The 1559 Book of Common Prayer in Greek

This translation, from 1638, is the second into Greek of the Book of Common Prayer. It is a translation into ancient, or koine Greek, the Greek of the New Testament. It was undoubtedly intended for use in academic settings, and possibly also for scholars outside of Britain.

The book includes the entire 1559 Book of Common Prayer, with the minor changes made in 1604. It is listed in David Griffiths' Bibliography of the Book of Common Prayer as 45:2. The only omissions are the Ordinal and the lections (Sunday Bible readings - the Collects are included). In place of the lections, my copy includes the Greek New Testament descibed at right.

The Greek New Testament

This Greek New Testament, published by Whittaker in London in 1633, is commonly known as the textus receptus, or received text, an earlier printing of which was the basis for the New Testament of the Authorized, or King James Bible.

This particular edition was prepared by three French Protestant scholars, Robert Etienne (Stephanus in Latin), Joseph Scaliger, and Isaac Casaubon, and was based on Erasmus' Greek New Testament of 1519. Besides the Biblical text, it includes the Creeds and both Etienne's and Scaliger's notes.

The book used here contains both the above, bound up together. The Greek font used for the book's text is rather different from that used today, and may be difficult to read for those not familiar with early modern Greek printing. This book may be helpful in reading the Greek text. Because of the unusual font, no OCR was done; only PDF images of the pages are given. The Book of Common Prayer lacks the title page, and begins with the Table of Contents (Συλλαβος); the New Testament is complete. Bookmarks are provided for ease of navigation.