Rare Scriptures at the Library of the American Bible Society
Almost 200 years ago, the American Bible Society established a biblical library that aimed to document the history of Bible translation and Bible publication. Through gifts and an ambitious acquisitions policy, the Library grew throughout the 19th century and today it constitutes one of the world's largest collections of printed Scriptures.
Above: Bible in German. Nuremberg:
Anton Koberger, 1483. Prologue, detail.
Located on the same floor as MOBIA, the Rare Book Collection belongs to the American Bible Society. It is the largest collection of printed Scriptures in America and one of the largest in the world and it includes more than forty incunables, first editions of the Bible in Hebrew and Greek, almost all the early editions of the English Bible, from Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch in 1530 to the King James Bible of 1611, first editions of Luther's German translation, rarely seen translations done by missionaries across five continents, and early American imprints such as the Massachusetts Bible of 1663 or Robert Aitken's English Bible of 1782.
Although its main focus is on the printed Scriptures, the collection also includes a few manuscripts: an English New Testament in the Wyclif translation dating from about 1440; a fifteenth century Torah scroll once used by the Jewish community of Kaifeng in central China; two thirteenth-century Latin Bibles; a superbly bound text of the four Gospels in Armenian copied in the late fifteenth century; and two exquisite fifteenth-century Books of Hours.
The Library of the American Bible Society was established in 1817, less than a year after the Society was founded. Originally planned as a depository for one copy of each of the Bibles published by the Society, the Library soon enlarged the scope of its collection and started acquiring Scriptures from many other sources as well. Through gifts and an ambitious acquisitions policy, the Library's holdings grew throughout the nineteenth century and continues to add hundreds of new books each year.
The Rare Scripture Collection of the American Bible Society is accessible to the public by appointment only.
To schedule a presentation for an organized group or to request information about a specific Bible, please contact the Curator, Dr. Liana Lupas, by phone at 212-408-1204, or by email at llupas@americanbible.org.