{"id":1260,"date":"2026-11-10T16:31:50","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T16:31:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/amsterdam-hebrew-bibles-joseph-athias\/"},"modified":"2026-11-10T16:31:50","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T16:31:50","slug":"amsterdam-hebrew-bibles-joseph-athias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/amsterdam-hebrew-bibles-joseph-athias\/","title":{"rendered":"The Amsterdam Hebrew Bibles of Joseph Athias"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Joseph Athias was a Sephardi printer and publisher who worked in <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Amsterdam\">Amsterdam<\/a> in the second half of the seventeenth century. His editions of the Hebrew Bible, the first completed in 1661 and the second in 1667, were prepared with the help of the Calvinist Hebraist Johannes Leusden, and they became, by way of the edition of Everard van der Hooght in 1705, the ancestors of the standard printed Hebrew text used by scholars in Europe and America until the later nineteenth century. Tirtsah Levie Bernfeld and Bart Wallet, in a recent survey of the history of the Jews in the Netherlands, observe that both Jewish and Christian authorities had given their approval for the publication of the first edition, and that after the second edition appeared the States General awarded Athias a gold medallion and chain.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-1\"><a href=\"#note-1\">1<\/a><\/sup> The Athias Bibles therefore belong to the history of Jewish printing, to the history of Christian Hebrew scholarship, and to the history of the printed Masoretic text at once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This article describes the printer, his Bibles and their text, the type in which they were set, and the later fortunes of both. The sources for Athias\u2019s life are not in full agreement, and the reference works disagree on several dates. Where they do, the differences are noted rather than resolved, since the documentary studies on which a resolution would depend have not been consulted for this article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group at-a-glance\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"at-a-glance\">At a glance<\/h3>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li><strong>Printer:<\/strong> Joseph ben Abraham Athias, a Sephardi Jew born in Spain or Portugal, who established a press in Amsterdam about 1658 and died there in 1700.<\/li>\n\n<li><strong>Editions of the Bible:<\/strong> <em>Biblia Hebraica<\/em>, Amsterdam, 1661 (title dated 1661; Ginsburg gives 1659\u201361), and a revised second edition completed in 1667.<\/li>\n\n<li><strong>Editor:<\/strong> Johannes Leusden (1624\u20131699), professor of Hebrew at Utrecht from 1650, who wrote the Latin preface and saw the text through the press.<\/li>\n\n<li><strong>Text:<\/strong> based on the edition of Buxtorf and on the received text descended from the Soncino Bible, with a comparison of two manuscripts.<\/li>\n\n<li><strong>Innovations:<\/strong> Arabic numerals for the intervening verses alongside Hebrew numerals for every fifth verse; the numbers of the chapters entered in the Masoretic summaries of the Pentateuch.<\/li>\n\n<li><strong>Reward:<\/strong> a gold medal and chain from the States General after the second edition.<\/li>\n\n<li><strong>Legacy:<\/strong> the basis of Van der Hooght\u2019s edition of 1705; the Athias Hebrew matrices passed to the Proops family in 1761 and survive in the Athias Cabinet in Amsterdam.<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"the-printer-and-his-family\">The Printer and His Family<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em> describes the Athias family as a Spanish family distinguished by the number of its scholars and promoters of learning, some of whose members lived in Italy and Palestine in the sixteenth century, while another branch settled in Hamburg, Amsterdam and London.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-2\"><a href=\"#note-2\">2<\/a><\/sup> Cecil Roth, writing for the <em>Encyclopaedia Judaica<\/em>, adds that the family was memorable in rabbinic scholarship, in Hebrew printing and in the annals of martyrdom under the Inquisition.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-3\"><a href=\"#note-3\">3<\/a><\/sup> The best-known member of the family before Joseph was Yom Tob Athias, who with Abraham Usque printed the Spanish Bible of Ferrara in 1553, which has been described in this journal in <a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/the-ferrara-bible-of-1553\/\">The Ferrara Bible of 1553<\/a>; the reference works do not state how he was related to the Amsterdam printer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The accounts of Joseph Athias\u2019s early life differ. The <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em> states that he was born in Spain, probably at C\u00f3rdoba, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and that as a young man he was sent by his father to <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Hamburg\">Hamburg<\/a> to receive a Jewish education.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-4\"><a href=\"#note-4\">4<\/a><\/sup> The second edition of the <em>Encyclopaedia Judaica<\/em>, in an entry by Abraham Meir Habermann revised by A. K. Offenberg, gives his place of birth as Spain or Portugal and his date of birth as 1634 or 1635, and describes him as a man of considerable learning. It records, on the authority of the eighteenth-century Amsterdam writer David Franco Mendes, that the Dutch poet <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Joost_van_den_Vondel\">Joost van den Vondel<\/a> sought Athias\u2019s opinion before publishing a political play.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-5\"><a href=\"#note-5\">5<\/a><\/sup> The later date would be consistent with the rest of his career, which began in the late 1650s and continued until his death in 1700.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The family\u2019s connection with the Inquisition is attested in Athias\u2019s own books. The <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em> reports that the edition of the code of <a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/maimonides\/\">Maimonides<\/a> completed by his son records that Athias\u2019s father had been burned at an <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Auto-da-f%C3%A9\">auto-da-f\u00e9<\/a> at <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/C%C3%B3rdoba,_Spain\">C\u00f3rdoba<\/a> on 9 July 1667.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-6\"><a href=\"#note-6\">6<\/a><\/sup> Ensched\u00e9\u2019s history of the Dutch typefoundries quotes the colophon of the fourth volume in translation: the work had been done to the order and at the cost of the young man Emanuel, son of Joseph, son of the martyr Abraham Athias, who for the sake of his belief in the unity of God had been burned in the city of C\u00f3rdoba on 17 Tammuz 5427, that is, in 1667.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-7\"><a href=\"#note-7\">7<\/a><\/sup> Roth\u2019s entry, by contrast, places the burning of Abraham Athias at C\u00f3rdoba in 1665.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-8\"><a href=\"#note-8\">8<\/a><\/sup> The colophon, which comes from the family itself, is the better witness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"ornate-card overflow-hidden mb-8\"><picture class=\"article-figure-picture\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" src=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Athias-body-canal-take-4.jpg\" alt=\"A broad Amsterdam canal with a rowing boat in the foreground and a row of gabled brick houses behind elm trees on the far quay\" class=\"article-figure-img wp-image-1258\" srcset=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Athias-body-canal-take-4.jpg?v=20261101clean 1280w, https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Athias-body-canal-take-4-300x169.jpg?v=20261101clean 300w, https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Athias-body-canal-take-4-1024x576.jpg?v=20261101clean 1024w, https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Athias-body-canal-take-4-768x432.jpg?v=20261101clean 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" \/><\/picture><figcaption class=\"figure-caption\">Illustration: a canal in seventeenth-century Amsterdam, where Athias\u2019s press began its work in the late 1650s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"the-press-in-amsterdam\">The Press in Amsterdam<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Athias\u2019s press began its work in the late 1650s. According to the <em>Encyclopaedia Judaica<\/em>, his first book was a prayer book according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Spanish_and_Portuguese_Jews\">Sephardi<\/a> rite, published in 1658.