BIBLIYA [THE BIBLE] Svyashchennye knigi Vetkhogo i Novogo zaveta [The Holy Books of the Old and New Testaments]. Vienna: British and Foreign Bible Society, 1877.

[4], 868, [4], 260 pp.; 23 x 15 cm. In a contemporary full leather binding. Gilt tooling on the boards and spine, endpapers of moiré-imitation paper. In good condition. Rubbing to the spine, soiling to the endpapers. The Old Testament was translated by the Hebraists V.A. Levison and D.A. Khvolson with the participation of P.I. Bogolyubov and P.I. Savvaitov. The translation was made exclusively from the Hebrew original (the Masoretic text), without insertions from the Septuagint (the Greek translation) or the Slavonic text. Parts of this translation were published in London in 1866-1874, and in 1877 the complete Old Testament appeared in Vienna. The books of the Octateuch not included in the London publications were taken from their publication in the journal ‘Khristianskoe chtenie’, edited to remove any influence of the Greek or Slavonic versions. This translation was produced in parallel with the Synodal one but differed fundamentally from it: it was based on a scholarly critical text rather than on the Slavonic Bible or the Septuagint. As the edition was printed abroad, the Tsarist censorship did not permit its distribution in Russia, and as a result the translation never gained wide acceptance in Russian church circles. It was later reprinted (for example in Vienna in 1888 and 1897), sometimes with a parallel Hebrew text.