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Bible

The Research Libraries are notable for their extensive collection of rare and historic editions of the Bible, complemented by contemporary versions of the same.  This collection has its foundation in the acquisitions policies of the Lenox Library and the Astor Library, the two predecessor libraries of The New York Public Library.  James Lenox, the founder of the Lenox Library, was a devout Presbyterian and philanthropist, who made a special effort to collect rare and special editions of the Bible, his most notable acquisition being the Gutenberg Bible.  (This was complemented by his interest in collecting other religious texts, such as The Pilgrim’s Progress  by John Bunyan.)   The Astor Library, while it did not have the rarities associated with the Lenox Library, did collect the Scriptures in the standard editions of the principal languages; this included not only the Hebrew and Greek texts, but also the renderings into Latin and the vernacular tongues. 

The Research Libraries hold nearly every imprint of the English Bible printed before 1900; all important editions published since then are also represented.  Translations of the Bible into other modern languages are well represented, with the Rare Book Division holding first printings in Arabic, Dutch, French, Hebrew, Czech, Armenian, Swedish, and Danish.  More recent translations are normally available in the General Research Division.   The Jewish Division holds the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in the languages associated with the Jewish experience as well as in other tongues, while translations into Asian and Middle Eastern languages are to be found in the division bearing that name.

The most notable editions of the Bible are to be found in the Rare Books Division and the Manuscripts Division.  These include Biblia Pauperum (1465),  Apocalypsis Sancti Johannis (1465), Luther’s translation of the New Testament into German, John Eliot’s translation of the Bible into the language of the Massachuset Indians (1661, 1663), the Pitcairn Bible (published in 1764 and used on the Bounty and, later, on Pitcairn Island), the Marlermi Bible (an illustrated edition printed in Venice in 1493), the illustrated Cologne Bible of  1478,  Evangelistarium, sive Lectiones ex Evangeliis (a manuscript on vellum with many pages written in gold on purple produced about  870),  the Landevennec Gospels (a ninth-century manuscript with colored drawings), Wycliffe’s New Testament (the oldest extant complete manuscript of same), the Lectionarium Evangeliorum (a manuscript from 1540 with miniatures by Giulio Clovio),  the Bay Psalm Book (1640), and the Tickhill Psalter of the early fourteenth century,  noted for its English Gothic illumination.

In the area of Biblical studies, the General Research Division does collect not only the standard editions of the Bible but also concordances, commentaries, dictionaries, and handbooks.  The Library possesses a significant body of monographs approaching the Bible from historical and theological perspectives.  The General Research Division collects the principal works on New Testament theology, while the Jewish Division does likewise for the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures. Scholars in intellectual history will note the Division’s strong collection in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century commentaries and interpretations of the Bible which are complemented by histories of the Bible and works of textual criticism from the same period.  The General Research Division also collects in the Bible as literature as well as in the relationship between Scripture and literature. 

Although the General Research Division does not hold the rarities associated with the Rare Books and Manuscripts Divisions, it does contain many notable Bibles representing a wide variety of languages.  An examination of the Library’s catalogs indicates editions not only in the original languages of the Bible and translations of same into the principal western languages but also renderings into such small languages as Anglo-Saxon, Basque, Catalan, Esperanto, Eskimo, Gaelic, Old French, Hawaiian, Lapp, Manx, Rhaeto-Romanic, Chippewa, Navaho, Dakota (Santee), Cherokee, Choctaw, Welsh, Wendish, and various tongues of Oceania and Africa.

Electronic resources complement the Library’s print and manuscript holdings.  The Bible in English contains twenty different versions of the English Bible from the tenth to the twentieth century and may be searched by keyword;  The King James Bible provides the full text of that edition, and it, too, may be searched by keyword.