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-9\"><a href=\"#note-9\">9<\/a><\/sup> The <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em> states that he seems to have settled in Amsterdam somewhat before 1658, and names as an early product of his press a <em>Tiqqun Sefer Torah<\/em> with an introductory poem by Solomon de Oliveyra, issued in the following year.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-10\"><a href=\"#note-10\">10<\/a><\/sup> The press produced works in many languages, especially in Hebrew, <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Yiddish\">Yiddish<\/a>, Portuguese and Spanish, and the <em>Encyclopaedia Judaica<\/em> describes the enterprise as successful.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-11\"><a href=\"#note-11\">11<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The scale of the business can be judged from its later acquisitions. In 1681, after the death of Daniel Elsevier, Athias bought the stock and equipment of the publishing house of the <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/House_of_Elzevir\">Elseviers<\/a>, which included the non-Hebrew types cut by Christoffel van Dijck. The <em>Encyclopaedia Judaica<\/em> notes that the origin of his Hebrew material is not clear, that the Hungarian typecutter Nicholas Kis probably worked for him, and that Athias also experimented with <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Stereotype_%28printing%29\">stereotype<\/a> printing and with the printing of textiles. In 1687 he announced that he had printed more than a million Bibles for England and Scotland.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-12\"><a href=\"#note-12\">12<\/a><\/sup> The announcement implies Bibles in English for a Protestant readership, and it shows that Athias\u2019s press served a Christian market as well as a Jewish one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ensched\u00e9\u2019s account of the Amsterdam typefoundries adds details of the foundry. A type specimen issued by Athias, of which a copy survives in the library of <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Leiden_University\">Leiden University<\/a>, is headed in Dutch as a specimen of letters cut by the late Christoffel van Dijck and cast under the care of Jan Bus at the house of Joseph Athias in the Zwanenburgerstraat in Amsterdam. The sheet was printed from the forme set up for the specimen of the widow of Daniel Elsevier, with seven founts added. At its foot Athias noted that he had various other choice letters which could not be shown for lack of room, and Ensched\u00e9 observes that Athias certainly had Hebrew and rabbinical faces reserved for use in his own books.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-13\"><a href=\"#note-13\">13<\/a><\/sup> An advertisement of 25 April 1686 announced that Athias had reorganised his typefoundry and moved it to a house on the Nieuwe Herengracht opposite the Plantage. His affairs there did not prosper, and he was obliged to make over a half-share in the foundry to the widow of Jan Jacobsz. Schipper, whose descendants later acquired the whole. These arrangements did not affect the Hebrew matrices, which remained the property of Athias and, after his death, of his son.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-14\"><a href=\"#note-14\">14<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Athias was admitted to the Amsterdam printers\u2019 guild, according to the <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, on 31 March 1661, in recognition of the reputation that his Bible had won him.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-15\"><a href=\"#note-15\">15<\/a><\/sup> His other publications included a Pentateuch with the Five Scrolls and the prophetic readings in 1665, an edition of the Psalms with a Dutch translation in 1666\u201367, for which Leusden again served as proof-reader, the <em>\u02bfEn Ya\u02bfaqov<\/em> in 1684\u201385, and prayer books according to both the Sephardi and Ashkenazi rites. The same entry describes his printing house as one of the best equipped in Amsterdam, and states that his wealth enabled him to spend freely on the cutting and casting of type and to demand artistic work from his designers and die-sinkers.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-16\"><a href=\"#note-16\">16<\/a><\/sup> Levie Bernfeld and Wallet estimate that the house produced some 450 titles in all.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-17\"><a href=\"#note-17\">17<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"leusden-and-the-edition-of-1661\">Leusden and the Edition of 1661<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The editor of the Bible was Johannes Leusden, a <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Calvinism\">Calvinist<\/a> theologian and <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Hebraist\">Hebraist<\/a>. The <em>Encyclopaedia Judaica<\/em> records that he was born in 1624, that he had numbered Jews among his teachers, and that in 1650 he became professor of the Hebrew language at the University of Utrecht, the institution now known as <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Utrecht_University\">Utrecht University<\/a>. Besides his work on the Bible he translated, at Utrecht in 1656, the list of the 613 commandments that stands at the head of Maimonides\u2019 code, and he corresponded with the <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Increase_Mather\">Mather<\/a> family of Puritan New England.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-18\"><a href=\"#note-18\">18<\/a><\/sup> The <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em> describes him instead as a professor at Leiden.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-19\"><a href=\"#note-19\">19<\/a><\/sup> Johannes Ensched\u00e9, writing in 1768, spoke of professors of both Leiden and Utrecht among those who had corrected the edition, and the <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>\u2019s statement may reflect that broader tradition; but the professorship that Leusden held was the chair at Utrecht.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-20\"><a href=\"#note-20\">20<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-21\"><a href=\"#note-21\">21<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A copy of the first edition in the library of <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Eton_College\">Eton College<\/a> shows the form of the book. Its Latin title describes it as the sacred Hebrew Bible corrected and collated with the most ancient and accurate manuscript and printed copies, and its imprint states that it was printed at Amsterdam at the press and expense of Joseph Athias in 1661. The Eton copy is in two octavo volumes. The catalogue notes that the main text is in Hebrew and the preliminaries in Latin, that there are additional engraved title-pages in Hebrew, and that the edition was prepared by Athias from Buxtorf\u2019s edition of 1619, with proof-reading and a preface by Leusden.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-22\"><a href=\"#note-22\">22<\/a><\/sup> The Eton copy itself has a history that illustrates the readership of the book. It bears the inscription of John Rowe of the Middle Temple, dated 24 June 1669, a further inscription recording its gift by Rowe to Thomas Rundle, and a label recording its donation to Eton by John Reynolds in 1751.