Calvin News

An interesting display of Reformation Era Bibles will be up at Calvin College until December 15. Free and open to the public the display features 18 Bibles from the time of the Reformation, including the Hekman Library's 1637, first edition "Statenbijbel" -- a rare Dutch Bible that is a contemporary of the well-known King James Version of the Bible. The other Bibles -- all but two of which are from the Calvin collection -- are mostly from the 1600s as well, but some date back to the 1500s and some were produced in the 1700s. The display is housed in the Meeter Center at Calvin College and can be seen daily during the week from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., except at noon.

Contact: Harry Boonstra at 616-957-6121.

Information on Rare Bibles at Calvin

The Hekman Library at Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary is awash in modern technology -- computers, compact discs, laser printers, scanners, Internet access and more. But the library's latest addition is a throwback.

Last month the library acquired a rare Dutch Bible -- a 1637, first edition "Statenbijbel." It's a contemporary of the well-known King James Version of the Bible, which first came out in 1611 in England. About 1,500 copies of the Statenbijbel were printed in 1637. Calvin officials do not know how many yet survive, but apparently only one other North American library has a copy and even in the Netherlands, copies are scarce.

Although well-known among the Dutch, the Statenbijbel also has an interesting place in American history. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose family had immigrated from the Netherlands, used an old Statenbijbel (printed in 1686) for his swearing-in ceremonies. These remain the only inauguration ceremonies in which a non-English Bible was used.

Statenbijbels often were passed from one generation to the next and eventually some, including Calvin's, found their way across the ocean, riding with Dutch immigrants to North America. The Library's Statenbijbel includes just a partial history of ownership. An 1832 marriage is recorded, for example, and notes the birth of 11 children, five of whom were stillborn.

"These Bibles were not just read from the pulpit," said Conrad Bult, who heads up the Library's Rare Book Room. "They were cherished by the people who owned them. When you see how large ours is (it measures about 15 inches by 10 inches, is 5 inches thick and weighs 15 pounds) and you think about the valuable space that it took on the trip from the Netherlands to this country, you realize how important it was to the family."

Both the English King James and the Dutch Statenbijbel were part of the Reformation's emphasis on comprehensive, official printed Bibles in the language of the land. Prior to the Reformation, nearly all Bibles were in Latin, which most people, other than clergy, could not read. The Reformation brought the Bible to the people in lands across Europe.

"The chief impetus for these translations," said librarian Harry Boonstra, "was the desire to have God's Word available in the language of the people. At the same time, these Bible translations also shaped the languages of their countries; they helped to codify a standard national language."

The Dutch Statenbijbel was authorized by the famous Synod of Dordt, which met in 1618 and 1619 to debate the theological questions of sin and salvation. Financing for the translation by the government was finally approved in 1625 and work began in November 1626 in the city of Leiden. One concern for the translators was the apocryphal books. Some at Synod did not want to include the apocrypha; others argued strenuously for it. A compromise was struck and the Statenbijbel includes the books, but prefaces them with a five-page warning as to their inferiority.

Boonstra notes that toward the end of the arduous translation process, the translators also had other concerns. "Black death" decimated Leiden in 1635; as many as 1,500 funeral processions per week passed the house where the translators were at work.

The translation was completed in October 1635 and the first printing was finished in June 1637. After some initial resistance the Statenbijbel soon was almost universally embraced in the Netherlands. By 1660 virtually every Protestant home in the country had a copy and the churches had adopted it as their pulpit Bible.

This summer the Hekman Library will prepare a historical display of early Dutch Bibles to accompany the first-edition Statenbijbel. That display will be ready for viewing in September.

Until then the Bible is being housed in the rare book room of the H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies where it can be seen by the public, an ocean and 360 years removed from its creation -- a tangible piece of religious history connecting past, present and future via the written word.