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The 1560 Geneva Bible
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CD-ROM for use
only in a computer, not in a DVD player for your
TV
PDF files
(requires latest version of Adobe Reader,
available for free online)
Bible Study
~1200 pages
© The
Classic Archives, All Rights Reserved.
Students,
Bible Study Groups, everyone interested in Bible
Study
G (everyone)
English
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This CD-ROM contains The
1560 Geneva Bible, in PDF format. This is an exact
scan of the original printed 1560 edition. It
contains the Apocryphal Books, as well as the Old and
New Testament.
Please note, this disk
will not play in your car CD player or home DVD player,
this is disk is for your computer only.
The Geneva Bible was first printed in
Geneva, Switzerland, by refugees from England, fleeing
the persecution of Protestants by Roman Catholic Queen
“Bloody” Mary. Many copies were smuggled back into
England at great personal risk. In later years, when
Protestant-friendly Queen Elizabeth took the throne,
printing of the Geneva Bible moved back to England. The
Geneva Bible was produced by John Calvin, John Knox,
Myles Coverdale, John Foxe, and other Reformers. It is
the version that William Shakespeare quotes from
hundreds of times in his plays, and the first English
Bible to offer plain roman-style type in some of its
early printings.
The Geneva Bible was the first Bible taken to America,
brought over on the Mayflower… it is the Bible upon
which early America and its government was founded
(certainly not the King’s of England’s Bible!) The
Geneva Bible was also the first English Bible to break
the chapters of scripture into numbered verses, and it
was the first true “Study Bible” offering extensive
commentary notes in the margins. It was so accurate and
popular, that a half-century later, when the King James
Bible came out… it retained more than 90% of the exact
wording of the Geneva Bible.
The Geneva Bible is one of the most
historically significant translations of the Bible into
English, preceding the King James translation by 51
years. It was the primary Bible of 16th century
English Protestantism and was the Bible used by William
Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John Knox, John Donne, and
John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress (1678).
It was one of the Bibles taken to America on the
Mayflower (Pilgrim Hall Museum and Dr. Jiang have
collected several bibles of Mayflower passengers). The
Geneva Bible was used by many English Dissenters, and it
was still respected by Oliver Cromwell's soldiers at the
time of the English Civil War, in the booklet
"Cromwell's Soldiers' Pocket Bible".
This version of the Bible is significant because, for
the very first time, a mechanically printed,
mass-produced Bible was made available directly to the
general public which came with a variety of scriptural
study guides and aids (collectively called an
apparatus), which included verse citations that allow
the reader to cross-reference one verse with numerous
relevant verses in the rest of the Bible, introductions
to each book of the Bible that acted to summarize all of
the material that each book would cover, maps, tables,
woodcut illustrations, indices, as well as other
included features — all of which would eventually lead
to the reputation of the Geneva Bible as history's very
first study Bible.
Because the language of the Geneva Bible was more
forceful and vigorous, most readers strongly preferred
this version to the Great Bible. In the words of Cleland
Boyd McAfee, "it drove the Great Bible off the field by
sheer power of excellence".
The Geneva Bible followed
the Great Bible of 1539, the first authorized Bible in
English, which was the authorized Bible of the Church of
England.
During the reign of Queen Mary I of England (1553–58), a
number of Protestant scholars fled from England to
Geneva, Switzerland, which was then ruled as a republic
in which John Calvin and, later, Theodore Beza, provided
the primary spiritual and theological leadership. Among
these scholars was William Whittingham, who supervised
the translation now known as the Geneva Bible, in
collaboration with Myles Coverdale, Christopher Goodman,
Anthony Gilby, Thomas Sampson, and William Cole; several
of this group later became prominent figures in the
Vestments controversy. Whittingham was directly
responsible for the New Testament, which was complete
and published in 1557, while Gilby oversaw the Old
Testament.
The first full edition of this Bible, with a further
revised New Testament, appeared in 1560, but it was not
printed in England until 1575 (New Testament) and 1576
(complete Bible). Over 150 editions were issued; the
last probably in 1644. The very first Bible printed in
Scotland was a Geneva Bible, which was first issued in
1579. In fact, the involvement of Knox and Calvin in the
creation of the Geneva Bible made it especially
appealing in Scotland, where a law was passed in 1579
requiring every household of sufficient means to buy a
copy.
Some editions from 1576 onwards included Laurence
Tomson's revisions of the New Testament. Some editions
from 1599 onwards used a new "Junius" version of the
Book of Revelation, in which the notes were translated
from a new Latin commentary by Franciscus Junius.
The annotations which are an important part of the
Geneva Bible were Calvinist and Puritan in character,
and as such they were disliked by the ruling
pro-government Anglicans of the Church of England, as
well as King James I, who commissioned the "Authorized
Version", or King James Bible, in order to replace it.
The Geneva Bible had also motivated the earlier
production of the Bishops' Bible under Elizabeth I, for
the same reason, and the later Rheims-Douai edition by
the Catholic community. The Geneva Bible remained
popular among Puritans and remained in widespread use
until after the English Civil War. The Geneva notes were
surprisingly included in a few editions of the King
James version, even as late as 1715.
Now is
your chance to own this historic bible in PDF format,
delivered to your door,
on one easy to use CD-ROM!
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