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-23\"><a href=\"#note-23\">23<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em> article on editions of the Bible, by Crawford Howell Toy and Richard Gottheil, describes the basis of the text in slightly different terms. Athias, it states, edited the text using Buxtorf\u2019s edition and the traditional text that had come down from the Soncino Bible of 1488, with a comparison of two manuscripts.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-24\"><a href=\"#note-24\">24<\/a><\/sup> Buxtorf\u2019s Bibles belonged to the tradition of the Rabbinic Bible edited by Jacob ben Hayyim at Venice in 1524\u201325, whose influence on later printing, including the Athias editions, is discussed in this journal in <a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/jacob-ben-hayyim-second-rabbinic-bible-venice-1525\/\">Jacob ben Hayyim and the Second Rabbinic Bible<\/a> and in <a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/daniel-bomberg-venice-press-rabbinic-bibles\/\">Daniel Bomberg\u2019s Venice Press<\/a>. The title\u2019s claim of collation with ancient manuscripts should therefore be understood in the limited sense that the reference works describe: the edition was a careful revision of the printed text rather than a new text established from the manuscripts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The date of the first edition is given in more than one way. The Eton record and the abstract of Levie Bernfeld and Wallet give 1661.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-25\"><a href=\"#note-25\">25<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-26\"><a href=\"#note-26\">26<\/a><\/sup> Christian David Ginsburg, writing in 1897, refers to it as the edition of 1659\u201361, which suggests that the printing extended over more than one year and that the title bears the date of completion.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-27\"><a href=\"#note-27\">27<\/a><\/sup> The <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em> similarly states that Athias was engaged on the Bible during the two years that followed the appearance of his first books.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-28\"><a href=\"#note-28\">28<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"the-numbering-of-the-verses\">The Numbering of the Verses<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The feature of the Athias Bible most often mentioned in later literature is its numbering of the verses. The <em>Encyclopaedia Judaica<\/em> entry on Leusden calls it the first Hebrew Bible in which the verses are numbered, and adds that the edition became well known for its exactness and its beautiful printing, and served as a model for almost all editions of the Bible up to the nineteenth century.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-29\"><a href=\"#note-29\">29<\/a><\/sup> The history of chapters and verses in the printed Bible has been told in this journal in <a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/chapter-and-verse-langton-estienne-and-isaac-nathans-concordance\/\">Chapter and Verse Divisions from Langton to Nathan<\/a>. The particular claim made for Athias, however, needs qualification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">George F. Moore examined the question in 1893. He showed that the verses had been numbered throughout, with a Hebrew numeral at every fifth verse, in the Great Bible printed by <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Daniel_Bomberg\">Daniel Bomberg<\/a> in 1547\u201348, and that this practice was followed in the Sabbioneta Pentateuch of 1557, in the Bible printed by <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Christophe_Plantin\">Christophe Plantin<\/a> in 1566 and in other sixteenth-century editions. He called the statement that the numeration of the verses was first extended to the whole Bible by Athias in 1661 an absurd blunder, and noted that the preface of the edition of 1661, written by Leusden, gave a clear account of what the innovation actually was.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-30\"><a href=\"#note-30\">30<\/a><\/sup> Moore quoted Leusden\u2019s fuller statement in his <em>Philologus Hebraeo-Graecus<\/em>. There Leusden explains that in the old Hebrew Bibles, such as those of Bomberg and M\u00fcnster, the verses were not marked in the margin with Hebrew letters; that about the middle of the preceding century every fifth verse came to be marked in the margin with Hebrew letters; and that finally, in 1660, in the Amsterdam edition of Joseph Athias, every verse was marked with Latin numerals, except every fifth verse, which kept its Hebrew letter in the old manner. Leusden added that this had been done at his own suggestion and urging, and that such numerals had never before been attached to any Hebrew text.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-31\"><a href=\"#note-31\">31<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moore accepted the first part of Leusden\u2019s account and corrected the second. The use of Arabic numerals for the intervening verses, verses 2, 3 and 4, 6 to 9, and so on, beside the Hebrew numeral for every fifth verse, was introduced by Leusden and Athias in 1661. But there were older editions in which every verse of the Hebrew text had an Arabic numeral, among them the Antwerp Polyglot of 1569\u201372 and the separate edition of its Hebrew text with interlinear Latin translation, and Moore noted that Leusden\u2019s preface of 1661 was itself more cautious, saying only that no Bibles had been published, so far as he knew, in which the verses were so distinctly marked.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-32\"><a href=\"#note-32\">32<\/a><\/sup> Ginsburg reached the same conclusion independently. He traced the marginal Arabic numerals against each verse to the edition of Benito Arias Montano printed at Antwerp in 1571, and concluded that the frequent statement that Athias was the first to introduce numerals against the verses was inaccurate.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-33\"><a href=\"#note-33\">33<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Athias edition also altered the treatment of the chapters. Ginsburg reports that Athias not only broke up the Hebrew text into the chapters of the Latin Bible, following the example of earlier editions, but went so far as to incorporate the number of chapters in the Masoretic summary at the end of each book of the Pentateuch and to coin a mnemonic sign for it. At the end of Genesis, after the number of verses, the middle verse and the number of the portions of the annual and the triennial cycles, he states that the book has fifty chapters, with a mnemonic drawn from Isaiah 33:2; similar notes follow at the end of Exodus with a verse from Psalm 37:31, of Leviticus with Genesis 26:3, of Numbers with Deuteronomy 32:29, and of Deuteronomy with Psalm 111:1. Ginsburg regarded this as an invention passed off as part of the Masorah, and noted that it was copied by Jablonski in 1699, by Van der Hooght in 1705, by Opitius in 1706 and by Maius in 1716, who could not distinguish the genuine from the added parts of the summary.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-34\"><a href=\"#note-34\">34<\/a><\/sup> Moore adds, citing Leusden, that for some deviations from the accepted division of the chapters in the edition of 1667 the editor claimed the authority of a Hebrew manuscript, which Moore thought could only have been a copy in which the beginnings of the chapters had been noted from the apparatus of Isaac Nathan\u2019s concordance.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-35\"><a href=\"#note-35\">35<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"the-edition-of-1667-and-its-reward\">The Edition of 1667 and Its Reward<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The second edition was completed in 1667. Ensched\u00e9\u2019s history notes that it was dated 1667, and describes it as still much used and regarded as a model.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-36\"><a href=\"#note-36\">36<\/a><\/sup> The <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em> gives the date of the second edition as 1677. This is evidently an error, since the same entry mentions a broadside published by Athias in 1669 in defence of that edition, and the other reference works and Theodor Dunkelgr\u00fcn\u2019s study of the controversy over the book all give 1667.