The New Testament and Genesis
Reformatted and in Modern Font
The Geneva Bible (GNV) is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into English, preceding the King James Version by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of 16th-century English Protestantism and was used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John Knox, John Donne, and others. It was one of the Bibles taken to America on the Mayflower (Pilgrim Hall Museum has collected several Bibles of Mayflower passengers). The Geneva Bible was used by many English Dissenters, and it was still respected by Oliver Cromwell's soldiers at the time of the English Civil War, in the booklet The Souldiers Pocket Bible.
This version of the Bible is significant because, for the first time, a mechanically printed, mass-produced Bible was made available directly to the general public which came with a variety of scriptural study guides and aids (collectively called an apparatus), which included verse citations that allow the reader to cross-reference one verse with numerous relevant verses in the rest of the Bible, introductions to each book of the Bible that acted to summarize all of the material that each book would cover, maps, tables, woodcut illustrations and indices.
Because the language of the Geneva Bible was more forceful and vigorous, most readers strongly preferred this version to the Great Bible (1539: the first authorised edition of the Bible in English, authorised by King Henry VIII of England). In the words of Cleland Boyd McAfee, "it drove the Great Bible off the field by sheer power of excellence".
Format: PDF