The Bible. The Book of Sacred Scripture of the Old and New Testaments

The Bible is not only the foundation of Christianity but also an essential part of world culture. Its Old Testament was written in ancient Hebrew. These texts, created from the 15th to the 1st century BC, were carefully preserved during transcription and by the 10th century AD, thanks to the efforts of Jewish scholars—the Masoretes—who worked with ancient manuscripts of the Sacred Scripture, they attained a finalized form. The Old Testament, translated from the 3rd to the 1st century BC in Alexandria into ancient Greek, became known as the Septuagint, meaning "the translation of the seventy elders." The New Testament of the Bible was also written in ancient Greek. By the end of the 4th century AD, the Vulgate appeared—a translation of the Bible into Latin, and it was this "Latin Bible" that was first printed in 1450 by Johannes Gutenberg. In this edition, for the first time in Russia, images of 230 original illustrations by Gustave Doré are published. The talented French artist worked on them for two years while preparing the publication of the Bible translated into German by the writer and rabbi Ludwig Philippson. The Bible with Doré's illustrations was first published in 1866, and it included engravings made from the master's drawings. This edition became so popular that in 1867, the original drawings by Gustave Doré were published in a separate three-volume set. It is these drawings, not the engravings made from them, that are reproduced in this current edition.