[B-Greek] Interesting Typography In 1526 Bible Leaf

Joey Gibson joey at joeygibson.com
Sun Feb 7 19:15:59 EST 2010


Hello,

I've been subscribed to B-Greek for a few years, but I don't believe I've
ever posted before. I've been studying Koine Greek by myself using Dr.
Mounce's book since 2006 (with some unplanned breaks at various times), and
am now making a concerted effort to move on to Dr. Wallace's book. As for
the list, I just try to soak up as much knowledge as I can from those of you
who know so much about Greek. :-)

I just bought a leaf from a Greek bible that was printed in 1526, and I'm
intrigued by the typography in it. There are some weird ligatures that make
it difficult to read in places. I am curious if anyone has seen these
before, and if this typography is typical of the time. You can view scans of
both sides of the page at http://bit.ly/cp1uJ8 According to the seller, it
was printed "in Strassburg by W. Kopfel in 1526. Originally from volume 2 of
a 4 volume set and is the third edition of the complete Greek Bible by
Johannes Lonicerus (Lonitzer)."

The first interesting bit is that whenever τῷ (TW) appears, it looks sort of
like two snakes twisted together into something that looks like a W with a
lot of flourish. It took me a little while to figure out what it was by
comparing this page with an online Septuagint and my Rahlfs-Hanhart
hardbound Septuagint. Any time τὸν (TON) appears, it looks like the tau is
on top of the omicron, looking sort of like the mirror symbol for woman, but
upside down. Whenever περὶ (PERI) appears, it looks as if there is a caret
over the epislon and rho. And anytime βασιλεὺς (BASILEUS) appears, the
epsilon and upsilon look more like and o and an l, joined together. Also,
words ending in ος (OS) look like they end with something resembling an @.
And there's something that looks like a gigantic G in some words.

So, my question is does this look typical of typography of the period, and
were these stylings of letters just something that publishers did to
differentiate themselves? I am interested in anything that anyone has to say
about the document. If you know anything about it, I'd love to hear it.

Thank you for any input,
Joey Gibson

-- 
Blog: http://joeygibson.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/joeygibson
FriendFeed: http://friendfeed.com/joeygibson
Facebook: http://facebook.com/joeygibson



More information about the B-Greek mailing list