Among the thousands of rare books in the Amherst College Archives & Special Collections, we hold several editions of the Bible printed between 1450 and the present. This list is a guide to some of the highlights of our holdings, but is not a comprehensive list -- a search in the online catalog for the title keyword "Bible" limited to Archives & Special Collections turns up over 300 items. This list focuses on editions printed prior to 1700.
Year | City | Description | Call Number |
ca.1450 | Mainz | Leaf of the Gutenberg Bible. | Vault xxRBR Incun 145-B4t |
1480 | Venice | Bible. Latin. Vulgate. | RBR Incun 1480 B4 |
1525 | Cologne & Worms | 1871 facsimile of Tyndale's New Testament. | 225.5 B47 Ety A |
1536 | Basel | Hebrew Bible edited by Sebastian Munster. | RBR Fr 1536 B4 |
1540 | Paris | Robert Estienne scholarly/critical edition of the Bible. | xx RBR Es 1540 B4 |
1569 | Antwerp | Antwerp polyglot Bible edited by Arias Montanus and printed at Plantin's Press for Philip II of Spain. | xx RBR Pl 1569-71 B4 |
1576 | London | Geneva version. Missing front matter. | x RBR 16 1576 B4 |
1599 | London | Geneva version. | x RBR 16 1599 B4 |
1599 | Nuremberg | Polyglot Old Testament. | x RBR 16 1599 B4 |
1608 | London | Geneva version. | RBR 17 1608 B4 |
1611 | London | Two leaves of 1611 authorized or King James version. | File x BS 185 1611 .L6 |
1653 | London | London Septuagint. Noah Webster's copy. | RBR W395D Bi |
1665 | Cambridge | Cambridge Septuagint. | RBR 17 1665 C4 |
1833 | New Haven | Noah Webster's edition of the Bible. | RBR W395 1833 |
In addition to these copies, we have several secondary works that are themselves rare books:
American Bible Society. A History of the English Bible as Shown in Facsimile Pages from 1525 to 1611. New York: The Society, 1935. Call Number: xx 220.5 Am352h
Copinger, Walter Arthur. The Bible and its Transmission. London: Henry Southeran, 1897. Call Number: xx 220.5 C791b
Ruppel, Aloys. The 500th Anniversary Pictorial Census of the Gutenberg Bible. Chicago: Coverdale Press, 1961. Call Number: xx RBR 20 1961 N7