Early Bible Translation Survives

During 1994/95 the British Library exhibited a textually complete 1526 edition of William Tyndale’s translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures printed during his exile in Worms, Germany. This book was purchased from England’s Bristol Baptist College for almost $1,600,000, as it was reckoned to be the only surviving complete copy—the bulk of the 3,000 or so smuggled into England were burned at the instigation of the bishop of London. However, another complete copy of this edition has come to light, in a library in Stuttgart, Germany. Mislabeled and overlooked for hundreds of years, it retains not only its original binding but also its precious title page.

[Picture Credit Line on page 15]

By kind permission of the Principal, Fellows and Scholars of Hertford College, Oxford

© Württ. Landesbibliothek/Fotograf: Joachim Siener