[SAUR BIBLE].

Biblia, Das ist: Die Helige Schrift Altes un Neues Testaments, Nach de

Item #53671

(SAUR BIBLE). Biblia, Das ist: Die Helige Schrift Altes und Neues Testaments, Nach der Deutschen Uebersetzung D. Martin Luthers mit Jedes Capitels Furtzen Summarien, Ach Bengefugten Vielen und Richtigen Parallelen; Rebst dem Gewohnlichen Anhang des Dritten und Vierten Buchs Esra und des Dritten Buchs der Maccabaer. Germantown: Christoph Saur, 1743. 4to. [4], 995. [1], 277, [7] pp. printed in double columns. Ornamental capitals. Contemporary calf over bevelled wooden boards, tooled brass clasps, raised bands. Repaired, loss to foot of spine made up in matching leather; lower half of second column of one leaf expertly supplied in facsimile; boards rubbed; toning and light scattered foxing, else a very good copy. Evans 5127. Darlow & Moule 4240. Hildeburn 804. Seidensticker, p. 20. The first European language Bible printed in America, and the second Bible printed in America after John Eliot's Indian Bibles of the 1660s. The German text is based on Martin Luther's translation, by way of the 34th Halle edition, with some books of the Apocrypha (III and IV Esra and III Maccabees) supplied from the pietistic Berlenburg Bible. It was printed with type sent from Frankfurt by Heinrich Ehrenfried Luther, who received twelve of the completed Bibles in return. Though Saur was criticized by the Lutherans in Philadelphia for the ideological slant of his Bible, the combination of translations (and Protestant traditions) did much to keep Saur above much of the local German sectarian conflict. Believed to have been printed in an edition of 1200 copies, slightly over one-tenth are known to have survived. Christoph Saur (1693-1758) was a native of Wittgenstein, Germany, who settled in Germantown, Pennsylvania, and practiced medicine before turning to printing. A very nice copy of a landmark in American religious and printing history.

Price: $11,000.00