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-37\"><a href=\"#note-37\">37<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-38\"><a href=\"#note-38\">38<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-39\"><a href=\"#note-39\">39<\/a><\/sup> The <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em> describes the second edition as more carefully prepared than the first, and printed with still more beautiful type and decoration.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-40\"><a href=\"#note-40\">40<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For this edition the <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/States_General_of_the_Netherlands\">States General<\/a> of the <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Dutch_Republic\">Dutch Republic<\/a> awarded Athias a gold medal and chain. The <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em> states that they were worth 600 Dutch florins and that a cut of the medal appears on the title-page.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-41\"><a href=\"#note-41\">41<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-42\"><a href=\"#note-42\">42<\/a><\/sup> Johannes Ensched\u00e9, the typefounder, writing in his specimen book of 1768, gave a fuller account. He wrote that the edition had been corrected by the most learned rabbis and doctors of the Law and by professors of the universities of Leiden and Utrecht, and that the States General had honoured Athias with a privilege for twenty-two years and with a gold chain and a medal of thirty-six <em>lood<\/em> of fine gold. He quoted Athias\u2019s preface to the effect that such an honour had not fallen to the lot of any Israelite within the memory of man.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-43\"><a href=\"#note-43\">43<\/a><\/sup> The modern editors of Ensched\u00e9\u2019s history point out, however, that Johannes Ensched\u00e9 gave the date of the Bible wrongly as 1665 and wrongly asserted that the type he had bought had been used to print it, so his statements are not to be relied upon in every detail.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-44\"><a href=\"#note-44\">44<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The edition did not escape criticism. The <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em> records a small broadside by Athias, <em>Coecus de coloribus<\/em>, \u201cThe blind man on colours\u201d, published at Amsterdam in 1669 against the criticisms of the edition made by Samuel Maresius.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-45\"><a href=\"#note-45\">45<\/a><\/sup> Dunkelgr\u00fcn\u2019s article of 2012 in <em>Studia Rosenthaliana<\/em>, whose title takes up the same image, describes the episode as the defence by Athias and Leusden of their Hebrew Bible of 1667.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-46\"><a href=\"#note-46\">46<\/a><\/sup> The contents of that study have not been consulted for this article, and the details of the controversy are therefore not discussed here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A different kind of criticism was recorded by Nicholas Kis, the typecutter who probably worked for Athias. According to a note in Ensched\u00e9\u2019s history, Kis wrote in his <em>Ments\u00e9g<\/em> that Athias offered a guilder for every error found in his Hebrew Bible, but that in England a Jew told him he had found at least four hundred.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-47\"><a href=\"#note-47\">47<\/a><\/sup> The anecdote cannot be checked, and the number of errors it implies is uncertain. It does show, however, that the accuracy of the Athias Bible was a matter of public claim and of public dispute in its own time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"the-yiddish-bible-affair\">The Yiddish Bible Affair<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Athias\u2019s reputation was damaged by another publication. The <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em> describes at length the dispute over two rival Yiddish translations of the Bible printed in Amsterdam in the 1670s. The printer Uri Phoebus had engaged Jekutiel Blitz to make a translation and had obtained from the <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Council_of_Four_Lands\">Council of Four Lands<\/a> in Poland a privilege prohibiting reprints for ten years, and later a privilege from King <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/John_III_Sobieski\">John III Sobieski<\/a>. One of his compositors, Joseph Witzenhausen, made a rival translation, for which Athias became printer and publisher, and Athias obtained privileges for it from Holland and Zeeland and further protection from the Council of Four Lands. The edition of Phoebus appeared in 1678, and that of Athias in its complete form in 1679, with a Latin preface dedicated to the Great Elector, <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Frederick_William,_Elector_of_Brandenburg\">Frederick William of Brandenburg<\/a>.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-48\"><a href=\"#note-48\">48<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <em>Encyclopaedia Judaica<\/em> summarises the matter more briefly: Athias was accused of appropriating long-term copyright and reprint privileges that the Polish Jewish authorities had granted for a Yiddish translation of the Bible.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-49\"><a href=\"#note-49\">49<\/a><\/sup> The <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em> itself warns that the affair had been discussed so fancifully, and that so much of what had been written about it was pure invention, that nothing could be determined with accuracy, the literature having consisted mainly of loose leaflets and broadsides that had become rare.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-50\"><a href=\"#note-50\">50<\/a><\/sup> The episode is relevant to the history of the Hebrew Bible only indirectly, but it shows the competitive conditions in which the Amsterdam Hebrew presses worked and the importance that privileges, Christian and Jewish, had for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"immanuel-athias-and-the-code-of-maimonides\">Immanuel Athias and the Code of Maimonides<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Joseph Athias died in Amsterdam in 1700. The <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em> gives the date as 12 May 1700, while Ensched\u00e9\u2019s history, citing the archival research of I. H. van Eeghen, gives 4 May 1700.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-51\"><a href=\"#note-51\">51<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-52\"><a href=\"#note-52\">52<\/a><\/sup> His son Immanuel, who according to the <em>Encyclopaedia Judaica<\/em> had been a partner in the business since 1685, took it over. The most celebrated product of the later years of the press was the edition of the <em><a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Mishneh_Torah\">Mishneh Torah<\/a><\/em> of Maimonides in four volumes, begun by Joseph and completed by Immanuel. The <em>Encyclopaedia Judaica<\/em> states that it was printed in 1,150 copies and dedicated to Moses Machado, army purveyor to King <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/William_III_of_England\">William III<\/a>, who had given financial support to the business.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-53\"><a href=\"#note-53\">53<\/a><\/sup> The <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, citing Steinschneider, describes it as one of the most elegant and most admired products of the Hebrew press.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-54\"><a href=\"#note-54\">54<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Immanuel then began to print the commentary <em>Le\u1e25em Mishneh<\/em> on the code. The <em>Encyclopaedia Judaica<\/em> states that three volumes had appeared by the time of his death, which it dates to 1709, although the same entry gives his dates as about 1664 to 1714.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-55\"><a href=\"#note-55\">55<\/a><\/sup> Ensched\u00e9\u2019s history records that the supplement to the third volume appeared from his house in 1703, that the supplement to the fourth volume was produced in 1714 from the press of the bookseller Salomon Proops, and that Immanuel died on 3 January 1714.