Early Bibles

The dramatic story of the King James Bible and the English Bibles that came before it is part of a much larger, even epic, narrative that spans not just centuries, but millennia: the history of the Christian Bible as a book. This gallery offers a look at a wide sampling of early Bibles and psalters (collections of the psalms).

With origins that range from Anglo-Saxon England to Constantinople, from Rome and Paris to Reformation-era Basel, these enduring, diverse, and often beautiful works are drawn from the research libraries hosting the Manifold Greatness exhibition: the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, which jointly curated the Manifold Greatness project, and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.