"G" is for the German Bible before Luther

Leaf from the Koberger German Language Bible  ("click" photo for larger view).

     The Koberger Bible is the ninth of the eighteen editions of bibles printed in German baefore Luther (14 High-German and 4 Low-German), and is considered one of the most beautiful bibles ever printed.  The beautiful Bastarda typeface is reminiscent of manuscripts.  The hand-colored woodcuts of the Koberger Bible are impressive because of their rich colors and diverse shades.  It is assumed that many copies of the Bible were colored in Koberger's own workshop before they were sold, which was quite unusual at the time.  They exerted a decisive influence on later Bible illustrations, becoming the prototype for German bible illustrations in particular, fixing 109 as the standard number of woodcuts used.  Koberger left blank spaces for initials in the text, which were then painted with red and blue Lombard initials after the printing, probably also directly in Koberger's workshop.  The text is a translation of the Latin Vulgate taken from the fourth German b ible published by Zainer in Augsburg in 1475.  In addition to the Nuremberg Chronicle, the Koberger Bible is one of Koberger's most important prints.  It is estimated that the print run was between 1000 to 1500 copies, of which only about 150 extent copies still exist in public collections.  The printing office of Koberger was equipped with 25 manual presses, and employed about 100 assistants.  For its time, it was a large firm with international contacts and clients. 

Below, a page from the Zwingli Bible printed in Zurich by Christoph Froschauer ("click" for larger view)

     The Zurich Bible (also known as the Zwingli or Froschauer Bible) grew out of the "Prophezey", an exegetical worshop of Zurich clerics taking place every weekday working at a German redition of Bible texts.  The translation of Martin Luther was used as far as it was already completed.  Since the Prophets were still lacking in Luther's translation, the Zurich preachers issued this part of the Old Testament based on the translation of Ludwig Haetzer and Hans Denck, which had been published in Worms in 1527, and which the Zurich preachers considered a faithful translation from the Hebrew.  This helped Zwingli to complete the entire translation five years before Luther.  The first printing of the complete German Bible translated from other than Vulgate sources, was accomplished in 1531 at the printing shop of Christoph Froschauer, with an introduction by Zwingli and summaries of each chapter.  The Froschauer Bible was very popular at the time because of the clear type, pictorial decoration, and popular language.  Here displayed is a page, Genesis 2 and 3, from a printing c. 1560.  The woodcut is by Hans Springinklee, a German artist from Nuremberg and a pupil of Albrecht Durer.  Among the people, especially the Anabaptists, the first editions of the Froschauer Bibles and Testaments were greatly loved.  Thus the remarkable thing happened that in the course of the centuries those old editions were several times reprinted word for word.  All of these reprints were forbidden in Bernese territory as "Anabaptist Testaments", and wherever found they were confiscated.  In 1787 the Froschauer New Testament was reprinted at Ephrata, PA, by the Cloister Press, for the Pennsylvania Mennonites.

Below, photo of OCHF Library's copy of the Froschauer German Old Testament, published 1638 ("click" for larger image)

     The Wuerttembergische Landesbibliotheck Stuttgart has an extensive collection of Bibles and has issued a detailed bibliography of their collection.  Included in that bibliography is an illustrated Bible printed in Zurich in 1638.  They attribute the printing of the Bible to the Bodmer printing establishment that can be traced back through several other owners to what had been Froschauer's business.  Johann Jakob Bodmer bought it in 1626 but died several years later.  His widow and sons continued the business and it would have been his widow who was running the business in 1638 when our copy was printed.  Woodcuts are essentially the same as the first appearance of the woodcuts of Holbein's illustrations for the Bible 100 years earlier.  The image of God, however, has been removed from these woodcuts--as for example when Moses is depicted praying to God.  The 1638 edition incorporates various textual variants from 1531, 1548, 1597 and 1629, and the illustrations used also come from several different sources including some done after Holbein.  Although this edition is owned by a good number of Swiss libraries, and several other German, Dutch, and British collections, there is no other known copy in a library in North America other than this unique copy held by the OCHF Library.

    

"F" is for Formularies of Henry VIII

     The door to "Protestantism" in England was opened a bit when Henry VIII broke with Rome over the question of annulment of his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon.  When the Pope, Clement VII, refused, Henry claimed jurisdiction over the English church for himself through the Act of Supremacy of 1534.  This in itself did not introduce Protestant doctrine into the Church of England, apart from rejecting papal supremacy.  Between 1536 and 1540 Henry took possession of the church's monasteries and land.  In 1536, ten articles of faith were produced as a "formulary" of theological positions for Henry's church.  These articles flirted with Protestant ideas but neither condemned the Mass nor the Catholic call for good works.  The "Institution of a Christian a Christian Man" of 1537 further clarified Henry's "semi-reformed" doctrines.  His Act of Six Articles in 1539 returned the church to Catholic orthodoxy apart from papal supremacy.