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-56\"><a href=\"#note-56\">56<\/a><\/sup> The later date is supported by the archival evidence that Ensched\u00e9\u2019s editors cite, and the year 1709 in the <em>Encyclopaedia Judaica<\/em> may refer to the last volume of the commentary rather than to his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"ornate-card overflow-hidden mb-8\"><picture class=\"article-figure-picture\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" src=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Athias-body-type-case-take-1.jpg\" alt=\"A compositor\u2019s hands set small pieces of metal type into a brass composing stick above a wooden type case\" class=\"article-figure-img wp-image-1259\" srcset=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Athias-body-type-case-take-1.jpg?v=20261101clean 1280w, https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Athias-body-type-case-take-1-300x169.jpg?v=20261101clean 300w, https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Athias-body-type-case-take-1-1024x576.jpg?v=20261101clean 1024w, https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Athias-body-type-case-take-1-768x432.jpg?v=20261101clean 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" \/><\/picture><figcaption class=\"figure-caption\">Illustration: setting type by hand from a type case; the Hebrew matrices of the Athias press had a long afterlife and passed to the Proops family in 1761.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"the-athias-types-and-the-proops-family\">The Athias Types and the Proops Family<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Hebrew matrices of the Athias press had a long afterlife. Ensched\u00e9\u2019s history, again following Van Eeghen, records that Immanuel had always kept them, and that after his death they passed to a distant relative, Abraham Athias, printer and typefounder, whose foundry was on the Houtgracht. It was sold at auction on 25 February 1761 and bought by the Proops family.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-57\"><a href=\"#note-57\">57<\/a><\/sup> The <em>Encyclopaedia Judaica<\/em> names this Abraham as Abraham ben Raphael Hezekiah Athias, who printed Hebrew books in Amsterdam from 1728, and the purchasers as the brothers Joseph, Jacob and Abraham Proops.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-58\"><a href=\"#note-58\">58<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Proops brothers were proud of their acquisition. In a notice in a Jewish almanac for the year 5523 (1762\u201363), quoted in translation in Ensched\u00e9\u2019s history, they announced that on Wednesday, 21 Adar 5521, that is, 25 February 1761, they had acquired what had long been hidden away as a most precious treasure, the matrices and moulds made by the famous printers Joseph, Emanuel and Abraham Athias, for all manner of square Hebrew letters with and without vowels and accents and for Rashi and German rabbinical faces. Among the books printed with them they listed the works of Maimonides, the large and small Bibles, the small Pentateuch and Psalms, and the Bible in Judaeo-German. They added that it was now impossible for printing that looked exactly like that of Athias to be done by anyone but themselves.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-59\"><a href=\"#note-59\">59<\/a><\/sup> In the preface to their Judaeo-Spanish Bible of 1762 they wrote that God had put into their hands the matrices of all the letters of the press of Joseph and Emanuel Athias, which had stood idle for many years.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-60\"><a href=\"#note-60\">60<\/a><\/sup> The Sephardi book trade of Amsterdam in which the Proops and Athias firms worked is described in this journal in <a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/sephardic-portugal-and-the-hebrew-bible\/\">Sephardic Portugal and the Hebrew Bible<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The history also corrects a long-standing attribution. Johannes Ensched\u00e9, who bought a pointed Long Primer Hebrew from the successors to Athias\u2019s foundry in 1767, stated in 1768 that it had been cut in 1662 or 1663 by Christoffel van Dijck for Athias. The modern editors show that the type was not one of the famous Athias types, which were of an earlier and more artistic fashion, that no punches were kept with the matrices, and that the Proops preface of 1762 proves that the true Athias matrices had remained in the possession of the Athias family until 1761.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-61\"><a href=\"#note-61\">61<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Proops firm and its successors used the Athias material until 1917. The <em>Encyclopaedia Judaica<\/em> records that in that year the collection known as the Athias Cabinet was sold at auction and acquired by the Tetterode firm, the Typefoundry Amsterdam, and that in 2001 the library of the <a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/University_of_Amsterdam\">University of Amsterdam<\/a> received the cabinet and its contents on permanent loan.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-62\"><a href=\"#note-62\">62<\/a><\/sup> Offenberg described the cabinet in <em>Studia Rosenthaliana<\/em> in the same year.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-63\"><a href=\"#note-63\">63<\/a><\/sup> The description of the Tetterode collection now held by the Allard Pierson, the museum of the university\u2019s collections, states that the Hebrew punches and matrices in the eighteenth-century Athias cabinet include material by the typecutters Nicholas Kis, who lived from 1650 to 1705, and Jacques-Fran\u00e7ois Rosart, who lived from 1714 to 1777, both of whom worked in the Netherlands.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-64\"><a href=\"#note-64\">64<\/a><\/sup> Since Rosart was born fourteen years after Joseph Athias died, the cabinet as it survives must include material added after the time of Joseph and Immanuel as well as the original equipment of their press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"the-athias-text-among-the-later-editions\">The Athias Text among the Later Editions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The reception of the Athias text can be followed in the account of later editions given by Toy and Gottheil. A further edition was brought out at Berlin by Daniel Ernst Jablonski, with a comparison of all the earlier editions, and was reissued in 1712 and, without vowels, in 1711. Toy and Gottheil date Jablonski\u2019s first edition to 1690, while Ginsburg gives 1699.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-65\"><a href=\"#note-65\">65<\/a><\/sup> Jablonski\u2019s text in turn became the foundation of the edition of J. H. Michaelis at Halle in 1720, for which Michaelis compared five Erfurt manuscripts and nineteen printed editions. The Mantua Bible of 1742\u201344, edited by Raphael \u1e24ayyim Basilea and Felice Marini, was in large measure a reprint of Michaelis.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-66\"><a href=\"#note-66\">66<\/a><\/sup> The Athias text was therefore transmitted not only through Van der Hooght but through a second line of German editions, and both lines carried with them the features that Athias and Leusden had introduced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of those features was the treatment of the chapter numbers in the Masoretic summaries. Ginsburg was surprised that Raphael \u1e24ayyim Basilea, the editor of the text of Norzi with the commentary <em>Min\u1e25at Shai<\/em> printed at Mantua in 1732\u201344, should have been taken in by it. Raphael \u1e24ayyim did not simply copy Athias in the Pentateuch but extended the practice, entering the number of chapters in the summaries at the end of every book of the Prophets and the Writings and inventing mnemonic signs for them. Ginsburg added that Norzi\u2019s autograph manuscript of the <em>Min\u1e25at Shai<\/em>, then in the British Museum, contained none of these innovations.