The Edward Cadbury Charitable Trust has recently purchased from Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre a collection of books belonging to James Rendel Harris, the first Principal and Director of Studies at Woodbrooke; these include a splendid collection of early Bibles and New Testaments, among them a copy of the Latin and Greek New Testament edited by Erasmus in 1516 and two copies of the first edition of the New Testament in Syriac published in Vienna in 1555.

The Trust has generously presented this magnificent collection to the University of Birmingham.

This is the first edition of this work, which was dedicated to Pope Leo X, whose courteous reply was printed in later editions of the book; nevertheless the publication was a great impetus to the Reformation and Luther's German New Testament was done from the second edition; Erasmus' own new Latin translation, printed parallel to the Greek Text, is different from the Vulgate, which papal authority subsequently declared should be used exclusively 

This is the first Greek New Testament to be printed in Germany; it is largely a reprint of the second edition of Erasmus (1519) ; an early owner has added many annotations and quotations

This is the earliest attempt at a critical edition, based on the 3rd edition of Erasmus; Simon de Colines was the foreman of the famous Estienne printing firm founded in Paris in 1504/5; on the death of the founder Henri Estienne in 1520, Colines married his widow and ran the firm until Henri's sons came of age; this beautiful edition is more scholarly than that of Erasmus and it includes corrections to over 750 passages that were made on the basis of many manuscripts that have not survived

This is the first 'Authorised Bible'; Thomas Cromwell encouraged Henry VIII to have the Bible in English placed in the churches of England for all to read; on the title page is the story in pictures of how this Bible was produced; note the blank space on the right where the picture of Thomas Cromwell should have been (by the time of publication he had fallen out of favour with the King)

The title page of each Part features block illustrations of Biblical scenes  

This Greek New Testament is based Jo. Bebel's text also printed at Basle in 1524; the Introduction is by Johannes Oecolampadius who had helped Erasmus with his first edition of the Greek New Testament in 1516: the four Evangelists are featured on the  woodblocks on the title page

Robert Estienne (STEPHANUS), the second scholar-printer of the family to run the celebrated Paris firm, became the King's printer for Hebrew, Latin and Greek; according to his son Henri, Robert brought up his children to speak Latin at home; in 1551 Robert fled from the persecution by the Catholic theologians at the Sorbonne to Geneva, where he embraced Calvinism; this fine and corrected edition is based on the 5th edition of Erasmus and the 'Complutensian' version; the device on the title page is an olive branch    

This is the second edition of Robert Estienne's Greek New Testament; it is called the 'O mirificam' from the opening words of the Preface; this high quality text has only 14 printing errors (one of them is 'pulres' for 'plures', 2nd line from the bottom of the first page of the Preface); chapter and verse had not yet been introduced; an owner has inserted some rules and numeration in ink    

This is the fourth edition of Robert Estienne's Greek New Testament and the first Greek Text to be issued with the chapter and verse we still use; according to his son Henri, Robert made the divisions in the text while riding on horseback from Lyons to Paris; in 1551 Robert had fled to Geneva from Paris, where the Catholic theologians had persuaded the Privy Council to ban his Latin Bibles; the book contains no indication that it was printed in Geneva, but it does have the firm's famous olive tree and motto on the title page 

SYRIAC NEW TESTAMENT
First edition: Vienna: 1555

There are two copies of this edition of the Syriac New Testament, which was prepared by the Chancellor of Lower Austria, the trilingual scholar Albert Widmanstadt, with the help of Mardin, a Syrian priest; the matrices were struck in steel and the types themselves in tin, and the printing was financed by the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand I; 1000 copies were printed, of which the Emperor earmarked 500 to be sent to the Near East for the use of Jacobite Christians; in the Preface Widmanstadt hopes that this work will help unite the Eastern and Western Churches; the publication of this ancient text 'in Christ's own language', as many believed, made a great stir, Protestants arguing that it told against the Papal claim for exclusive use of the Latin Vulgate

This is the first Arabic (with Latin interlinear gloss) printing of the Gospels; it was  prepared by Raimondi, who had learnt the language in the Near East; he supervised the Oriental printing of the Medici Press, having been called to Rome in 1586 by its founder, the Cardinal Fernando de Medici;  the text is not divided into chapter and verse, but into sections in the style of the Eastern Church; this copy originally belonged to Bartolocci, the Librarian of the Vatican, whose title as Cardinal (Giulio de S Anastasia) is on the first page

The 149 woodcuts are the work LEONARDO PARASOLI (or LUCA PENNI) from the drawings of  ANTONIO TEMPESTA