‘New Bibles and Old Reading Habits around 1522: The Position of the New Testament Translation of the Devotio Moderna among Dutch Printed Bibles’, Quaerendo. A Journal Devoted to Manuscripts and Printed Books 47:3-4 (2017), 1-24. (original) (raw)
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The historiography of Dutch Bible translations has largely focused on Jacob van Liesvelt’s 1526 “protestantizing” version, and Willem Vorsterman’s subsequent efforts to transform that version into a “Catholic” Bible (1528–1529). Less attention has been given to the following stage in the Antwerp printers’ competition to attract Bible readers: In 1532 Van Liesvelt published a Bible, containing a large number of annotations in the margins of the Old Testament, which chronologically situate the biblical events in the history of the world and the economy of salvation, next to other paratextual elements. Vorsterman responded by bringing a “catholicizing” glossed Bible to the market (1533–1534), in which typological annotations were also included in the margins. While giving an analysis of the text, paratext and imagery of the abovementioned Bibles, this article will investigate how the interplay of these elements on the page contributed to the creation of specific reading habits and stra...
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Quaerendo, 2014
The first Bible printed in mainstream Dutch has been thought to be the 1526 Van Liesvelt Bible, a folio. However, the first title-page of a well-known four-volume 1525 decimo sexto Dutch Old Testament for which no matching New Testament has hitherto been identified claims to introduce a complete Bible. This article demonstrates that a 1525 decimosexto Dutch New Testament of which a single copy survives, in Zurich, is the missing volume. Most notably, it shows that the Old Testament volumes, this New Testament, and a Maccabees supplement for the Old Testament, were printed with the same type, and used a temporary, project-specific pool of decorative letters, with some of the letters belonging to the printing shop which did the printing, and some belonging to the publishing syndicate. The article further shows that one member of the syndicate was the international book merchant and publisher Franz Birckman.
Journal of Early Modern Christianity, 2019
This article investigates a book-archeological approach to early modern Bible reading that maps the complex interactions between the substantive elements of a book (text, paratext, illustrations) on the one hand, and its historical readers and the traces they left on the other. That method is applied to all 43 extant copies of the Dutch Vorsterman Bible of 1533–1534. The editions printed by Willem Vorsterman were for a long time regarded as Protestant. However, the Bibles had the approval of the secular and ecclesiastic authorities and were intended for a Catholic public. The edition of 1533–1534 is a glossed Bible with many historicizing, chronological, linguistic and typological paratextual elements. The former owners of the 43 Bibles and their confessional background are examined. Intended and unintended traces of use give clues to the actual use of the Bible. The article turns at the end to a heavily annotated copy, examining the religious ideas of the annotator and the way in w...
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Journal of Early Modern Christianity
Vernacular Bibles and biblical texts were among the most circulated and most read books in late medieval and early modern Europe, both in manuscript and print. Vernacular scripture circulated throughout Europe in different ways and to different extents before and after the Reformation. In spite of the differences in language, centers of publication, and confessional orientation, there was nonetheless considerable collaboration and common ground. This collection of essays explores the readership of Dutch, English, French, and Italian biblical and devotional texts, focusing in particular on the relationships between the texts and paratexts of biblical texts, the records of ownership, and the marks and annotations of biblical readers. Evidence from early modern biblical texts and their users of all sorts – scholars, clerics, priests, laborers, artisans, and anonymous men and women, Protestant and Catholic – sheds light on how owners and readers used the biblical text.
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Renaissance and Reformation, 1997
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Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, 2021
The invention of printing in the mid-fifteenth century greatly encouraged the dissemination and study of the bible in the original Hebrew and Greek, in ancient translations (most importantly the Latin Vulgate), and, from the 1520s onward, a bewildering variety of translations into the European vernaculars. Increased access to the bible encouraged philological improvement of the text and new ways of reading and interpreting it, with profound implications for philosophy and theology of all kinds.
The Mythical 1522 and 1526 Hans van Ruremund Dutch New Testaments
Quaerendo, 2014
Two extant early Dutch printed scriptural editions, both in mainstream Dutch, name Hans van Ruremund as their printer: a four-volume 1525 Old Testament in decimosexto, and a September 1525 New Testament in octavo. A 1526 New Testament in the Low Saxon dialect in a decimosexto format of which no copies are extant also named Van Ruremund as its printer. However, beginning with Isaac Le Long in 1732, a succession of major scriptural bibliographers have ascribed to Van Ruremund the printing of addi tional mainstream Dutch New Testament editions, variously of 1522 and 1526.1 seek to show that they were mistaken, and why each erred.
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An overview of the main European biblical tradition of the Septuagint shows that much work has been carried out in this field of research. Prominent scholars investigated the Old Testament from a thematic diversity point of view, from the history of the text and its contextualization to a variety of translation topics. We investigate, in this article, a lesser-known edition of the Septuagint from the early 18th Century, edited by Lambert Bos and printed in Franeker. Lambert Bos’ biblical philology fits into the patterns of Dutch textual philology, consolidated in the 17th century and built on the solid foundations provided by the grammatical and lexical analysis of ancient texts. A deeper understanding of the issues raised by the texts’ transmission opens a new field of research which admits that a true appreciation of the texts’ content must be preceded by their recovery in as ‘authentic’ a form as possible. The present article aims to restore the image of a Dutch Hellenist of pre-modern philology, and to present important data on his key works, highlighting the defining characteristics of the Franeker edition (1709) of the Septuagint with an analysis from a modern perspective of the principles and methods he followed in the actual practice of biblical textual criticism.