 

     During Henry VIII's reign, the greatest of all English Bible translators, William Tyndale, was executed on account of his "radical" Protestant ideas (e.g. his substitution of "congregation" for "church" in his translation of the New Testament).  His reported last words, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes."  Below, woodcut depicting the execution of William Tyndale from OCHF Library's copy of The Second Volume of the Ecclesiasticall Historie.  London:  John Foxe, 1631.

 



"E" is for the Eliot Mission

     Perhaps few disciples are as truly dedicated to the Lord and the building of His kingdom as was John Eliot (1604-1690), Apostle to the American indigenous peoples of Massachusetts.  The entirety of the beautiful yet tragic story of the "Praying Indians" of Massachusetts cannot be set forth in this brief entry.  Suffice it to say that there are saints in heaven as a result of the work of John Eliot.  His career epitomized the ideals of New England Puritanism, and, many of his converts were sanctified through the fires of martyrdom. 

Below, a leaf from Bishop Lewis Bayly's "Practice of Piety" translated by John Eliot

 

 

     This page is from Bishop Lewis Bayly's "Practice of Piety", considerably abridged and translated into the Algonquian language by Rev. John Eliot.  This page is from the lst edition printed in 1665 by Samuel Green, Cambridge, Massachusetts, the 95th book to be published in America.  Only three or possibly four complete copies of this book are known to have survived.  Obtained by the OCHF Library from the collection of Mrs. Adam P. Carroll, Natick, Massachusetts. 

Below, leaves from "Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God

     These leaves are from the second edition of the Eliot Bible, revised with the assistance of John Cotton, printed in Cambridge by Samuel Green, 1685.  The Eliot Indian Bible was first printed in 1663.  It was the first Bible printed in America, and, the first Bible to be printed in a new language as a means of evangelism.

     John Eliot performed the Herculean task of learning the difficult Algonguin tongue, of translating, unaided, the entire Bible in this unknown and unwritten language, of overcoming many technical difficulties, and of then teaching the Native Americans of Massachusetts to read their own tongue.  Samuel Green, the printer, was aided greatly by James Printer, and Indian compositor and corrector of the press.
     By 1675, copies of Eliot's first edition of the Bible, were becoming increasingly scarce.  The Reverend Eliot petitioned the Corporation in England for the Propagation of the Gospel for funds to print a second edition.  He was successful in his request, and printing commenced in 1678, with the New Testament being completed in 1680 and the entire Bible in 1685.  Costs for the production of this Bible amounted to 500 GBP, a vast sum for the time.  The quantity of the paper used in the production of the two editions of the Bible was greater than all the paper used in all other printing in the American Colonies in the seventeenth century.
     This edition was carefully revised by Eliot with the assistance of the Reverend John Cotton, Minister of Plymouth.  The new edition was needed because of the general attrition rate of the first edition through usage by the "Praying Indians" and, sadly by the destruction of many copies during King Philip's War.
     Printing on the New Testament began in 1680 and was completed in late 1681.  The Metrical Psalter was completed in 1682.  The Old Testament was begun in 1682 and completed in 1685, at which time the full work was published.  This second edition is notable for its opening summation paragraphs in English for each chapter.
     The importance of the John Eliot Indian Bible is impossible to overstate.  It is unrivalled in the history of American printing, in the history of books for Native Americans, and in the history of Christian evangelical movements--a work of singular importance and recognized as such even upon its publication.  These original pages of the OCHF Library here displayed were a part of a collection compiled by Otto F. Ege, of the Cleveland School of Art, and, Western Reserve University, 1938.

Below, a leaf from one of the famed "Eliot's Tracts"

     This leaf is from a 1652 publication (one of a series of pamphlets known as "Eliot's Tracts") put forth to encourage financial support for missionary activities in New England.  This particular leaf is from the first of Eliot's Tracts to be published by the Corporation for the Propagation of the Gospel Among the Indians in New England, and it covers John Eliot's labors during 1651.  This particular leaf contains a letter by John Endecott.  The full title of the tract is "Strength Out of Weakness:  Or a Glorious Manifestation of the Further Progresse of the Gospel Amongst the Indians in New England:  Held forth in Sundry Letters from Divers Ministers and Others to the Corporation Established by Parliament for Promoting the Gospel Among the Heathen in New England; and to particular members thereof since the last treatise to that effect, formerly set forth by Mr. Henry Whitefield, late Pastor of Gilford in New England".  London:  Printed by M. Simmons for John Blaque and Samuel Howes, 1652. 

