The first polyglot (multi-lingual) edition of the whole Bible compiled by a group of humanist scholars under the leadership of, and paid for by, Cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros, Archbishop of Toledo (1436-1517), with the hope that "the hitherto dormant study of Holy Scriptures may now at last begin to revive," and that, with access to the original text, Bible students may now "quench his thirst at the very fountainhead of the water that flow unto life everlasting and not have to content himself with rivulets alone." The work was begun in 1502 and began printing, in six volumes, between 1514-1517, at Alcala (or Complutum, as it was called in Latin; hence its name). The OT was printed in parallel columns of Hebrew, Latin and Greek, while the NT in Greek and Latin. The last volume was completed in 1517, just as Luther was preparing to issue his Ninety-Five Theses; it was not, however, officially, published until 1522, allowing Erasmus to claim precedence for having published the first Greek New Testament.
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