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Search results for: Greek New Testament

A fine piece of early Americana and a very fine gift

20 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Donations

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almanac, American, American Antiquarian Society, American Revolution, Americana, battles, Benjamin Franklin, bibles, bindery, books, bookstores, Boston, broadsides, Caleb Alexander, Charles River, collector, Concord, dictionaries, Dr. Ronald Rubin, English, Greek, Greek New Testament, history, independence, Isaiah Thomas, John Mill, Lexington, literature, London, Maryland, Massachusetts, medicine, music, Newburyport, newspaper, Nova Scotia, Oxford, pamphlets, paper mill, printer, printing history, rare books, Ronald Rubin, sedition, Vermont, Virgil, war, Worcester, Yale University

title

HE KAINE DIATHEKE, NOVUM TESTAMENTUM
Wigorniae, Massachusettensi: excudebat Isaias Thomas, Jun, 1800
Editio Prima Americana

This is the first American printing of the Greek New Testament, considered a milestone in American printing history.

Isaiah Thomas’ printing shop was dubbed “the sedition factory,” during the American Revolution. Thomas moved his press from Boston across the Charles River to Worcester in order to avoid confiscation by British troupes. His press reassembled, Thomas remained in Worcester for the rest of his life, printing the first reports of the battles of Lexington and Concord (“Americans! – – – Liberty or Death! – – – Join or Die!”) and continuing to print until he sold his business in 1802.

Isaiah Thomas was born in Boston in 1749. Thomas was apprenticed to a printer, at the age of six, after the death of his father. He stayed for ten years, then broke his bond and headed to London, much as Benjamin Franklin had done earlier. Thomas got as far as Nova Scotia, where he stayed to print a newspaper. After six months, he was sent packing because of his anti-Stamp Act actions. After another foray, this time to the south, Thomas returned to Boston to set up his own newspaper, The Massachusetts Spy. At the same time, he began what would become a lucrative printing business, which included an almanac and the Royal American Magazine, in 1774.

After the war for independence was won, Thomas built his press into an enterprise that included a bindery, a paper mill and bookstores from Vermont to Maryland. In 1773, he established the first press in Newburyport, Massachusetts, at the request of some of its citizens. He printed books on medicine, music, history, and literature; and printed spellers, dictionaries, and bibles. Caleb Alexander (1755-1828), a graduate of Yale University, worked with Thomas as editor for his first American editions of Virgil and other works in Greek, including He kaine diatheke. Alexander based his edition on a 1707 Oxford edition by English scholar John Mill (1645-1707).

Thomas retired around 1802, about two years after his printing of He kaine diatheke. He spent the rest of his life collecting printed American works – books, pamphlets, broadsides, almanacs, and newspapers. He used these as primary sources for his History of Printing in America, published in 1810. He donated his collection to the American Antiquarian Society, an institution he organized in order to provide a home for print material from early American history.


This is the most recent of numerous gifts throughout the years from Dr. Ronald Rubin, a collector, like Isaiah Thomas, of early Americana and a very fine friend of Rare Books. Thank you, Dr. Rubin!

238-239spread

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Book of the Week — He Kaine Diatheke

04 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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Antoine Augereau, Aristotle, astrology, Bible, bibliographer, binding, Book of Hours, calendar, Calvin, Chartres, Christmas Eve, Cicero, classics, cosmology, Demarruello, Estienne, Euclid, France, French, Garamond, Geoffroy Tory, Gothic, Greek, Greek New Testament, Henri Estienne, heresy, heretic, Hesiod, hinges, Hippocrates, Horace, Hore beate marie, indices, initials, italic, Latin, Louvain, Lutheran, New Testament, Ovid, Paris, Paris Parlement, pressed paper boards, printing, proof sheets, Protestant, putti, R. Peter, Renaissance, repair, Robert Estienne I, Roman Catholic, signatures, Simon de Colines, Sophocles, subheadings, Terence, The University of Utah, theological, tools, typeface, typefounder, University of Paris, Virgil, woodcut

Title page

“For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” — Hebrews 8:11, New King James Version

HE KAINE DIATHEKE
Paris: [Antoine Augereau for] Simon de Colines, [29 November or 22 December] 1534
BS1965 1534

This is the first Greek New Testament printed in France. Simon de Colines edited the text, using printed and manuscript sources. To save his own neck, Colines hid the involvement of the book’s printer, Protestant typefounder Antoine Augereau. Augereau was condemned as a heretic, hung, and then burned at the stake on Christmas Eve 1534, only a few days after finishing the printing of Ha Kaine Kiatheke.

