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On here you will find information regarding the books I own only virtually.
The Presbyterium (The Council of Elders
) contains information about old and ancient books that I own.
The Presbyterium (The Council of Elders
) contains information about old and ancient books that I own.
In the following article, I will be examining the oldest book I currently — as of June 20, 2021 — have in my collection, namely Adam Rechenberg’s edition of the Greek New Testament. I have extensively documented various features of this book — and, most importantly, of this particular edition that I own — and will showcase those in this article, alongside some explanations and observations.
+In the following article, I will be examining the oldest book I currently — as of November 2021 — have in my collection, namely Adam Rechenberg’s edition of the Greek New Testament. I have extensively documented various features of this book — and, most importantly, of this particular edition that I own — and will showcase those in this article, alongside some explanations and observations.
Before I begin my examination of various points of interest in the book itself, I would like to begin highlighting some information about the author — or, rather, the publisher of this particular volume of the New Testament, Adam Rechenberg. I have misspelt his name frequently over the course of writing this website, as it is oddly reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes’ The Reichenbach Fall; my brain appears to have the desire to write Adam’s name not as Rechenberg, but rather as Rechenbach. My frequent consultation of the stories of Sherlock Holmes might have caused this issue.
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One thing that immediately struck me and that had me fascinated from the beginning was a fold-out map hidden within one of Paul’s prologues. I was shocked at how well-preserved it was, considering how often it must have been folded and unfolded over the years; though I do confess I was particularly careful whilst handling it, for it felt as if it would rip apart if I so much as looked at it from an angle it did not deem worthy enough.
-The map is very detailled and contains the names of countless regions and cities all over what it calls Palæstina oder: Das Gelobte Land
(Palestine or: The Promised Land). The Mediterranean is also present and labelled as Das Große oder Mitellændische Meer
, though it would nowadays usually be referred to simply as Mittelmeer
.
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The map is very detailled and contains the names of countless regions and cities all over what it calls Palæstina oder: Das Gelobte Land
(Palestine or: The Promised Land). The Mediterranean is also present and labelled as Das Große oder Mitellændische Meer
, though it would nowadays usually be referred to simply as Mittelmeer
.
Towns, mountains and various other things can be immediately identified by a small depiction of houses or a hill — and there are countless of these. Simply open the closeup image above and see for yourself.
+ +Personally, I found it staggering that a fold-up map glued onto one of the pages of a 300 year-old book would be this detailled and well-preserved; and whilst there are, indeed, a handful of blemishes and holes, I would not have been able to guess its age correctly had I simply been shown the map without any context.
+ +Furthermore, various numbers are placed all around certain locations on the map and the name of the place they are referring to can be found at the very bottom of the map; their names are, as is the rest of the map, written in German using a standard — for the time — blackletter typeface, most likely simply Fraktur (though I am, by no means, an expert on typefaces and their names).Note [3]
+ +All in all, I must admit that I found the map one of the most interesting — if not the most interesting — parts of this book; its discovery was totally unexpected to me and I was most delighted to find this small piece of art work so well-preserved in this book.
+ +I could probably continue adding remarks about this map and study it in details, but I fear it would simply make this already rather lengthy article even longer — why, even too long for what it is worth. Should I receive requests to cover this map in more detail, I shall; but for the time being, I will leave it at this.
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+ Why indeed, one may have already forgotten that the book we are currently discussing is a copy of the Greek New Testament; and as such, this is what makes up the bulk of the volume. Thus, we shall now briefly examine this particular edition of the New Testament, although I will not have much to remark about it — it is, quite simply put, an edition of the New Testament as most others and what makes it remarkable is what I have already discussed and what I shall — in later chapters — conntinue to discuss.
+[1] Interestingly enough, the deutsche-biographie.de website actually mentions some of his teachers’ names, which I found rather intriguing. Amongst these are Rappolt, Thomasius and Frankenstein (yes, indeed) who were teachers of the philosophical subjects; and Scherzer, Kromayer and Geyer were teachers of theology. I was particularly surprised seeing the name of Frankenstein here. Back to text
[2] The word Leusdeni
that appears here is, in actuality, the genitive form of the name Leusden
, belonging to a very prominent Dutch theologian of the 17th century. His full name was Johannes Leusden and he wrote a substantial amount of books on the Bible and even published his own Biblia Hebraica. Back to text
[3] There are, despite what many may believe, a large number of different blackletter typesfaces and which one was used depends on the year a certain publication was released and — I am sure — the preference of the author; I am also sure that certain printing presses only had one set of letters, so those had to be used no matter what the author would have preferred. Fraktur is one of the most popular German blackletter fonts and I am thus quite certain it is what has been used here as well; though it could also be Schwabacher. Back to text
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