Not only have I received several requests to do these counts, I myself have been especially curious to find out whether the counts of the KJB would match earlier English Bibles. It’s well known for anybody acquainted with these Bibles, that they are very similar to each other. I was surprised to see that all of them contain a slightly different number of mentions of Jesus. The perfect count of 980x (Complete forgiveness of sins, 70×7 doubled) doesn’t seem to have appeared until the 1611 King James Bible.
KING JAMES (Standardized)
Total Mentions:
Jesus(‘) = 980x PURE = (70×7 + 70×7)
Jesus(‘) = 983x RAW
Jesus(‘) = 984x RAW (incl. Bar-jesus in Acts 13.6)
Notes: 70×7 mentions occur perfectly in every other book- click here to view on KJVCode. Antimentions are found in Acts 7:45, Colossians 4:11, and Hebrews 4:8.
–
KING JAMES 1611
Iesus = 982x (incl. Bariesus)
Iesvs = 2x
Total Mentions:
Iesus | Iesvs = 980x PURE = (70×7 + 70×7)
Iesus | Iesvs = 983x RAW
Iesus | Iesvs = 984x RAW (incl. Bariesus in Acts 13.6)
Notes: The Apocrypha does contain 18 mentions of Jesus and one of them refers to Christ in 2 Esdras 7:28, but Apocrypha mentions are never included in any counts published by Brandon / @TruthisChrist. The Apocrypha was never counted as inspired scripture, which is why it was separated from the Old and New Testaments and labeled “Apocrypha”.
–
IMPORTANT NOTE FOR ALL BIBLES LISTED BELOW: I haven’t yet verified the Pure vs Raw mentions. I assume there are no other Raw mentions besides the standard ones in the KJB (Acts 7.45, Acts 13:6, Col 4.11, Heb 4.8) so those are the only ones I accounted for. Each Bible requires a complete manual comparison with the mentions of Jesus in the KJB in order to verify the counts with 100% veracity. Until they have been independently verified by two or three witnesses, all counts remain “unofficial”. If you take it upon yourself to verify any of the counts, please email me at peterson6x@gmail.com with your results and any special notes that you concluded with.
All text files can be downloaded for yourself if you scroll to the bottom of the page.
Lastly, there were no apostrophes back then, so all ten possessive mentions of Jesus’ in our KJB today would simply appear without any punctuation mark in pre-1611 Bibles. Apostrophes were introduced in the KJB in the year 1762, seven years before the infamous 1769 edition.
–
BISHOPS 1568
Iesus = 952x
Iesu = 42x (incl. Bariesu)
Total Mentions:
Iesus | Iesu = 990x PURE
Iesus | Iesu = 993x RAW
Iesus | Iesu = 994x RAW (incl. Bariesu in Acts 13.6)
Notes: The (+10) difference from the KJB would be interesting to find out- requires a complete manual comparison between BISHOPS and KJB.
–
GENEVA 1560 (1587)
Iesus = 975x (incl. Bariesus)
Iesvs = 20x
Total Mentions:
Iesus | Iesvs = 991x PURE
Iesus | Iesvs = 994x RAW
Iesus | Iesvs = 995x RAW (incl. Bariesus in Acts 13.6)
Notes: I would assume the counts are the same between the original publishing of 1560 and 1587. The text file is a 1587 edition.
–
COVERDALE 1535
Iesus = 864x
Iesu = 119x (incl. Bariesu)
Total Mentions:
Iesus | Iesu = 981x PURE
Iesus | Iesu = 982x RAW
Iesus | Iesu = 983x RAW (incl. Bariesus in Acts 13.6)
Notes: Acts 7:45 is rendered as Iosue. Hebrews 4:8 is rendered as Iosua. This count of 981x PURE is very close to the KJB (980x). It would be interesting to see the (-1) mention discrepancy. Needs a complete manual check to verify if its just one offset, or if there are other offsets that occur.
–
TYNDALE 1534
Iesus = 853x
Iesu = 135x (incl. Bariesu)
Total Mentions:
Iesus | Iesu = 986x PURE
Iesus | Iesu = 987x RAW
Iesus | Iesu = 988x RAW (incl. Bariesus in Acts 13.6)
Notes: Both Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8 are rendered as Iosue. It would be nice to know the (-6) discrepancy from the KJB.
–
Counts extracted from plain text files (.txt) with manual removal of Old Testament appearances.
Download Files
Here are the original text files I used, along with edited “Search Ready” versions I saved, which remove the Old Testament appearances of Iesu.
Click here to download.
Files originally downloaded from Bible Super Search and dates for each Bible were confirmed by emailing the admin of that website.