In 1520, Colines married the widow of Henri Estienne, the founder of the distinguished Estienne press, and took charge of that press until Estienne’s son, Robert I, took over in 1526. Colines then set up his own shop nearby. He focused his publishing efforts on Greek and Latin classics – works by Aristotle, Cicero, Sophocles, Hesiod, Horace, Ovid, Virgil, Terence, Euclid, Hippocrates and others – works then considered the literary backbone of the civilized world. He added to the classics publications of anti-Lutheran theological writings and works by the faculty of the University of Paris. In all, Colines’ press produced at least seven hundred and fifty publications. Although not a scholar himself, he used his considerable familiarity with the Estienne publications and extended his own press to include writings on the natural sciences, cosmology, and astrology.

Colines was an important part of the development of book and reading structure in Renaissance printing. It was during this time that chapter headings, subheadings, running heads, page numbers, tables of content, indices and source notes became elemental fixtures in the publication of texts.

Pg210

Colines designed his own italic and Greek fonts and a roman typeface from which Garamond type was derived. He was one of the earliest printers to mix italic fonts with roman typefaces. During at least one of his printing projects, he worked with type designer Geoffroy Tory.

Ha Kaine Kiatheke is the first book printed in Simon de Colines’ second Greek font, including initial guide letters. The University of Utah copy has three lines (possibly an oath) written in an early hand in French and signed by “Demarruello.”

Inscription

It also contains the book plate of Calvin bibliographer R. Peter.

Pastedown

The University of Utah copy bound in contemporary tan calf blind decorated with an outer roll of foxes, winged putti, acanthus leaves and lilies, central rectangle with brazier and foliage tools.

FrontBoard

An earlier repair to the hinges of the binding revealed the following, making up the pressed paper boards: 28 leaves from Les choses co[n]tenues en ce present liure…Le contenu en ceste second partie du nouveau testament, Paris, S. de Colines 10 January 1524; and leaves from Hore beate marie [virgi]nis Secundu[m] vsum insignis ecclesia[?e] Cathedraiis Carnoten[sis]…, Paris, s.n., ca. 1511-1512.

The printed signatures found hidden in the binding appear to be proof sheets for the first Protestant French translation of the New Testament, second edition.

Leaf3

The printing of this edition was completed only months before the Paris Parlement condemned the work as heresy. Yet, the 1524 edition, due to its literary quality and scriptural analysis, served as the basis for nearly all future French versions throughout the century. Ironically, it also served as the 1550 Roman Catholic Louvain Bible.

The leaves from Hore beate…, which also formed part of the binding’s pressed boards, are from an unrecorded Latin-French Book of Hours for the use of Chartres, with a calendar for 1512-1520. The type is Gothic, printed in red and black and includes two-line woodcut initials.

Leaf2

Leaf1

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Your Dissertation Here !

10 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Aldus Manutius, Basel, Bible, Byzantine, Cambridge, England, English, Erasmus, Froben, German, Greek, John Colet, Latin, Latin Vulgate, Martin Luther, New Testament, Nikolaus Gergel, Roman Catholic Church, Thomas More (1478-1535), University of Utah, Venice, Western European, William Tyndale

frontispiece

NOUUM TESTAMENTUM GRAECE
Argentorati : Apud Vuolfium Cephalaeum, 1524
BS1965 1524

First edition, first printing in octavo of the Erasmus New Testament in Greek. This edition, in its compact format, was much more affordable than Froben’s earlier editions, two facts that arguably gave Erasmus’ translation greater societal impact. The text closely follows the Nikolaus Gergel edition of 1521, the second edition of the Erasmus Greek New Testament.

Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) took monastic vows at the age of twenty-five. An independent scholar, he spent time at Cambridge where he befriended John Colet (1467-1519) and Thomas More (1478-1535) during a time of great stress in the English Church. He spent three years in Venice working as an editor in the publishing house of Aldus Manutius (1449-1515). He later worked with printer Johannes Froben (1460-1527) in Basel.

Vvovlivs spreadBioE Toy Arioy Eyar spread

While in England, Erasmus began a systematic examination of available manuscript copies of the New Testament. His resulting Greek New Testament, with Latin in parallel column, was first published by Froben in 1516. The 1516 Greek-Latin New Testament was used as a primary source for Martin Luther’s translation of the New Testament into German (1522), and for William Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament into English (1526).

Although Erasmus was criticized by later scholars for not having used all available manuscript copies of the Greek New Testament and for not using Byzantine copies, his translation is noted as the first Western European attempt to find a truer translation of the New Testament than that of the fourth century Latin Vulgate, the translation used almost exclusively by the Roman Catholic Church. The translation re-introduced the study of Greek biblical manuscripts and other Greek works on the Bible into Western Europe.