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-67\"><a href=\"#note-67\">67<\/a><\/sup> He found it equally remarkable that Wolf Heidenheim, in his edition of the Pentateuch with the commentary <em>\u02bfEn ha-Qore<\/em> published at R\u00f6delheim in 1818\u201321, denounced the practice of incorporating the numbering of the chapters in the Masoretic summary as a mixing of the profane with the sacred, and yet adopted it at the end of each book exactly as it appears in Athias and his followers.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-68\"><a href=\"#note-68\">68<\/a><\/sup> Ginsburg\u2019s criticism shows how far the conventions of the Amsterdam edition had become part of the printed tradition, even for editors who knew that they were not Masoretic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The verse numbers spread more unevenly. Moore observed that the convention of marking every fifth verse with a Hebrew numeral, established in the sixteenth century, was not universally adopted: the edition of Manasseh ben Israel printed at Amsterdam from 1635, and the Mantua Bible of 1742\u201344, have no verse numerals at all.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-69\"><a href=\"#note-69\">69<\/a><\/sup> The Athias system of Arabic numerals for the intervening verses was, on Moore\u2019s account, an addition to the older Hebrew numeration rather than a replacement of it. Its later prevalence followed from the authority of the edition itself, which, as the <em>Encyclopaedia Judaica<\/em> entry on Leusden already quoted observes, was imitated by nearly every later printing until the nineteenth century.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-70\"><a href=\"#note-70\">70<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The family itself remained prominent in Amsterdam after Immanuel\u2019s death. The <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em> lists, among the members of the Portuguese community of Amsterdam in 1675, several bearers of the name, including an Abraham Atias described as \u201cel viejo\u201d, the elder. It records that Abraham ben Raphael Hezekiah Athias was a printer in Amsterdam from 1728 to 1741, that David Israel Athias served as <em>\u1e25akham<\/em> of the Portuguese community from 1728 until his death on 22 March 1753, and that his son Jacob Hezekiah Athias was a member of the Talmudic academy \u02bfEts \u1e24ayyim in Amsterdam from 1737.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-71\"><a href=\"#note-71\">71<\/a><\/sup> The same entry describes Immanuel\u2019s office as the source of the most elegant editions of Hebrew works, among them the code of Maimonides.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-72\"><a href=\"#note-72\">72<\/a><\/sup> These details place the press within a continuing family and communal setting, in which the printing of Hebrew books was one activity among the learned and religious offices that members of the family held.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"van-der-hooght-and-the-received-text\">Van der Hooght and the Received Text<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The most lasting influence of the Athias Bible was exercised through the edition of Everard van der Hooght, published at Amsterdam and Utrecht in 1705. Toy and Gottheil describe Van der Hooght\u2019s edition as practically a reprint of the Athias-Leusden edition, with variants from a number of printed editions at the end. It was much prized for its excellent and clear type, but no manuscripts were used in its preparation. Its text was followed by Proops, by Houbigant, by Simon, by Kennicott and by Hahn, and it came to be regarded as a kind of <em>textus receptus<\/em>, the Vienna edition of Meir Letteris in 1852 showing very few changes from it. The first Hebrew Bible printed in America, published by William Fry at Philadelphia in 1814, followed the text of Van der Hooght.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-73\"><a href=\"#note-73\">73<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two of these descendants have been treated in this journal. The Paris Bible of <a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/charles-francois-houbigants-hebrew-bible-of-1753\/\">Charles-Fran\u00e7ois Houbigant<\/a> reprinted Van der Hooght\u2019s Hebrew text without vowel points, and Benjamin Kennicott used the same edition as the standard against which his collators recorded the readings of the manuscripts, as described in <a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/kennicott-de-rossi-and-the-eighteenth-century-collations-of-hebrew-manuscripts\/\">Kennicott, De Rossi and the Eighteenth-Century Collations of Hebrew Manuscripts<\/a>. In each case the text that served as the point of departure was, at one remove, the text of Athias and Leusden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Athias text thus occupies a central place in the history of the printed Hebrew Bible. It was not the first edition to number the verses, as Moore and Ginsburg showed, nor was it a new text established from the manuscripts. Its importance lay rather in the combination of a careful revision of the received text, a convenient system of reference, and a typographical quality that earned the praise of Jewish and Christian readers alike. Through Van der Hooght and his successors that combination fixed the form in which the Hebrew Bible was read by scholars in Europe and America for much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, until the editions of the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries returned to the Masorah and the medieval manuscripts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"notes\">Notes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list post-notes\">\n\n<li id=\"note-1\">Tirtsah Levie Bernfeld and Bart Wallet, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.taylorfrancis.com\/chapters\/oa-mono\/10.4324\/9781003698401-18\/athias-bible-tirtsah-levie-bernfeld-bart-wallet\">Athias\u2019s Bible<\/a>\u201d, in <em>Jews in the Netherlands<\/em> (London: Routledge, 2023), ch. 18, abstract. <a href=\"#ref-1\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 1\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-2\">Richard Gottheil, Meyer Kayserling, J. Vredenburg et al., \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jewishencyclopedia.com\/articles\/2085-athias\">Athias, Atias, or Athia<\/a>\u201d, <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em> (1901\u201306), entry \u201cJoseph b. Abraham Athias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-2\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 2\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-3\">Cecil Roth, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.encyclopedia.com\/religion\/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps\/athias\">At(h)ias<\/a>\u201d, <em>Encyclopaedia Judaica<\/em>, at Encyclopedia.com. <a href=\"#ref-3\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 3\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-4\"><em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, \u201cAthias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-4\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 4\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-5\">Abraham Meir Habermann and A. K. Offenberg, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.encyclopedia.com\/religion\/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps\/athias-joseph-and-immanuel\">Athias, Joseph and Immanuel<\/a>\u201d, <em>Encyclopaedia Judaica<\/em>, 2nd edn, at Encyclopedia.com. <a href=\"#ref-5\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 5\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-6\"><em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, \u201cAthias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-6\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 6\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-7\">Charles Ensched\u00e9, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/bibliotekus.artlebedev.ru\/books\/typefoundries-in-the-netherlands\/\">Typefoundries in the Netherlands from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Century<\/a><\/em>, English edn (Haarlem: Stichting Museum Ensched\u00e9, 1978), digitised at Bibliotekus, p. 95. <a href=\"#ref-7\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 