We’ll begin with an unsurprising fact: The first book ever printed was a Latin version of the Bible, including the New Testament. It was printed in Germany around the year 1455 by Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press. Somewhat more surprising is the fact that when Jews first began printing books, the Bible was not their first choice. Jewish printers started out by investing their time and money in printing Bible commentaries by Rashi and Nachmanides (Ramban), the Arba’ah Turim collection of Halachic rulings, and other books.

One possible explanation relates to the diacritics of the text. Diacritics (niqqud) in the Hebrew Bible are extremely important. Indeed, many biblical manuscripts contained these small glyphs which indicate how Hebrew letters and vowels are to be vocalized. Printing these diacritic symbols must have been a challenge when the printing industry was just starting out, and what’s more, manuscripts of the Bible were relatively common, so Jewish printers may have simply preferred to print other texts. Two decades later, the Book of Psalms became the first book of the Bible to be printed by Jewish printers, along with commentary by Rabbi David Kimchi (The Radak), which was published in Bologna in 1477. In this book, each verse appears followed by the commentary for that verse, unlike the more commonly used method of printing two blocks of text next to each other, one being the source and the other the commentary. The early sections of the book contain diacritics, but the printers soon stopped printing the symbols after a few sections, as it proved too complicated a challenge.

A complete Hebrew Bible containing diacritics was only printed 11 years later, in 1488, by the Soncino family printing house in the Northern Italian city of Soncino. Over the following 30 years, about 60 books of the Pentateuch and Bible were printed, most of them only partial versions.

A version of the Pentateuch was printed, with the Targum Onkelos (a famous Jewish Aramaic translation) and commentary by Rashi, by the famous printer Daniel Bomberg in Venice, apparently in 1511. The original cover had of course stated the year of publication, but this page was lost over time. So how do we (ostensibly) know the year of publication? A copy of this edition was sent to the National Library of Israel, and its cover page states the year 1511 alongside the coat of arms of King Henry IV of France. This page was not the original but was prepared for the King, who ruled France from 1589 to 1610. Whoever printed it believed that the original year of publication was 1511.

In 1515, Bomberg received a license to print a complete Hebrew Bible. In 1517, Bomberg and his partner Felix Pratensis, a Jew who converted to Christianity, printed a complete Bible in two almost identical editions. One was intended for Jewish readers, and the other included a dedication to the Pope and was intended for Christian use. For the first time since the invention of the printing press, a complete Hebrew Bible was published, alongside an Aramaic translation, and at least one commentary for each book. Rashi’s commentary, for example, accompanied the books of the Torah and the Radak’s commentary appeared in Prophets. Pratensis was meticulous about comparing old biblical manuscripts to ensure that he was printing an accurate Bible. The Hebrew title that appears on the cover of the book, similar to many manuscripts before it, reads Four and Twenty, named for the 24 books of the Bible. Pratensis’ Bible included two innovations that are used to this day: the division of the text into chapters (based on a Christian division), and the division of the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles into two parts each.

Seven years later, in 1524, Bomberg was working on a new edition that he called Sha’ar HaShem HaChadash (“The New Gate of the Lord”). This time, he recruited an editor named Jacob Ben Hayyim Ibn Adonijah, a learned Jew who came to Venice from Tunisia. Ben Hayyim strove to print a more accurate edition than that of Pratensis. To accomplish that goal, he mainly based his work on Middle Eastern Jewish manuscripts, which were considered more accurate. One of the most important aspects for Ben Hayyim was the addition of the Masoretic text, a set of instructions and rules for writing the biblical text according to the tradition passed down from generation to generation. The purpose of the Masora is to maintain accuracy and uniformity for all Torah books in the world. This is reflected in its meticulousness concerning diacritics, cantillation, words that are pronounced differently than they are spelled, special use of smaller or larger letters, etc. Ben Hayyim edited this new Bible according to the instructions of the Masora, printing the rules of the Masora alongside the text, while also including Ibn Ezra’s commentary for some of the sections. He was able to convince Bomberg that printing this version was worthwhile, in large part due to the inclusion of the Masoretic text, which was a key feature of the edition. The Masora is of great value to Jewish Kabbalah, and this interested Bomberg as well as other Christian scholars at the time.

