Hebrew) Bibliorum Hebraicorum. Prepared by Elias Hutter

(BIBLE

Elias Hutter

Hamburg

1595 (1587)

Fine detailed engraved title depicting Biblical scenes. Divisional titles. With handwritten interlinear English translation of first six verses. Complete in one volume

Vinograd, Hamburg 6; Darlow & Moule 5108 and 1425; Berkowitz no.171; H. Z. Zafren, “Elias Hutter’s Hebrew Bibles” in The Joshua Bloch Memorial Volume, N.Y. 1960, pp. 29-39

An extraordinarily ambitious feat of scholarship. “In this edition the root letters are printed in thick type and the inflectional letters in hollow type; and when a root letter in any word does not appear, it is printed in small type above the line.” Darlow & Moule 5108. See also D.S. Berkowitz, In Rememberance of Creation: Evolution of Art and Scholarship in the Medieval and Renaissance Bible (1968) no.171. According to Berkowitz and Darlow & Moule, copies of Hutter’s Hebrew Bible originally issued in 1587 were used to form a supplement to the Hamburg Polyglot of 1596, bearing a fresh (and false) title thus making the whole publication appear a tetraglot in two volumes. The engraved title page of the present copy is of the polyglot edition (Bibliorum QuadrilinguimTomus Primus in quo textus Hebraicus) and although the divisional titles remained from the 1587 edition the opening title carries a variant date of 1595 (instead of 1596), not noted by Darlow & Moule.