Three Bible Firsts for the Saur Family of Printers

First European-language Bible Printed in the Americas. 
German Bible. Biblia, das ist, die Heilige Schrift Altes und Neues Testaments, nach der deutschen Uebersetzung D. Martin Luthers.
Germantown, Pennsylvania: Christoph Saur, 1743. (00088)

First Bible Printed on American Paper. 
German Bible. Biblia, das ist, die Heilige Schrift Altes und Neues Testaments, nach der deutschen Uebersetzung D. Martin Luthers.
Germantown, Pennsylvania: Christoph Saur II, 1763. (00089)

First Bible Printed with American Type. 
German Bible. Biblia, das ist, die ganze göttliche Heilige Schrifft, Alten und Neuen Testaments, nach der deutschen Uebersetzung D. Martin Luthers.
Germantown, Pennsylvania: Christoph Saur II, 1776. (00090)

In the British colonies in America, regulations prohibited printers from producing English-language Bibles. This restriction did not prevent, however, the publication of Bible translations, including Amerindian and continental vernacular languages. Christopher Saur (1695–1758) was a German physician and immigrant who settled in Germantown (an area now located in Philadelphia) in the early eighteenth century. He became a printer and eventually established the most significant German-language press in the colonies. The German Bible printed by Christoph Saur I in 1743 was the first European-language Bible published in the Americas. The second edition, printed by his son Christoph Saur II (1721–1784) in 1763, was the first Bible printed on American-made paper. The third Saur Bible, printed in 1776 at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, was the first Bible printed with American-made type, manufactured at the Saur type foundry in Germantown.