The University of Glasgow library has discovered a Hebrew and Latin Bible in their collections that they believe once belonged to the great Scottish Reformer John Knox.
The large folio Latin and Hebrew Old Testament published in 1546 in Basel, Switzerland, appears to bear the reformer’s signature dated 1561 on the reverse of the title page. Printed books are inextricably linked with the Reformation: from published Scripture in the vernacular and polemical ‘pamphlet wars’ between clerics holding different confessional viewpoints to the large illustrated works memorialising those ‘martyred’ for their faith, printed books were central to those on both sides of the confessional divide. Large book collections were amassed during the sixteenth century packed with works – often annotated by their owners – tracing the controversies. Yet frustratingly for Reformation historians, all too often these libraries don’t survive intact having been broken up for one reason or another. John Knox’s library is just one such example; in the words of one biographer, Knox’s “personal library has been largely lost to view” with just a handful of books certainly traceable to him surviving and identifiable. This find, therefore is significant.
Because of the winding history of how the book came into the library’s collections, the library cannot prove that the book was owned by Knox. And the signature in it, “Jo. Knok[e]s 1561,” was not one that Knox was known to use. Nevertheless, prominent Knox biographer Jane Dawson thinks it likely did belong to Knox. She explains
Once he was back in Scotland [from his time on the Continent] and had been appointed as minister of St Giles’ Kirk, Edinburgh, acquiring a Latin/Hebrew Old Testament might have been another attempt to fulfil that good resolution of improving his Hebrew. Even if he never got beyond the basics with his Hebrew, Knox was certainly interested in that biblical language and in the latest scholarship on the Old Testament. Knox was not a great linguistic scholar and translator, unlike his friends the Genevan Reformers, John Calvin and Theodore Beza. When preparing his sermons, Knox would examine his biblical texts and their variant meanings as closely as possible and he liked to use different translations and interpretations of those texts. He would certainly have been pleased to own and use a Hebrew and Latin Old Testament. It therefore seems likely that this marvellous and intriguing book in the University of Glasgow did belong to John Knox from 1561.
Do check out the images of the book at the University of Glasgow’s blog. You can also check out my recent review of Jane Dawson’s biography John Knox.
