The First Published New Testament in Greek

Novum instrumentum omne.
Basel: Johann Froben, 1516.
(BRA2476)

In the sixteenth century, two publications competed to be recognized as the first printed edition of the New Testament in Greek, the polyglot Bible produced at the Complutense University in Alcalá de Henares and the New Testament produced by Desiderius Erasmus.

The Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) appealed to Pope Leo X for his Greek New Testament to be granted permission to be published before any other, including that which had already been printed in 1514 as part of the massive multi-lingual edition of the complete Bible in Spain. Erasmus’s effort succeeded and his edition published in 1516, titled Novum instrumentum omne, won that recognition.