Obj. ID: 38060
  Printed Books  Esrim ve-Arba'ah, Leiden, 1662

This text was prepared by William Gross:

[5], 328, 104ff., octavo, 180:112 mm., nice margins, age and damp staining, some upper margin foxing with small losses. A good copy bound in contemporary vellum over boards, rubbed and split.
Rare - Worldcat records 7 copies worlwide, no copy NLI.
Detail Description
The text with cantillation and pronunciation symbols, edited by Johann Georg Nissel, a noted Biblical scholar, flourished near the middle of the 17th century. Born in 1623 in Hasslock, Germany, Johann Georg Nissel enrolled at the University of Leiden in 1646, devoting himself to the study of Oriental languages under the direction of Jacobus Golius (1596-1667). He was a native of the Palatinate, but settled in Holland, and devoted himself to the prosecution of Oriental learning. He prepared and printed at his own expense and with his own types an edition of the Hebrew Bible, which appeared in 1659, and again in 1662, with the title, Sacra Biblia Hebraica ex optimis editionibus diligenter expressa, et forma, literis, versuumque distinctione commendata (Lugd. Bat. 8vo). The second edition has a preface signed by Heidan, Cocceius, and Hoornbeck, in which the work is commended in very high terms. Few more beautifully printed editions of the Hebrew Scriptures have appeared; and it presents with great accuracy the text of the best editions. Nissel's Biblia has also the peculiarity of having the Megilloth between the Torah and the Nebiim Rishonim, as in the Bomberg Bibles. The text is divided into verses, with Latin headings to the chapters. Nissel edited also some portions of the Scriptures in Ethiopic, but not, it is said, very accurately.
Hebrew Bible printed by Johannes Georgius Nisselius and finished by Allardus Uchtmannus.
Johannes Nisselius (c.1624-c.1662) was not a printer by profession, but an orientalist and noted Biblical scholar. He was a native of the Palatinate, but settled in Holland, and devoted himself to the prosecution of Oriental learning. In 1665 he acquired oriental types from John Elziver and printed several books under his own name. He first Hebrew book was Leone Modena's Sur me-Ra (1656). In 1659 he began work on this Bible, and continued for three years, dying, however, before it could be completed. Allardus Uchtmannus, professor of Hebrew and Leiden University, assisted Nisselius and saw to its completion.

Editor: Johann Georg Nissel