Gutenberg Bible

May 5, 2004 4:55 PM

The Gutenberg Bible: On this site you will find the British Library’s two copies of Johann Gutenberg’s Bible, the first real book to be printed using the technique of printing which Gutenberg invented in the 1450s.
posted by hama7 (10 comments total)

Previous single exhibit and inaccessible thread here.
posted by hama7 at 4:56 PM on May 5, 2004

Was this before or after he appeared in Police Academy?
posted by bdk3clash at 5:39 PM on May 5, 2004

Gute post, hama.
Not gute joke, bdk.
posted by wendell at 6:19 PM on May 5, 2004

wonderful. thank you!
posted by rhapsodie at 6:27 PM on May 5, 2004

This is a wonderful. For New Yorkers interested in seeing a Gutenberg Bible in person (though you can't flip the pages, either by hand or digitally), head over to the New York Public Library's main branch, where there's one on quiet display outside the 3d floor main reading room.

The NYPL gets a kick out of pointing out that the man who brought the bible to the U.S., James Lenox, told U.S. Customs Inspectors that were to remove their hats on seeing it, privileged as they were to lay their eyes on such a thing.
posted by hhc5 at 7:17 PM on May 5, 2004

I saw it at the NYPL, and I wish I'd been wearing a hat, so I could have removed it.
posted by theora55 at 7:38 PM on May 5, 2004

Fantastic. Does anyone publish illuminated Bibles anymore? The simple text-only (or worse yet, the trendy Bibles favoured by Protestants trying to be hip) just aren't the same.
posted by infidelpants at 9:05 PM on May 5, 2004

[this is good] - don't miss the other treasures of the British Library.

Does anyone publish illuminated Bibles anymore?
Take a look at the Saint John's Bible site.
posted by plep at 12:21 AM on May 6, 2004

Taschen just started selling a reproduction of the Luther Bible of 1534. It's in German, though. The Metropolitan Museum sells a Bible illustrated with illuminations from the Urbino Bible. The text is King James, and you can get it through the link (though you have to dig around a little).
posted by halonine at 1:11 AM on May 6, 2004

Thanks, hama7. I saw an original at the Gutenberg museum in Mainz, it was (words fail me ...).
posted by carter at 9:59 AM on May 6, 2004