 

 

 

 

"D" is for the Douay-Rheims Bible (First Catholic English Language Bible)

Shown above, the OCHF Library's copy of the Rheims New Testament

Below, page from the first edition Douay-Rheims Old Testament printed in 1609, followed by a page from the Rheims New Testament of 1600 showing the Lord's Prayer:

 

 

 

     The Douay-Rheims Bible derives from the Louvain Bible of 1547, which in turn was derived from the work of Jerome, c. 347-420 A. D., who translated much of the Septuagint and Hebrew texts into what was then a "modern" Latin version of the Bible intended to be a standardized version to replace the many variants of an older archaic form of Latin that existed at that time, the new translation also being needed because Latin had begun to replace Greek as the dominant language in some provinces of the Roman Empire.  The Louvain edition was in turn intended to be a new standardized version to replace the many variants of Jerome's work that had arisen over the course of over a thousand years since the original Vulgate Latin edition.  The Rheims New Testament was the first English Catholic translation to be completed--in 1562--followed by the Douay-Rheims Old Testament in two volumes in 1609 and 1610.  This translation is the product of the English College at Douai, France, a seminary founded by Roman Catholic alumni of the University of Oxford who migrated to Douai from England following the death of Catholic Queen Mary Tudor and the growing intolerance toward Catholicism.  The purpose of the seminary was to train priests to return to England in the hope of converting the English again to Catholicism.  The Douay-Rheims Bible was principally the work of Gregory Martin.  The Old Testament is said to have been ready at the same time as the New Testament, 1582, but was not printed until later because of insufficient funds.  The Douay-Rheims Bible preserves in its margin notes the flavor of the beautiful allegories of Augustine.  In the example above from the Douay Old Testament, the flowering rod of Aaron, Numbers 27:8, is interpreted as "a figure that our Blessed Lady should bear a son, and remain a Virgin" and, in the example from the New Testament, the bread spoken of in the Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6:11, is referred to as "supersubstantial bread", is interpreted to mean "that we ask not only all necessary sustenance for the body, but much more all spiritual food, namely the blessed sacrament itself, which is Christ the true bread that came from heaven, and the bread of life to us that eat his body."  The Douay-Rheims version of the Bible remained the standard English Catholic Bible until its revision by Richard Challoner in 1749 and 1750.  As an historical side-note:  Of the more than 300 priests sent by the English College of Douai to Anglican England, about half were hanged until nearly dead, then drawn and cut into quarters.  The other half were imprisoned, and/or deported back to the continent.

 

"C" is for Coverdale

       The first complete English Bibles were completed by Myles Coverdale in 1535, and, by John Rogers under the pseudonym "Thomas Matthew" in 1537.  The first English Bible actually printed in England was Coverdale's in 1537.  Coverdale translated primarily from German and Latin sources.  Rogers' edition was based upon the translation of William Tyndale.  Tyndale translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.  Rogers' edition, known as the "Matthew Bible" or "Matthew's Version", combined the New Testament of William Tyndale, and as much of the Old Testament as Tyndale had been able to translated before being captured, condemned for "heresy" (he translated Ecclesia as "congregation"--not acceptable to the Church of England), stripped of his priesthood, publicly strangled, and his body burned at the stake.  The translations of Myles Coverdale from German and Latin sources completed the Old Testament and the Apocrypha of Rogers' edition.  Both the Coverdale and Matthews versions were "licensed" but not totally accepted--the Coverdale was not totally accepted because it was not translated from the original languages, and, the Matthews was not totally accepted because it preserved some objectionable aspects of Tyndale's translation (e.g. the translation of Ecclesia as "congregation" rather than "church", and, Tyndale's marginal notes of a "radical" flavor).  As a result, Thomas Cromwell, the King's principal advisor, commissioned Coverdale to create a new version based upon the original languages and "devoid of personal interpretation".  The result was the "Great Bible" of 1539, the first "authorized" version of the English Bible.  The text of the Great Bible adheres closely to the Matthew Baible but with the objectionable elements modified.  In addition, various phrases and sentences found only in the Vulgate were interpolated into the text, apparently to make the Great Bible more palatable to conservative English churchmen, many of whom still at that time considered the Vulgate to be the only legitimate Bible. 

The following, from the OCHF library collection, is the dedicatory page from the first edition of the first English-language Bible to be printed in England, the 1537 edition of the Coverdale Bible printed by James Nycolson in Southwark (the 1535 edition having been printed on the continent).

 

The following, from the OCHF Library Collection, is an original hand-engraved copper plate from William Henry Mountague's History of England, printed 1885, depicting Thomas Cromwell presenting King Henry VIII with a copy of the first authorized edition of the Bible, the "Great Bible" of 1539.

 

Finally, from the OCHF Library Collection, the title page to Romans from a 1541 printing of the Great Bible of 1539 prepared by Myles Coverdale, working under commission of Sir Thomas Cromwell, Secretary to Henry VIII and Vicar General.