New Testament Tertraglotton 1858

6B Tetraglotton New Testament. Latin Vulgate, Greek, German Martin Luther, English King James. Bielefeldiæ: Velhagen & Klasing, 1858.

Notes

The history of the printing and translation of the Bible is closely tied to the spread of literacy, religious reform, and printing technology in Europe. Before printing, the Bible circulated mainly as handwritten manuscripts, largely in Latin (the Vulgate), which limited access to clergy and scholars. The invention of the movable-type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century transformed this situation; his Gutenberg Bible (c. 1455) was among the first major books printed in Europe. Printing made the Bible cheaper, more uniform, and widely available, while humanist scholarship encouraged returning to the original Hebrew and Greek texts. During the Reformation, translators such as Martin Luther, William Tyndale, and later the translators of the King James Version rendered the Bible into vernacular languages, aiming to make Scripture directly accessible to ordinary believers. These translations, multiplied rapidly through print, played a central role in shaping theology, national languages, and popular devotion.

The tetraglotton version of the New Testament presents the text in four languages side by side; Greek, Latin, German, and English, to support study and comparison. A well-known example is the early 18th-century tetraglot New Testament published in London (1713), edited by David Wilkins, which printed the Greek text alongside the Latin Vulgate, Martin Luther’s German translation, and the English Authorized (King James) Version. Such editions were scholarly tools rather than popular Bibles, designed to help readers compare the original Greek with major confessional and national translations. These editions reflect the mature phase of early modern biblical scholarship, combining Renaissance philology, Reformation-era vernacular translations, and the technical capacity of printing to align multiple languages in parallel columns for close textual study.

Description

Three quarter brown leather fabric binding with gold embossing front on back and name plate on spine. Five raised bands. Endpapers and all edges marbled. Leather and gold embossed plate on interior board of ‘A. Caldecott’ dated 1865. Brown tape to reinforce interior upper hinge. Some foxing throughout. Fully intact. Very good condition overall.

Dimensions: 9.5” x 6.5” x 2”