Page3 Page28

Only ten copies of this edition and printing are listed in WorldCat. University of Utah copy has extensive marginalia in multiple contemporary or just post-contemporary hands (possibly four) throughout.

 

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Book of the Week — Divi Gregorii, episcopie Nysseni, fratris Basilii Magni, opera quae adipisci licuit omnia…

10 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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Basil, Bishop of Nyssa, Cappadocia, Christian, doctrine, Hebrew Bible, Ingolstadt, Latin, Laurentius Sifanus, New Testament, Nicene Creed, Nicolus Episcopius the Younger, Origen, Philo of Alexandria, philology, Saint Basil, Saint Greogry of Nyssa, theology, Trinity, Turkey


“…by an ever greater and greater desire, the soul keeps rising constantly to another that lies ahead, and thus it makes its way through ever higher regions towards the Transcendent.” — Saint Gregory of Nyssa

Divi Gregorii, episcopie Nysseni, fratris Basilii Magni, opera quae adipisci licuit omnia…
Saint Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 335-ca. 395)
Basil: Nicolus Episcopius the Younger, 1562
BR65 G7 1562

This is the most complete Latin translation of the works of Saint Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, to its time, and the first translated by philologist Laurentius Sifanus (ca. 1510-1579), who taught at university in Ingolstadt. The translation has been found by modern scholars to be faithful to manuscript copies of the text. Printed marginal references to passages from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament are throughout the book.

Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 335-ca. 395) was born in Cappadocia, modern-day Turkey. An erudite theologian, he made significant contributions to the doctrine of the Trinity and the Nicene Creed. He was strongly influenced by Origen (ca. 185-254) and the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandra (ca. 20BCE – ca. 54CE). He and his older brother, Saint Basil, are credited with defining Christian orthodoxy in the Eastern Roman Empire just as Augustine (354-430) was to do later for the Western Roman Empire.

It is likely that Gregory was taught by his older brother Basil, who attended school in Constantinople and Athens. Gregory drew inspiration from pagan Greek philosophy as well as Jewish tradition. He was well-acquainted with the works of Plato (427-347 BCE) and Aristotle (384-322 BCE).

Basil established a monastery in Pontus, which he directed for five years. He wrote a monastic rule still practiced by monks of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Basil was the leader in the fight against Arianism (which denied the divinity of Christ).

Both Basil and Gregory were very close to their sister, Macrina, who also attained sainthood in the Eastern Orthodox Church. After Basil and Macrina died, Gregory continued Basil’s fight against Arianism. He participated in the Council of Antioch against those who refused to recognize the perpetual virginity of the Mother of God. He visited the churches of Palestine, where he asserted the Orthodox teaching about the Most Holy Theotokos, and visited Jerusalem. In 383, he participated in a Council at Constantinople, where he preached a sermon on the divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit. He returned to Constantinople in an official capacity twice more before his death, sometime around 395.

Printer-publisher Nicolaus Episcopius the Younger of Basel used a printer’s device that featured a crane, the symbol of watchfulness and discernment. The crane holds a stone in one of its claws so as not to fall asleep. A hand extending from a cloud grasps a bishop’s crozier upon which the crane is perched. Written across the top of the staff is EPISCOP, a shortened form for the Latin word for bishop, and a play on the name of the printer, a latinized form of the name Bischoff.

Nicolaus Episcopius the Elder married Justina Froben, daughter of the well-known printer Johann Froben. Episcopius the Elder printed in partnership with Hieronymus Froben, son of Johann. Nicolaus the Younger learned to print in his father’s shop. Between 1553 and 1565 he concentrated on printing editions of the classics, philosophy and history, including the works of Philo, Livy and Sir Thomas More. His interests were very much in line of other important printers of the time.

Large woodcut device on title, woodcut printer’s device on verso of last leaf. Woodcut historiated initials throughout. Rare Books copy bound in contemporary pigskin over wooden boards, covers tooled in blind with roll-tools. Three of four brass catches remain, clasps lacking.