7\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-8\">Roth, \u201cAt(h)ias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-8\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 8\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-9\">Habermann and Offenberg, \u201cAthias, Joseph and Immanuel\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-9\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 9\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-10\"><em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, \u201cAthias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-10\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 10\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-11\">Habermann and Offenberg, \u201cAthias, Joseph and Immanuel\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-11\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 11\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-12\">Habermann and Offenberg, \u201cAthias, Joseph and Immanuel\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-12\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 12\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-13\">Ensched\u00e9, <em>Typefoundries in the Netherlands<\/em>, pp. 94\u201395. <a href=\"#ref-13\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 13\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-14\">Ensched\u00e9, <em>Typefoundries in the Netherlands<\/em>, p. 96. <a href=\"#ref-14\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 14\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-15\"><em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, \u201cAthias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-15\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 15\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-16\"><em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, \u201cAthias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-16\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 16\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-17\">Levie Bernfeld and Wallet, \u201cAthias\u2019s Bible\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-17\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 17\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-18\">Joseph Elijah Heller, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.encyclopedia.com\/religion\/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps\/leusden-johanndeg\">Leusden, Johann<\/a>\u201d, <em>Encyclopaedia Judaica<\/em>, at Encyclopedia.com. <a href=\"#ref-18\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 18\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-19\"><em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, \u201cAthias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-19\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 19\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-20\">Ensched\u00e9, <em>Typefoundries in the Netherlands<\/em>, p. 96. <a href=\"#ref-20\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 20\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-21\">Heller, \u201cLeusden, Johann\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-21\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 21\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-22\">Eton College Collections, catalogue record <a href=\"https:\/\/catalogue.etoncollege.com\/B15605\">B15605<\/a>, <em>Biblia sacra Hebraea correcta &amp; collata<\/em> (Amsterdam: Joseph Athias, 1661), shelfmark DDb.8.20\u2013DDb.8.21. <a href=\"#ref-22\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 22\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-23\">Eton College Collections, record B15605. <a href=\"#ref-23\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 23\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-24\">Crawford Howell Toy and Richard Gottheil, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jewishencyclopedia.com\/articles\/3262-bible-editions\">Bible Editions<\/a>\u201d, <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em> (1901\u201306), sections \u201cVarious Editions\u201d and \u201cVan der Hooght\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-24\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 24\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-25\">Eton College Collections, record B15605. <a href=\"#ref-25\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 25\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-26\">Levie Bernfeld and Wallet, \u201cAthias\u2019s Bible\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-26\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 26\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-27\">Christian D. Ginsburg, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/introductionofma00ginsuoft\">Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible<\/a><\/em> (London: Trinitarian Bible Society, 1897), p. 27. <a href=\"#ref-27\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 27\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-28\"><em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, \u201cAthias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-28\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 28\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-29\">Heller, \u201cLeusden, Johann\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-29\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 29\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-30\">George F. Moore, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblicalstudies.org.uk\/pdf\/jbl\/1893_073.pdf\">The Vulgate Chapters and Numbered Verses in the Hebrew Bible<\/a>\u201d, <em>Journal of Biblical Literature<\/em> 12 (1893), pp. 73\u201378, pp. 75\u201376. <a href=\"#ref-30\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 30\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-31\">Moore, \u201cVulgate Chapters and Numbered Verses\u201d, pp. 76\u201377. <a href=\"#ref-31\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 31\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-32\">Moore, \u201cVulgate Chapters and Numbered Verses\u201d, pp. 77\u201378. <a href=\"#ref-32\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 32\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-33\">Ginsburg, <em>Introduction<\/em>, pp. 107\u2013108. <a href=\"#ref-33\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 33\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-34\">Ginsburg, <em>Introduction<\/em>, pp. 27\u201328. <a href=\"#ref-34\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 34\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-35\">Moore, \u201cVulgate Chapters and Numbered Verses\u201d, p. 73, footnote. <a href=\"#ref-35\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 35\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-36\">Ensched\u00e9, <em>Typefoundries in the Netherlands<\/em>, pp. 95, 97. <a href=\"#ref-36\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 36\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-37\"><em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, \u201cAthias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-37\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 37\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-38\">Habermann and Offenberg, \u201cAthias, Joseph and Immanuel\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-38\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 38\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-39\">Theodor Dunkelgr\u00fcn, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/poj.peeters-leuven.be\/content.php?url=article&amp;id=2189612&amp;journal_code=SR\">Like a Blind Man Judging Colors: Joseph Athias and Johannes Leusden Defend their 1667 Hebrew Bible<\/a>\u201d, <em>Studia Rosenthaliana<\/em> 44 (2012), pp. 79\u2013115, record at Peeters Online Journals. <a href=\"#ref-39\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 39\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-40\"><em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, \u201cAthias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-40\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 