The Bible. Translated According to the Ebrewe and Greeke, and Conferred with the Best Translations in Divers Languages. [WITH] The Whole of Book of Psalmes Collected into English Meetre by Thomas Sternhold, John Hopkins, and Others.

[BIBLE],.

Item Number: 133679

London: Christopher Barker, 1585.

Rare Elizabethan Age Geneva Bible, printed by the father of the Barker printing dynasty, Christopher Barker. Octavo, two volumes bound in one bound in full paneled calf, large woodcut borders to each title page, headpieces, and tailpieces. Bound with The Whole of Book of Psalmes Collected into English Meetre by Thomas Sternhold, John Hopkins, and Others [Assignes of Richard Day, 1585]. In very good condition. A very rare and desirable 16th century printing of the Geneva Bible.

Upon Queen Mary’s accession in 1553, “publication of the English Bible ceased in England. Many Protestants who fled to the Continent were attracted to Calvin’s Geneva. Among these exiles were eminent English Bible scholars who began work on a new translation” (The Bible: 100 Landmarks 62). First published in 1560, the Geneva Bible—often called the “Breeches Bible” for its unique rendering of Genesis 3:7—was “more scholarly than any previous translation… [It] achieved immediate popularity and exerted an extremely powerful influence… The Geneva Version included prefaces, maps and tables; and for the first time in an English Bible the verses were divided and numbered… It has been more properly called the Elizabethan family Bible, since it was this version which was the first to enter the English home” (PMM 83). “It became the textus receptus for the Puritan element in England. It was read by Shakespeare, Bunyan and the soldiers of the Civil War, and is thus of cardinal importance for its influence on the English language, literature and thought” (Great Books and Book Collectors, 105-8).