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Banned! Refranes o Proverbios en romance

24 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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adages, anticlerical, Arabic, Aramaic, Asturian, Bible, Catalan, censored, Complutensian Polyglot, dictionaries, French, Galician, grammar, Greek, Hebrew, Hernán Núñez de Toledo y Guzman, humanist, Italian, Iuan de la Cuesta, Latin, Leon de Castrón, Madrid, Miguel Martinez, obscene, Portuguese, proverbs, Refranos, scholarship, Spanish, Valladolid

Refranes o proverbios en romance
Fernando Nunez de Guzman (16th century)
Madrid, Por Iuan de la Cuesta, a costa de Miguel Martinez, 1619

Hernán Núñez de Toledo y Guzman, born in Valladolid, was a Spanish humanist and an eminent biblical scholar. He studied Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Arabic. Guzman is most recognized for his work on the “Complutensian Polyglot” a six-volume Bible including the Old and New Testaments, indices, Hebrew and Aramaic dictionaries, a Hebrew grammar and interpretations of Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic names. The “Complutensian Polyglot” is one of the crowning achievements of humanist scholarship.

Beginning in 1508, Guzman began compiling a collection of Spanish sayings and adages. The work contains 8,557 entries and is glossed with comments and parallel sayings from other languages including Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, French, Italian, Asturian, Latin and Greek. The sayings are listed in alphabetical order with an indication of the language for those other than Spanish. The compilation was at press when the author died. Guzman’s student, Leon de Castron wrote the prologue.

Refranos was reprinted several times, each imprint unique as proverbs were censored for being anticlerical or obscene, and, often, re-admitted.

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Book of the Week — The Saint John’s Fragment: Against the Odds

09 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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Bernard Grenfell, California, calligraphy, Cave, codex, David Annwn, Egyptian, English, Foolscap Press, Frankfurt Cream, Gospel of John, Greek, Hadrian, Hadrianic, leaves, Mark Knudsen, paper, papyrus, pochoir, poem, Roman Emperor, Saint John, Saint John's Fragment, Santa Cruz, script, scroll, sheet, stencils, Thomas Ingmire, Tiepolo, translation

PR6051-N615-S3-2015-spread1

a King I am. For this I have been born
and I have come into the world so that I would
testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth
hears of me my voice.” Said to him
Pilate “What is truth?” and this
having said, again he went out unto the Jews
and said to them,” I find not one
fault in him.”
–translation of a fragment of St. John’s Fragment

The Saint John’s Fragment: Against the Odds
David Annwn
Santa Cruz, CA: Foolscap Press, 2015
PR6051 N615 S3 2015

Poem inspired by the St. John’s fragment, a papyrus fragment now in the collection of the Rylands Library at the University of Manchester (Rylands Library Papyrus P52), dated between 100 and 150 CE and thought to be the earliest extant manuscript of a New Testament text.

From the Afterword: “The piece of papyrus called the St. John’s Fragment was acquired in an Egyptian market in 1920 by Bernard Grenfell, an English scientist and Egyptologist…

Written on both sides of the papyrus, it must have been part of a a codex, that is, a collection of sewn and folded leaves, not a scroll or an isolated sheet. That being the case, it would be among the earliest surviving examples of a literary codex. It was written in Greek in a script known as Hadrianic, named after Hadrian (76-CE – 138 CE), the Roman Emperor of the time…

Specifically, the text on this piece of papyrus is from the Gospel of John 18:31-33 and the verso holds a snippet of verses 237-38…”

From the colophon: “Thomas Ingmire’s calligraphy shows the image of the actual Fragment, then the restored page, then the English translation of the restored page. Mark Knudsen made the stencils for the pochoir painting of the Fragment. The poem is printed in Tiepolo type to complement the Fragment…The book is printed on Frankfurt Cream and bound in Cave paper.” Edition of one hundred and sixteen copies. Rare Books copy is no. 41, signed by the poet and the calligrapher.

PR6051-N615-S3-2015-spread2

 

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Book of the week — Biblia sacra

11 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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Apostles, Bible, brass clasps, classical scholar, decorative headbands, engravings, Exodus, France, Franciscus Stephanus, François Estienne, François Perrin, French, Geneva, Geneva Bible, Greek, Henri Estienne, horseback, initials, John Calvin, Kings, Latin, linguist, Lyon, maps, Margaret Cave, New Testament, Normandy, Paris, Petrum Santandreanum, Pierre Saint-André, pigskin, printer, Protestant, Robert Estienne, roll-tooled, Tabernacle, tail pieces, University of Utah, woodcuts

Biblia-Sacra-title

BIBLIA SACRA VETERIS ET NOUI TESTAMENTI…
Geneuae: Apud Petrum Santandreanum, MDLXXXIII. 1583
BS75 1583

A reissue, with a different title page, of an edition of François Estienne, Geneva, 1567. The title page of the New Testament bears the imprint: Ex Officina Francisci Stephanii, 1567. This edition was printed by Pierre Saint-André (1555-1624).

