The history of the text of the Bible begins with the Jewish Scriptures. The 39 books of the Old Testament were written in Hebrew between approximately 1500 and 400 BC. The Hebrew Bible was first translated into Greek during the third century BC – a translation known as the Septuagint, from the Latin word for 70, since the translation was traditionally said to be the work of 70 Jewish scholars in Alexandria, Egypt. Early Christians would have used this version of the Old Testament.

The 27 books which we now know as the New Testament were written in Greek during the first and second century AD and canonized by the early Christian church in 397. As Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire (which legalized the religion in the year 313), believers needed to access the scriptures in their everyday language – Latin. Several different versions of biblical texts had been produced for non-Greek speakers, but these “Old Latin” versions were of inconsistent quality and accuracy. In 382, Pope Damasus asked Eusebius Hieronymus – better known as Saint Jerome – to revise the biblical text into a standard Latin version. Jerome began translating the New Testament from Greek sources and the Old Testament from the Greek Septuagint, but around 390, he decided to translate directly from the Hebrew. Jerome’s translation, known as the Vulgate (from the Latin word for “popular”), gradually replaced the Old Latin versions until it was adopted by all of Western Christianity, and as Christianity spread throughout Europe, the Vulgate translation continued to be copied and recopied throughout the Middle Ages, for worship, devotion, and study.

Early Hebrew Bible Manuscripts in Facsimile

The Aleppo Codex. [Tenth century] Hebrew University, 1976.

• Call number: Rare Book Collection Quarto BS 715.5 .A43 1976

The St. Mark's Isaiah. [Second c. BCE] Kodansha, 1979.

• Call number: Rare Book Collection Quarto BS 1512.5 .D43 1979

Early Greek Bible Manuscripts in Facsimile

Codex Alexandrinus.  [Fifth century] Oxford University Press, 1915.

• Call number: Vault Collection 221.42 AL27c 1915

Codex Sinaiticus. [Fourth Century] The British Library, 2010.

• Call number: Rare Book Collection Folio BS 64 .S3 2010

Codex Vaticanus. [Fourth Century] Rome, 1868-1881.

• Call number: Vault Collection Folio 221.42 Va45 1868

Rossano Gospels. [Sixth Century] Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1985.

• Call number: Rare Book Collection Quarto ND 3359 .R6 C6 1985

Early Latin Bible Manuscripts in Facsimile

The Book of Kells. [8th century] Faksimile Verlag Luzern, 1990.

• Call number: Vault Collection Quarto 091 B47k 1990

Codex Lugdunensis.  [6th century, pre-Vulgate] Fermin-Didot et Cie, 1881.

• Call number: Vault Collection Quarto 222.1 R54 1881

Godescalc Evangelistary. [8th century] Facsimile Finder, 2015.

• Call number: Vault Collection Quarto ND 3359 .G55 G64 2015