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

Tags:  bibles