Scholarly Bible Editions

The German Bible Society is renowned worldwide as the publisher of the critical editions of the Hebrew Old Testament (BHS & BHQ), the Greek-language New Testament editions Nestle-Aland and Greek New Testament, and the Septuagint and Vulgate. Publications from the German Bible Society are used throughout the world in exegetical training and theological practice. At the same time, it has also acquired renown as a publishing house for scholarly resources for biblical study in printed and electronic form.

Old Testament

The »Biblia Hebraica« has been published as a scholarly edition of the Old Testament since the 1920s. Since 1977, the »Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia« (BHS) has been complete and the global standard in text-critical research of the original Hebrew text. The »Biblia Hebraica Quinta« (BHQ) builds on this tradition in the 21st century.

Since its publication in 1935, Alfred Rahlfs' Septuagint edition has been an important basis for worldwide Septuagint research. At the beginning of 2009 the German Bible Society published the first complete translation of the Septuagint in German under the title Septuaginta Deutsch.

The Biblia Sacra Vulgata is a scholarly review based on the manuscripts with the help of the large critical editions; for the Old Testament the edition of the Benedictines by S. Girolamo in Rome. The first edition of the Biblia Sacra Vulgata was published in 1969 by the Württemberg Bible Institute.

Hebrew Old Testament

Greek Old Testament

Latin Old Testament

New Testament

In 1898 the "Novum Testamentum Graece" by Eberhard Nestle was published in Stuttgart. In the meantime, the “Nestle-Aland” has become the standard edition for scholarly research on the original text of the New Testament.

"Nestle-Aland" is published by the Institute for New Testament Textual Research in Münster, as are the other two most important editions of the Greek New Testament: the UBS Greek New Testament and the "Editio Critica Maior" (ECM).

The Biblia Sacra Vulgata is a scholarly review based on the manuscripts with the help of the large critical editions; for the New Testament, the Oxford edition by J. Wordsworth and H. J. White. The first edition of the Biblia Sacra Vulgata was published in 1969 by the Württemberg Bible Institute.

Greek New Testament

Latin New Testament

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