The Edition History of the Deux Aes Bible

August den Hollander

At the beginning of the second half of the sixteenth century the still young Reformed Protestant movement in various places in Western Europe was busy with the organization of religious life. Adherents devoted themselves to pro viding the movement with works that could give expression to its own identity and were necessary to regulate and make uniform church life, such as a cate chism, a psalm book, a confession, and a Bible translation.1 On the one hand, that process was made more difficult in the practical sense because the scho lars who were supposed to be working on the publications were often busy with several tasks at once and thus had little time; they also traveled around and were therefore not always available to accept such work or, if they started on it, to finish it. On the other hand, working on such texts was in a certain sense experimental in nature for the still young movement and for that reason also not entirely without risks for the author and the financier(s). One example of this was the 1556 edition of the New Testament by Jan Utenhove that was printed by the Emden printer/publisher Gillis van der Erven.2 The Flemish refugee Jan Utenhove, who was an important supplier of texts for the young Reformed movement, had done a translation of the New Testament, with the help of the Emden minister, Godfried van Winghen, also a Flemish refugee, to replace the Liesveltbijbel which followed Luther to a great extent. The German-Dutch language mixture which Utenhove had chosen was a major reason why the publication was a complete disaster. It turned out to be a noose around Utenhove’s neck who had paid Van Winghen an annual allow ance of 60 guilders, and certainly around the neck of the printer Van der Erven.

1 On sixteenth-century Dutch catechisms and confessions, see W. Heijting, De catechismi en confessies in de Nederlandse Reformatie tot 1585, 2 vols. (Nieuwkoop, 1989); for the Heidelberg Catechism which was influential in the Dutch Reformation, see K. Apperloo-Boersma, H. J. Selderhuis, eds, Power of Faith—450 Years of the Heidelberg Catechism (Göttingen, 2013). On early reformation Dutch psalm books, see S. J. Lenselink, De Nederlandse Psalmberijmingen van de Souterliedekens tot Datheen (Dordrecht, 1983). See also J. de Bruijn, W. Heijting, Psalmzingen in de Nederlanden van de zestiende eeuw tot heden. Studies en catalogus (Kampen, 1991). On the Dutch Confession of De Bres, see E. Braekman & E. de Boer, eds., Guido de Bres. Zijn leven, zijn belijden, (Utrecht, 2011). 2 See A. Pettegree, Emden and the Dutch Revolt, Exile and the Development of Reformed Protestantism (Oxford 1992), pp. 93–4.

In the meantime, the demand for a new Reformed translation of the Bible did not disappear, and four years later, in 1560 (dated 1559), Van der Erven pub lished a thorough revision of Utenhove’s translation by Johannes Dyrkinus, who came from Ghent. His translation, which was written in comprehensible and clearly readable Dutch, was a success. Despite all ambitions to the con trary, work on the Old Testament proceeded no further than another revision of the Liesvelt Bible by Godfried van Winghen. This was also ready in 1559, shortly before Van Winghen began a trip to visit various congregations. In 1561–62 at the earliest, the first edition of the complete Bible, Old and New Testament, was published by the Emden printer/publisher Gillis van der Erven. This would come to be known as the Deux Aes Bible.

Mapping Editions of the Deux Aes Bible

Although the Deux Aes Bible was not the first Reformed Bible to appear in the second half of the sixteenth century for the still young Reformed movement in the Low Countries, it became the most well-known Dutch sixteenth-century Bible by far.3 Numerous editions of this Bible were published, and it thus occu pied an important place in the development of early Reformed Protestantism. But whoever wants to describe the edition history of the Deux Aes Bible is faced with a difficult task, as is true for many Bible translations. The key pro blems in Bible bibliographical enterprises are generally twofold: First of all, there is the question of what is precisely understood by a Bible edition. Following the electronic Bible bibliography Biblia Sacra here, the term “Bible” is understood to mean the edition of the complete text of one or more Bible books, i.e., the edition of the complete Deux Aes Bible in its different variants as well as the separate publications of the Old Testament and/or New Testament, and even separate editions of one or more Bible books from the Deux Aes Bible.4

3 For the Deux Aes Bible, see A. J. van den Berg, B. Thijs, Uitgelezen. Bijbels en prentbijbels uit de vroegmoderne tijd (Heerenveen, 2010), pp. 60–9; C. C. de Bruin, De Statenbijbel en zijn voor- gangers. Nederlandse bijbelvertalingen vanaf de Reformatie tot 1637 (rev. by F. G. M. Broeyer), (Haarlem, 1993), pp. 178–201. Still valuable is C. A. Tukker, Een verborgen schat in den acker. Over geschiedenis en betekenis van de eerste gereformeerde Bijbel (Utrecht, 1978). 4 Biblia Sacra, a project of which Piet Visser was one of the initiators, is an electronic biblio graphy of Bibles printed in the Netherlands and Belgium up to 1800 (www.bibliasacra.com). Biblia Sacra provides extensive descriptions of Bible editions and numerous reproductions of typographical and iconographical material. It gives information on both the editions and,