School Teacher Found 340-Year-Old Bible in Wisconsin Church

Last week a wonderful discovery has been made as a sixth grade school teacher found a 340-year-old Bible in a Wisconsin Lutheran church. This Bible was found inside an old safe where she works. However, initially Debra Court saw the Bible two years ago and considered it was just an old book while trying to look for baptismal records for a class.

The "age" of the Bible was unknown until the Concordia Seminary Library was asked regarding it. Ultimately the St. Paul Lutheran church's pastor, Timothy Shoup, sent images of it to researchers at Concordia Seminary Library in St. Louis, who have now recognized it. The library's Lyle Buettner said that there are only around 40 documented copies known, although it's probable many more are undocumented. The findings turned out now that the 1,500-page Bible is a copy of a translation by Martin Luther, which was printed in Nuremberg, Germany in 1670.

Rev. Timothy Shoup said, “This is an authentic 340-year-old Bible. We don't know how we got it. We don't know how it got into the safe. We've been asking some of our elderly folks and people in the nursing home and nobody seems to remember".

The Bible was found to be in moderately good condition, hand-pressed and rare. It weighs nearly 20 pounds and the brass clasps remained intact and the pigskin cover was quite sound, certainly a demonstration to old-time handcrafting. The book shows both feature text as well as detailed illustrations. No one knows how the Bible got there and to preserve it better for the future, special measures will be taken by the church.

1670 Bible found in Bonduel video from youtube: