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Bibles and Religion

About the Collection

At the Lilly Library, you’ll find one of the world’s foremost collections of printed versions of the Bible, from the Gutenberg new testament to important editions of the 20th century.

Highlights include:

  • The first New Testament printed in Greek (Complutensian Polygot, Alcala, six volumes, 1514-1517)
  • The first complete Bible printed in English (Coverdale Bible, Cologne, 1535)
  • First and second editions of the Eliot Bible in Algonquian
  • First Bible printed in America (Cambridge, 1663, 1685)
     

Have a Question?

Sarah Mitchell

Curator of Religious Collections

samcmitc@iu.edu

Related Resources

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Gutenberg New Testament

The Gutenberg Bible is the first major European printed book, produced in Mainz, Germany in the mid-1450s, by Johannes Gutenberg. Our copy of the New Testament is the Lilly Library's most famous book.

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Dürer's Apocalypse

Albrecht Dürer's Apocalypse (1498) is a monument of fifteenth-century printing. The beauty and technical accomplishment of its images have captivated viewers since its first publication.

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The Bible Through Music

Religious texts have been interpreted through music for centuries. This online exhibition examines selected musical settings of biblical texts from the Baroque through the twentieth-century.

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The Bible in the Lilly Library

Learn about 65 bibles in the Lilly Library collections, including both printed and manuscript bibles, in multiple languages.