Pictures of the Old and New Testaments, Showing the Most Nottable Historys, in 150 Copper Platis, brought in Copper by the Most Famouss and Pricipal Masters.

$3,250.00

Item Number: 131429

Amsterdam: Reinier & Josua Ottens, n.d..

Rare 18th century printing of this lavishly illustrated biblical text. Quarto, bound in full contemporary mottled calf with gilt titles and elaborate gilt tooling to the spine, illustrated with 152 copper-engraved plates after Matthias Scheits. Text in English and French. In near fine condition. From the library of Robert Smith, 1st Baron Carrington with his bookplate. Housed in a custom marbled slipcase. Rare.

The Bible has had an unprecedented influence on literature and history, especially in the Western World, where the Gutenberg Bible was the first book printed using movable type. Commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611 under the sponsorship of James I and VI, the King James Version of the bible, or Authorized Version, includes the 39 books of the Old Testament, an intertestamental section containing 14 books of the Apocrypha, and the 27 books of the New Testament. Noted for its "majesty of style", the King James Version has been described as one of the most important books in English culture and a driving force in the shaping of the English-speaking world. It was first printed by John Norton and Robert Barker, both holding the post of the King's Printer, and was the third translation into English approved by the English Church authorities. The first had been the Great Bible, commissioned in the reign of King Henry VIII (1535), and the second had been the Bishops' Bible, commissioned in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1568). In Geneva, Switzerland the first generation of Protestant Reformers had produced the Geneva Bible of 1560 from the original Hebrew and Greek scriptures, which was influential in the writing of the Authorized King James Version.