RARE BIBLES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 13 November 1926, Page 11

RARE BIBLES.

A REMARKABLE exhibition of 8ib163 was inaugurated at the Plantin Museum, Antwerp, states the Antwefp correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor. The show was held in commemoration of the fifteenth anniversary of the opening of the Plantin Museum, Bibles printed at Antwerp have been collected, for the purposes of the exhibition. from London, Paris, Brussels. Amsterdam, Ghent, Stuttgart, and •elsewhere, -it will he remembered, that' the first English'. Bible, translated by Martin Tyndale, in 1334. was printed at Antwerp. The present authorised version was founded on Tyndale's. translation. . The Plantin Museum, without this special exhibition of Bibles, is well worth a visit with its ancient printing presses, and all its specimens of the art of printing, woodcuts and engravings. From the most primitive to the latest press, a marvel of art, all sorts of apparatus may be seen. Antwerp is one of the cities claiming to be the cradle of printing, and her most celebrated son in this branch of art is Plantin. His chief works was the printing of a) polyglot Bible, which occupied him for lour years, being begun in 1568, and finished in 1572. There are eight in folio volumes, the first four volumes being the Old Testament,. Ope column is in Chaldean, and another jn Greek. This permits qf a oomparasqn of the text in the various languages. The first polyglot Bible was printed in 1514. at Alcala, edited by Cardinal Francois Zimenez. It had become extremely rave, and this is the reason that Pliantin commenced the printing of another polyglot Bible. Tt was in the Plantin printing shop that the celebrated “Antwerp” Bibles Were made., in 1599. and later. At the Council of Trent it was decided that the Vulgate was the only recognised text for the Bible, and this was the book reproduced in the famous printing shop. The Phantom Bibles are notable for ther wealth of woodcuts, and the care with which they are printed. iiiiiimimiMimiiiiuiiiiiiHmHtmiiimirtimiiiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinimmiiiiimmiiiiHiiiHnuiiiiiiiiiMiipiiiniiiniiimiiiMHiimi*