Beschreibung:

BIBLE, Hebrew and Spanish. Biblia en dos Colunas Hebrayco y Espanol. Amsterdam: Joseph, Jacob, and Abraham, sons of Salomon Proops, 5522 [1762]. Each part separately titled (title-leaves for 2nd-4th parts not included in the pagination), first title printed in red and black, Hebrew and Spanish text printed in double column. Folio, modern half calf; slight browning and staining, - bound after XX2 and 2 - 2 bound after 4O2 . Cowley 102; Darlow & Moule 5156; Kayserling 29; Palau 28947; Zedner 102; Den Boer, Catalogue [...] Ets Haim/Livraria Montezinos, n. 199; not in Steinschneider or Roest. FIRST EDITION OF THE BIBLE IN HEBREW AND SPANISH. In the publisher's introduction the brothers Proops announce that they have recently purchased the entire stock of type-matrices from the printers Joseph Immanuel and Abraham Athias. The edition was financed by Abraham Mendes de Castro of Curaao, who is credited in the Proops' foreword with the idea of publishing a bilingual Hebrew-Spanish Bible, because he observed that there were not enough copies of the Pentateuch in Hebrew and in Spanish for the pupils in the Caribbean isle. Although Bibles in Spanish had been regularly printed since the Ferrara Bible of 1553, this edition was the first to present the Hebrew and Spanish texts together. By the efforts of the financer, it is also the first Hebrew book published for the use of Jews in the Americas.