The campus is invited to join UT Libraries in celebrating the Shaheen Antiquarian Bible Collection at a reception and lecture on Friday, March 30, in the John C. Hodges Library.
The Libraries acquired more than three hundred early printed Bibles and other rare books from the collection of the late Naseeb Shaheen, a noted Shakespeare scholar and professor of English at the University of Memphis for forty years.
The reception begins at 6:00 p.m. in the Jack E. Reese Galleria. At 7:00 p.m., Renaissance scholar Hannibal Hamlin will speak on “Shakespeare and the Bible.” Selected Bibles will be on display in Special Collections.
The Shaheen Antiquarian Bible Collection includes almost one hundred English Bibles dating from the Protestant Reformation of the 16th and 17th centuries when the Christian scriptures were first translated into the vernacular languages of Europe. These early printed Bibles, along with psalters, prayer books, and homilies included in the collection, were used by Shaheen in his studies of the Bible in literature.
Shaheen was an internationally known authority on Shakespeare’s use of the Bible. He assembled his collection of early printed Bibles to assure that he was working from the exact texts available to Shakespeare. His collection of pre-King James Bibles was one of the largest in the world.
Please RSVP with number of guests to libraryfriends@utk.edu or 865-974-6600.