SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
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Featured Item
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Slavonic Bible
Bridwell Library Special Collections |
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The Slavonic Bible recently acquired by Bridwell Library
is the 1663 reprint of the Ostrog Bible. The earlier
edition, printed first in 1580 and again in 1581, takes its name from
its place of publication, the Castle Ostrog, in what is now the
Ukraine. The translation relied heavily on the Greek recension
attributed to Lucian of Antioch, the manuscript Slavonic Bible of
Gennadius and other materials -- no definitive list of the texts
consulted survives.
Prince Constantine of Ostrog, the driving force behind the project, collected manuscripts and printed
versions of the Greek Bible -- including that of the Aldine Press in
Venice -- in
The 1663 edition proclaims itself "The First Printed," true only if the caveat "in Moscow" is added. Although the version emerged during a period of schism in the Russian Orthodox Church, the editors made no attempt to change the text of the Ostrog Bible to support one side or the other. The new printing appears to have been simply a means of replenishing the supply of Bibles in Church Slavonic. The printer decorated the Bible with woodcuts: letters, biblical scenes, a view of Moscow, the Russian imperial coat of arms, and portraits of the four evangelists.
For more on Slavic language Bibles see Henry R. Cooper, Jr., Slavic Scriptures (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003).
Darlow & Moule 8371
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Acquired April 2006
Elizabeth Haluska-Rausch, PhD, Curator of Special Collections
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order
to provide his team of translators with material. From the beginning
the intention was to provide a vernacular text for the Orthodox
inhabitants of the region, an impulse inspired both by competition
from the area's Roman Catholic population and by Renaissance
scholarship. The resulting text became both the first complete
printed edition of the Bible in Church Slavonic and the first
printed in Cyrillic characters.| • About us | • Reference and Research | • Circulation | • Special Collections | • Methodist Studies |
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