Concise Bible: Geneva 1599 (GNV) in English for English Dissenters

The Geneva Bible, once widely read and influential in the 16th and 17th centuries, is now largely forgotten today. It was one of the Bibles taken to America on the Mayflower. Mary I, also known as "Bloody Mary," was the Queen of England and Ireland from 1553 until her death in 1558. Her persecution of Protestants led to the Marian Exile, which drove 800 English scholars to the European continent, where a number of them gathered in Geneva, Switzerland.

In Geneva, a team of scholars led by William Whittingham, and assisted by Miles Coverdale, Christopher Goodman, Anthony Gilby, John Knox, and Thomas Sampson, produced the Geneva Bible. This superb translation was based on Greek and Hebrew manuscripts and a revision of William Tyndale's New Testament, which first appeared in 1526. The Geneva Bible New Testament was published in 1557, with the complete Bible appearing in 1560.

The Geneva Bible was the product of the best Protestant scholars of the day and became the Bible of choice for many of the greatest writers and thinkers of that time, including William Shakespeare, John Bunyan, and John Milton. It was unique among all other Bibles, being the first to use chapters and numbered verses, and it became the most popular version of its time due to its extensive marginal notes.

These notes, written by Reformation leaders such as John Calvin and others, were intended to help explain and interpret the Scriptures for the average reader. The Geneva Bible is regarded as history's first study Bible, with its variety of scriptural study guides and aids, including cross-reference verse citations, introductions to each book of the Bible, maps, tables, woodcut illustrations, indexes, and other features.

In 2006, Tolle Lege Press released a version of the 1599 Geneva Bible with modern spellings as part of its 1599 Geneva Bible restoration project. The original cross references were retained, as well as the study notes by the Protestant Reformation leaders, and the Old English glossary was included in the updated version.

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