François Estienne was the third son of Robert Estienne (1503-1559), a French printer, linguist and classical scholar. In his father’s footsteps, François left France for Geneva as a follower of the Protestant movement. He was active as a printer between 1562 and 1582 in partnership with François Perrin, an associate of John Calvin. François Estienne issued a number of editions of the Bible in Latin and French, as well as works by Calvin. Some scholars believe that François emigrated to Normandy in 1582, where he married Margaret Cave. They had several children, none of whom survived to adulthood.

Robert Estienne’s fourth edition (1551) of the Bible is notable for being the first Latin Bible to be printed with verse numeration. Estienne designed the divisions to help the reader compare the two Latin translations and the Greek translation found in this edition. The fourth edition became the basis for the Geneva Bible. Estienne’s son Henri wrote that his father numbered the divisions while traveling “inter equitandum” from Paris to Lyon. Questionable verse divisions were later ascribed to the jolting of a ride on horseback. Although it is unlikely that Estienne was working while riding, the divisions appear to be hasty and distracted, a situation we can well imagine if Estienne was working on this project while traveling.

Text in double columns, with references, variants and section letters in the margins. Illustrated with two engraved folding maps, one in the New Old Testament and one in the New Testament; two full-page engraved maps; woodcuts of the Tabernacle and other images in Exodus and Kings, with occasional figures elsewhere; decorative headbands, tail-pieces and initial letters. The title-page for the New Testament has the woodcut device of Franciscus Stephanus. University of Utah copy bound in contemporary pigskin over wooden boards, covers with roll-tooled decoration, featuring portraits of the Apostles; brass clasps and catches; old paper spine labels.

Bibla-Sacra-EgyptMap

Bibla-Sacra-Mediterraneanseamap

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Book of the week – De rerum natura

04 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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afterlife, Alexander Pope, biblical, blind-tooled, blindstamped, body, British, Cambridge, Church of England, classics, Constance, De rerum natura, decoration, engraved, Epicurus, fire, folio, French Revolution, frontispiece, Fulda, Germany, Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, Gilbert Wakefield, gilt, gods, government, Greek, Hamilton, Homer, Horace, Jesus College, Londini, Lucretius, mathematics, ministry, morocco, mortal, nature, New Testament, pamphlets, poem, poet, portrait, punishment, rules, scholar, soul, Titus Lucretius Carus, tragedies, Tuscan, Unitarian, vicar, Virgil, Wa, Wakefield, world

PA6482-A2-1796-v.1-portraitPA6482-A2-1796-v.1-titlePA6482-A2-1796-v.1-pg1

DE RERUM NATURA LIBROS SEX, AD EXEMPLARIUM…
Titus Lucretius Carus (ca. 99 BCE – ca. 55 BCE)
Londini: Impensis editoris, typis A. Hamilton, 1796-7
PA6482 A2 1796 oversize

De Rerum Natura is the only surviving work of Lucretius. Only one manuscript copy of it is known to exist. This manuscript was found in 1417 in a monastery at Fulda in Germany by Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, a Tuscan secretary to a church general council at Constance.

It is a didactic poem of 7,400 lines in six books, in which the poet expounds on the world view of the ancient Greek philosopher, Epicurus. The object was to abolish belief that the gods intervened in the world and that the soul could experience punishment in an afterlife. Lucretius demonstrated that the world is, instead, governed by mechanical laws of nature. He described the soul as mortal and posited that it perishes with the body.

This is the first edition of the “Wakefield” edition, the edition by Gilbert Wakefield (1756-1801). Wakefield was a biblical scholar. The son of a vicar, he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, through a scholarship. He studied mathematics and the classics. Although he took orders, he left the ministry and the Church of England and became a Unitarian. He earned his living as a tutor while writing controversial pamphlets attacking the government. He was imprisoned for two years for the publication of a pamphlet titled, “A Reply to some Parts of the Bishop of Landoff’s Address,” in which he defended the French Revolution. To support himself, he published a translation of the New Testament (1792), companion editions to Horace (1794) and Virgil (1796), an edition with commentary of Greek tragedies (1794), an annotated edition of Alexander Pope’s Homer (1796), and this, his Lucretius. He published his De Rerum Natura at his own expense.

The book established Wakefield as a leading British scholar. The large paper, folio edition was mostly destroyed by a fire in the printing-office in which they were stored.

Engraved portrait of Gilbert Wakefield on frontispiece. Bound in contemporary straight-grained black morocco, panelled covers with broad blind-tooled borders and gilt edges, spine with broad gilt rules and blindstamped decoration. Edition of fifty copies.

 

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