Bible de Genève

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Bible de Genève. Print from 1669

The Bible de Genève , sometimes referred to as the Geneva Bible , is a French translation of the Bible from 1560, based on the Bible d'Olivétan .

translation

Pierre Robert Olivétan's translation of the Bible was first printed in 1535 in Serrières near Neuchâtel . From 1540 to 1560 Olivétan's cousin John Calvin also worked on this Bible translation, which was then published under the names Bible du Glaive and Bible de l'Epée , with that of 1551 having the largest print run. The Bible probably received a foreword by John Calvin at this time.

In 1560, Geneva was finally printed in the famous printing workshop of Robert Estienne (1503–1559) the actual Bible de Genève for the first time. On its title page was the Estiennes sign: an olive tree like a banner with the motto: “noli altum sapere”, in German: “don't be proud”. The motto is a reference to the 11th chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans . In the said letter, Gentile Christians are warned against arrogance. The nearly twenty pictures of the Bible de Genève were made by the wood cutter Pierre Cruche, a follower of Calvin. Only buildings or objects that are generally unfamiliar to the reader were depicted in this way, for example Noah's ark , the tabernacle, the ark , cult implements, the temple of Solomon or the king's palace. As before in the Luther Bible, Noah's ark was shown as a rectangular box. The New Testament had no images at all. The number of copies of the Bible was 1,000. The Bible cost thirty sols , which was the weekly wage of a carpenter or builder . The sale of the Reformed Bible was forbidden in Catholic France. This Bible edition at the latest apparently had a foreword by John Calvin. In 1565, Robert Estienne's son, Henri Estienne (1531–1598), printed a large-format edition of the Bible de Genève with additional woodcuts and in 1567 also a small-format edition of the Bible de Genève.

The editions of 1567 and 1588 were edited by the Geneva reformer Théodore de Bèze . In 1587 the Dutchman Petrus Hackius used the Bible de Genève for his revision of the Dutch Bible. He attached Dutch translations of the notes to the Bible de Genève. In 1588 pastors and professors of the Geneva Church began a sixteen year revision of the Bible text. Almost every verse had been changed from the Olivétan version. In 1635 the Bible de Genève was first printed in Amsterdam , the Netherlands . In 1669 another French edition of the Bible was printed there by the Elzévir brothers, which was particularly noted for its extensive commentary. Your Bible text was based on the Paris Bible edition of 1652, a revision of the Bible de Genève by Pierre des Hayes. In 1707 Pastor David Martin in the Netherlands revised the Bible de Genève again. In 1744 another revision of the Bible de Genève was published by the Reformed Swiss pastor Jean Frédéric Ostervald from Neuchâtel.

The Bible de Genève prevailed among the French-speaking Protestants. But it never achieved the meaning of the Luther Bible. Nevertheless, the Bible de Genève was the basis and yardstick for all Bible translations by French Protestants for over 300 years.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Museeprotestant Schéma Traductions de la Bible , accessed on: 4 June 2020
  2. ↑ a b Geneva Bible , accessed on: June 4, 2020
  3. ↑ a b c d e La Sainte Bible de 1535 traduite par Pierre-Robert Olivetan (Brief history of the origins of the Holy Scriptures from 1535, which was translated by Pierre-Robert Olivetan into French)
  4. ↑ See Hermann Schreiber: The Night of Bartholomew. The Parisian Blood Wedding and the Flight of the Huguenots . Frankfurt am Main / Berlin, 1994, page 15 f.
  5. ↑ a b c Lippische Landesbibliothek. May in the Year of the Bible: The Geneva Bible of the French Reformed Huguenots , accessed on: June 4, 2020
  6. ^ Andreas Gottlieb Masch : Contributions to the history of strange books , p. 251 f. or there
  7. ^ Ernst Friedrich Karl Rosenmüller : Handbook for the literature of biblical criticism and exegesis, Volume 4 , p. 416 f.
  8. ↑ a b Rudolf Ebertshäuser : God's word or human word? Modern Bible translations under the microscope . Betanien, Oerlinghausen 2006, ISBN 3-935558-72-4