Religion: 500th Birthday

The Western world's first printed book, the Gutenberg Bible, is 500 years old this year. Last week the Library of Congress marked the event by opening a special exhibition containing the only perfect copy of the Gutenberg Bible in the U.S. (total copies in existence: 46) together with 26 illuminated manuscripts and 27 other historical Bibles, including those of seven U.S. Presidents.

Highlights of the exhibit: ¶ A 4th century papyrus fragment in Greek containing a passage from the Book of Isaiah.

¶ George Washington's autograph on the first page of his Bible. ¶ The Eliot Indian Bible of 1663, first complete Bible to be printed in America (translated into the language of the Algonquin Indians by the Rev. John Eliot). ¶ The so-called "Jefferson Bible," a red morocco-bound copybook, in which Jefferson, a deist, pasted the words of Jesus as clipped from Bible texts. ¶ President Truman's inauguration Bible, in which he noted in ink on the flyleaf: "There was much scurrying around to find this book on which to take the oath."