In the first of the four volumes of “The New Gate of the Lord”, Ben Hayyim wrote a long introduction explaining the importance of the Masora, including the different opinions and the differences between the pronounced and written words. His name is only mentioned at the beginning of this introduction, in the first edition, which was published in 1524.

Ben Hayyim later converted to Christianity, and in subsequent editions, instead of his name he simply wrote “the copyist”. The introduction is important for understanding the Masora, so it was also copied and printed separately several times. It was even translated into English in 1865 and again in 1867 by the Bible scholar Christian David Ginsburg. The translated copy that is kept at the National Library contains a dedication by Ginsburg to the German theologian and scholar Professor Konstantin Schlottmann. For the purpose of this article, we will simply note during the last quarter of the 19th century, Ginsburg and Schlottman were involved in an episode that gained international notoriety when they clashed with Moshe Shapira – a Jewish antiquities dealer in Jerusalem who converted to Christianity and was exposed as an international forger of biblical manuscripts that he claimed to have found. But that’s a story for another article. In any case, the English-translated copy of “The New Gate of the Lord”, from Schlottman’s collection eventually ended up in the hands of the Chief Sephardic Rabbi in London, Dr. Moses Gaster, a scholar of languages ​​and folklore. In the 1950s, the National Library acquired some of Gaster’s books, including this copy.

Back to the 16th century: In a manner similar to the format he used when printing the Talmud, Bomberg designed the pages of his printed Bible so that a selection of commentaries would appear alongside each portion of the biblical text. This format proved to be very successful and popular and remains common to this day (mainly in Prophets and Writings).

There is no major difference between Bomberg’s Venice print from 1524 and the book I used to study for my high school matriculation exams. Although different commentaries were added, they generally appear at the end of the book, and the general appearance is still quite similar.

But that is not where the evolution of the printed Bible ends. In 1724, a Bible with multiple commentaries was published in Amsterdam, which was a major center for Jewish printing at the time. It was called Kehilot Moshe, named after the publisher Rabbi Moshe Frankfurter, who printed many books in Amsterdam. This Bible, which was also published in four volumes, has no less than eight commentaries printed around the text, including Rashi, the Ralbag, Sforno, and the Chizkuni. Some editions even included small colored illustrations. The title written across the cover is Mikra Gedola (“The Large Reading”), alluding to the book’s importance and size. Some argue that “large” refers to the physical size of the books, which are in fact over a foot and a half in length.

The next milestone event occurred in the city of Lviv, or Lemberg as the Jews called it. In 1808, another large edition featuring many commentaries was published in the city. This publication only included Prophets and some books from Writings, leaving out the five books of the Torah – the Pentateuch. This Bible was entitled Mikraot Gedolot (“the Great Readings”) – a name that has taken root and is commonly used nowadays to refer to Bible or Pentateuch editions which have many commentaries attached to the text or printed at the end.

Throughout the 19th century, Mikraot Gedolot books gained momentum, and more and more editions were printed. Publishers at the time boasted about how many commentators they could cram into their books in what became a sort of open competition, as follows:

In Warsaw in 1860, the first volume of an edition of Mikraot Gedolot with 32 commentaries was published. 

In Piotrków, Poland, in 1897, a version of Mikraot Gedolot with the five books of the Torah and 42 commentaries was published. 

In Lemberg in 1909, a version of Mikraot Gedolot with the five books of the Torah and 49 commentaries was published. 

And in Vilna in 1923, a version of the Mikraot Gedolot was published containing only the Book of Leviticus, alongside 70 commentaries. 

Mikaraot Gedolot books are still staples of the Jewish bookshelf. Nowadays, there are many new, more accurate editions, featuring additional commentaries and high-quality printing. 

And to think, it all started 500 years ago in Daniel Bomberg’s printing house in Venice.