Breeches Bible

This publication was a gift to the Ballarat Mechanics’ institute by gift from Miss M. J. Lacy , 26 Bevan St. Balwyn  E . 8  

 Ref BMI Minutes ID M1545 Monthly Meeting 22/06/1959

Family Bible. Dated 1585. Listings of families. Davison Woodhouse Morley Thomas.

Printer- Christopher Barker Printer to Queen.

Heritage database record 1205   Dewey 220BIB     Date 1585

Contributor Roger Burrows:-

We have only three mainstream religions that are focussed on books , Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism . Other religions have their sacred writings but do not hold them in the same authority as the Book -religions do with their sacred tomes and the Breeches Bible represents a turning point in both political and religious power in the troubled times of the16th. and early 17th. Centuries in England . Tyndale began to translate the new testament in 1523 into English with much opposition from the clergy indeed he had to flee to Europe and hide to continue his work and finished around 1534 two years later he was put to death and his body burned .After Henry VIII broke with the Roman Church and declared himself head of the English church in 1537 the English awoke one day to find that they now had two versions of the bible one by Tyndale and one by Coverdale his version being called the Great Bible because of its size ostensibly . Then came Mary and her persecution of things protestant and burning of the English language bibles. This onslaught forced the English scholars to flee to Europe and mainly around Geneva where they found untrammelled access to material for scholarly study and produced a new version called the Geneva Bible the first to be printed with verses .This was an excellent version and it is the bible of Shakespeare , Knox , Calvin and the pilgrim fathers and of the old Scottish church and was printed in Edinburgh . It was small enough to be carried around unlike the Great Bible ,it was first to be mechanically printed and so was considerably cheaper than previous editions and never received full royal patronage only tacit approval . However it was extremely popular and even after James decreed his version to be the official one the Geneva continued to be printed and 1599 seemed to be a year of extraordinary output . Our book is a Geneva Bible with the nickname The Breeches Bible that came about by the translation of Genesis 3:7 by Whittingham, Gilby and Sampson in 1579 and they sewed figge-tree leaves together and made themselves breeches There are many names given to bibles due to translation differences or errata and is an amusing subject in itself .