Highlights of the Exhibition
The Elizabeth Perkins Prothro Bible Collection
at
Bridwell
Library
1996-2006
September 7-November 18, 2006
First North American European Language Bible
Biblia das ist: Die Heilige Schrift. 2 vols. bound in 1. Germantown [i.e., Philadelphia]: Christoph Saur, 1743.
Christoph Saur (1693–1758), working in Germantown, Pennsylvania, printed the first European language Bible in America in 1743. Using traditional “Fraktur” type obtained from the Luther Foundry of Frankfurt, Germany, he produced an edition of 1,200 copies of Martin Luther’s German Bible. Although ministers of the German Lutheran Church of Pennsylvania and the German Reformed Church at Lancaster leveled attacks at Saur’s Bible, there was enough demand for a second edition that Christoph Saur II (1721–1784) printed a second edition of 2,000 copies in 1763 – the first Bible printed in America on American-made paper. The third Saur Bible, printed in 1776, was the first Bible printed from American-made type, manufactured by Justus Fox at the Saur type foundry in Germantown.
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