40\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-41\"><em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, \u201cAthias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-41\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 41\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-42\">Habermann and Offenberg, \u201cAthias, Joseph and Immanuel\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-42\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 42\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-43\">Ensched\u00e9, <em>Typefoundries in the Netherlands<\/em>, p. 96. <a href=\"#ref-43\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 43\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-44\">Ensched\u00e9, <em>Typefoundries in the Netherlands<\/em>, p. 97. <a href=\"#ref-44\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 44\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-45\"><em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, \u201cAthias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-45\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 45\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-46\">Dunkelgr\u00fcn, \u201cLike a Blind Man Judging Colors\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-46\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 46\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-47\">Ensched\u00e9, <em>Typefoundries in the Netherlands<\/em>, p. 95 n. 2. <a href=\"#ref-47\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 47\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-48\"><em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, \u201cAthias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-48\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 48\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-49\">Habermann and Offenberg, \u201cAthias, Joseph and Immanuel\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-49\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 49\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-50\"><em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, \u201cAthias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-50\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 50\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-51\"><em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, \u201cAthias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-51\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 51\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-52\">Ensched\u00e9, <em>Typefoundries in the Netherlands<\/em>, p. 95 n. 3. <a href=\"#ref-52\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 52\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-53\">Habermann and Offenberg, \u201cAthias, Joseph and Immanuel\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-53\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 53\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-54\"><em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, \u201cAthias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-54\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 54\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-55\">Habermann and Offenberg, \u201cAthias, Joseph and Immanuel\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-55\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 55\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-56\">Ensched\u00e9, <em>Typefoundries in the Netherlands<\/em>, pp. 95, 97 n. 1. <a href=\"#ref-56\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 56\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-57\">Ensched\u00e9, <em>Typefoundries in the Netherlands<\/em>, p. 97 n. 1. <a href=\"#ref-57\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 57\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-58\">Habermann and Offenberg, \u201cAthias, Joseph and Immanuel\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-58\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 58\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-59\">Ensched\u00e9, <em>Typefoundries in the Netherlands<\/em>, p. 98. <a href=\"#ref-59\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 59\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-60\">Ensched\u00e9, <em>Typefoundries in the Netherlands<\/em>, p. 97. <a href=\"#ref-60\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 60\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-61\">Ensched\u00e9, <em>Typefoundries in the Netherlands<\/em>, pp. 96\u201397. <a href=\"#ref-61\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 61\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-62\">Habermann and Offenberg, \u201cAthias, Joseph and Immanuel\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-62\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 62\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-63\">A. K. Offenberg, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/dare.uva.nl\/id\/76926bf5-2595-4eef-a007-06e41508a98a\">The Athias Cabinet<\/a>\u201d, <em>Studia Rosenthaliana<\/em> 35 (2001), pp. 100\u2013102, record at UvA-DARE. <a href=\"#ref-63\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 63\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-64\">Allard Pierson, University of Amsterdam, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/archives.uba.uva.nl\/resources\/ubainv54\">Collectie Tetterode<\/a>\u201d, collection description. <a href=\"#ref-64\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 64\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-65\">Ginsburg, <em>Introduction<\/em>, p. 28. <a href=\"#ref-65\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 65\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-66\">Toy and Gottheil, \u201cBible Editions\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-66\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 66\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-67\">Ginsburg, <em>Introduction<\/em>, p. 28. <a href=\"#ref-67\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 67\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-68\">Ginsburg, <em>Introduction<\/em>, p. 28. <a href=\"#ref-68\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 68\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-69\">Moore, \u201cVulgate Chapters and Numbered Verses\u201d, p. 76. <a href=\"#ref-69\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 69\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-70\">Heller, \u201cLeusden, Johann\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-70\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 70\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-71\"><em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, \u201cAthias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-71\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 71\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-72\"><em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, \u201cAthias\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-72\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 72\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<li id=\"note-73\">Toy and Gottheil, \u201cBible Editions\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-73\" aria-label=\"Return to citation 73\">*<\/a><\/li>\n\n<\/ol>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Printed in Amsterdam in 1661 and 1667 with the help of the Utrecht Hebraist Johannes Leusden, the Bibles of Joseph Athias introduced a new system of verse numbers, earned their printer a gold medal from the States General, and through the edition of Van der Hooght became the received text of the Hebrew Bible for scholars until the nineteenth century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1257,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[909,914,910,911,820,907,908,906,913,912,915],"class_list":["post-1260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books-reviews","tag-amsterdam","tag-athias-cabinet","tag-biblia-hebraica-1661","tag-biblia-hebraica-1667","tag-hebrew-printing","tag-immanuel-athias","tag-johannes-leusden","tag-joseph-athias","tag-proops","tag-van-der-hooght","tag-verse-numbering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}