Puritan Bible in 1720 (ish)

[sleightly]

My character is a Puritan girl living in New England in the early 1700s.  As a good Puritan, she reads her Bible religiously (humor, har), and I want to quote a few sections that are personally meaningful to her.  So the question is, what Bible would she be reading?  It looks like either the Geneva Bible or the King James Bible, but I'm not sure.

Comments

[goldvermilion87]

In Jonathan Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" he quotes the KJV, not the Geneva Bible... so KJV?

[goldvermilion87]

("Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is from 1741)

[sleightly]

Didn't know that, thanks!

[rosefox]

A copy of the Geneva Bible could certainly be a family heirloom. High-quality books were very expensive at the time, especially in the colonies, and family records were often inscribed on the Bible flyleaf. It's the sort of thing one would keep around.

[dragonimp]

The Book of Books: A Biography of the King James Bible, 1611-2011 talks in a couple chapters about which version was in wider use when and by whom. Unfortunately I read it out of the library and so can't go check, but I think Puritains mostly still used the Geneva.

[sleightly]

I'll have to see if I can find that at my library, thanks!

[anonymous]

Given the reasons behind the Puritans being in New England, wouldn't the King James bible be rejected out of hand?
I mean, it's officially sanctioned by the ruler of the country from which you've fled for reasons of religious scism.

[sleightly]

And yet, as far as I can tell, the KJV did become very popular with Puritans later in the century. It's just that I can't tell exactly when. :)