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The Geneva Bible

The Geneva Bible

The Bible and Holy Scriptures conteyned in the Olde and Newe Testament (Geneva, 1560)

English refugees in Geneva — Whittingham, Gilby, Sampson and others

More about The English exiles at Geneva →

Small, cheap, numbered in the margin, and full of somebody explaining the hard bits — which nobody had ever thought to do before.

Catch rate
Not found in the wild
Base research
470
Stat total
455

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina170
Contend90
Defend150
Popularity45
Total455

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 170

Enormous. The whole Bible from the original languages, with the Apocrypha set apart and three hundred thousand words of notes.

Contend 90

Modest for its size. Made by men who had watched their friends burn and had gone abroad to do this instead. It does not hedge.

Defend 150

Translated from Hebrew and Greek by a committee of scholars with Beza next door and Estienne’s texts on the table. Very hard ground to attack.

Popularity 45

Slow, despite a design built for readers: verse numbers, roman type and italics for supplied words. A whole Bible with its notes is still a heavy thing to bring.

Cited for this book

English Protestants fleeing Queen Mary made this Bible in Geneva. It was the first study Bible, with verse numbers, notes on hard passages, and italics for words the translators added. It was Shakespeare’s Bible and the Pilgrims’ Bible. King James disliked its notes and ordered a new translation without them.

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

LvMoveTypeCat.PwrAccPP
1Chapter and VerseBibleArgument92100%10
1Random VerseBibleArgument10100%30
44Chapter…BibleScripture——12
48The Marginal NoteExegesisArgument86100%10
52Two Hundred EditionsHistoryArgument88100%10
56Where the Word Is PreachedEcclesiologyArgument93100%5
60The Secret TestimonyPresuppositionArgument88100%10

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“…printed there two editions of the Hebrew Bible, and an edition of the Greek Testament, with the Vulgate and Erasmian versions, in 1551, which for the first time contains the versicular division of the text according to our present usage.”

Of Robert Estienne at Geneva, in Schaff, History of the Christian Church VIII §160 (1892), public domain. The Geneva Bible of 1560 was the first English Bible to use it.public domain

Chapter and Verse

BibleArgument · power 92 · 100% accurate

In the gameNumbers down the margin, so a sentence has an address. Before this you cited a book and a chapter and hoped; after it, two people a thousand miles apart can turn to the same line and argue about the same words.

“Beza published several editions of his Greek Testament in Geneva (1565–1598), which were chiefly used by King James’ translators.”

Schaff, History of the Christian Church VIII §160 (1892), public domain — the king would not have the Geneva notes and used the Geneva scholars’ text anyway.public domain

The Marginal Note

ExegesisArgument · power 86 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe first English study Bible: three hundred thousand words of notes down the sides, explaining the hard verses to people with no minister to ask. King James loathed them and ordered his own translation to carry none.

“This is the so-called ‘Geneva Bible,’ or ‘Breeches Bible’ (from the rendering of Gen. 3:7), which was for a long time the most popular English version, and passed through about two hundred editions from 1560 to 1630.”

Schaff, History of the Christian Church VIII §160 (1892), public domain.public domain

Two Hundred Editions

HistoryArgument · power 88 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe Bible of the English-speaking world for seventy years — Shakespeare’s, Cromwell’s, the one that went on the Mayflower — and it was printed in a foreign city by refugees with no licence to print anything.

“Wherever we see the word of God sincerely preached and heard, wherever we see the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there we cannot have any doubt that the Church of God has some existence, since his promise cannot fail.”

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion IV.1.9 (trans. Beveridge, 1845), public domain.public domain

Where the Word Is Preached

EcclesiologyArgument · power 93 · 100% accurate

In the gameRefuses to produce a lineage, because a lineage was never the test. Look for preaching and sacraments; where you find them you have found the church, and where you do not, a list of bishops will not supply one.

Strong against
×4Before Lutheran argument · why?

It does not produce a lineage. It changes what would count as one — and the church turns out to have been in a great many buildings that were flying his flag.

×3.5The Charge of Schisman argument · why?

Refuses to produce a lineage, because a lineage was never the test.

×2The Sentence of Constancean argument · why?

Where the Word is preached and heard, there is a church. That is the test, and a decree is not it.

×0.5The Indulgence Stallan argument · why?

A definition of the church, aimed at a market stall. True, and nowhere near it.

“…our conviction of the truth of Scripture must be derived from a higher source than human conjectures, Judgments, or reasons; namely, the secret testimony of the Spirit.”

Calvin, Institutes I.7.4 (trans. Beveridge, 1845), public domain. (trimmed quote)public domain

The Secret Testimony

PresuppositionArgument · power 88 · 100% accurate

In the gameGrants that the evidences are good and refuses to rest on them. If your certainty that God has spoken is only as strong as your best argument, then it is exactly as unstable as your worst afternoon.

Strong against
×2.5Before Lutheran argument · why?

He is asking you to rest your certainty on a list. There is a older place to rest it.

×2.5The Charge of Uncertaintyan argument · why?

Calvin asks the same question and answers it the same way.

×2The Canons of Trenta book · why?

Certainty was the real quarrel. Trent condemns assurance because it thinks assurance is presumption.

Read it: The Study Bible

The passages the Scriptorium holds on screen, word for word from a public-domain translation. Written in English.

“…printed there two editions of the Hebrew Bible, and an edition of the Greek Testament, with the Vulgate and Erasmian versions, in 1551, which for the first time contains the versicular division of the text according to our present usage.”

Of Robert Estienne at Geneva, in Schaff, History of the Christian Church VIII §160 (1892), public domain. The Geneva Bible of 1560 was the first English Bible to use it.

“This is the so-called ‘Geneva Bible,’ or ‘Breeches Bible’ (from the rendering of Gen. 3:7), which was for a long time the most popular English version, and passed through about two hundred editions from 1560 to 1630.”

Schaff, History of the Christian Church VIII §160 (1892), public domain.

“Wherever we see the word of God sincerely preached and heard, wherever we see the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there we cannot have any doubt that the Church of God has some existence, since his promise cannot fail.”

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion IV.1.9 (trans. Beveridge, 1845), public domain.
Notes

Made in Geneva by English refugees from Mary’s burnings, and it invented the study Bible: verse numbers so a sentence has an address, notes on the hard verses for people with no minister to ask, italics for every supplied word, and a page you could read without a lectern.

Shakespeare’s Bible, Cromwell’s army’s Bible, the Mayflower’s. James I hated the notes — one says a midwife did right to disobey a king — and ordered a translation carrying none, using the Geneva scholars’ text to make it.