His editorial textual corrections, italicisations, marginal notes, column headings and cross-references played a major part in updating and standardising the 1611 Authorised King James Version of the Bible.
Born 1707 in Bythorn, Huntingdonshire, a younger child of Francis and Elizabeth Parris, he was baptised at the parish church on 21 December.
He was appointed Master of Sidney Sussex in 1746, and University Librarian, both which positions he retained until his early death on 1 May 1760.
From the mid-1730s, the Syndics’ stated ambition was to “serve the Public with a more beautiful and correct Edition [of the Bible] than can easily be found.” When the first ‘Inspector of the Press,’ Cornelius Crownfield retired in 1740, he was succeeded by Joseph Bentham, as the University’s Inspector of the Press (28 March 1740) and Printer to the University (14 December 1740).
At the same time, the ‘Syndics’ invited Parris to check and proof-read the text of the Bibles that Bentham would produce.