Publishing of the complete Geneva Bible, a veritable treasury of ‘firsts’ among English translations of the Bible. While building on the tradition of Tyndale, it was the first English Bible to be translated entirely from the original languages in both Old and New Testaments. Beginning with the separate publication of the New Testament in 1557, it was the first English Bible to contain verse numbers—the same verse divisions that we use today. It was the first “study Bible” in English, containing cross-references, maps, pictures, notes and informative tables—later printings even added a concordance. A success from the start, the Geneva Bible was incredibly influential and extremely popular, going through over 120 different editions in only fifty years, permanently impacting the course of English speaking Christianity.
1560
