gospels, but others also color sections in red in Acts and the epistles. For example some editions color 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 color red where Jesus is quoted on the Last Supper in 1 Corinthian 11:24-15 and where Jesus is quoted in 2 Corinthians 12:9.
Some Bibles color 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 three, Revelation 4:1, Revelation 16:15 and Revelation 22:12-13, 16 and 20.
Problems
However there are plenty of problems with red letter Bibles. One issue is that it implies to the reader that we all know exactly where speech began and finished. In most cases it is obvious, but sometimes it just isn’t. There was no punctuation or speech marks in the unique Greek. Where to start out and stop the red letters is the choice of the editor. As a result, not all red letter editions are the identical, and different editions color different sections in red. For example within the third chapter of John, scholars disagree as as to if Jesus ends his message at verse 15 or at verse 21.
The use of red letters can provide the concept the red text is more necessary than the black text which it sits in. For some people this is sort of a canon throughout the canon. The danger is that red letter editions of the Bible serve to create the concept one a part of the New Testament is more necessary than others. It can provide the concept the words of Jesus in red are the first text and the remaining in black is secondary. The color of the text is not meant to raise one section over one other, even though it could have that effect in some people’s minds. From a practical standpoint adding red ink makes the Bible dearer to supply.
Advantages
For some people the thought of red letters for the words of Jesus is that it seems to honour Christ. The real benefits of red letter Bibles is in old versions just like the King James Version which didn’t include speech marks, and so the red letters are helpful to quickly and simply discover the words of Jesus. For many individuals it helps them to check by highlighting the words of Jesus.
On a practical level, taking a look 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 color may 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, only a granite stone with a small plaque. His biggest memorial is that today many Bible publishers produce red letter editions.
