Gordon College Selling Rare Bibles

Christianity Today reports that Gordon College is planning to auction some of its Bibles:

More than 90 years ago, Gordon College was given 7,000 rare books and artifacts by the family of Edward Payson Vining, a railroad executive and amateur Shakespearean. The collection included early parchments of the Greek New Testament, the first edition of Martin Luther’s German Bible, and copies of the first Bibles printed in the Americas in a Native American dialect.

Unable to properly care for the large donation (proper facilities and security would cost between $500,000 and $2 million), Gordon has decided to put about 500 books up for auction. Two of the items are first and second editions of a Bible printed in the Massachusett language in the mid-1600s, according to Gordon spokesperson Rick Sweeney.

It doesn’t look like the ‘early parchments of the Greek New Testament’ are necessarily part of the anticipated sale. Checking the Liste suggests that these are minuscules 2752 (Gordon College Library Gr. Ms. 1 - 108 leaves of a XI/XII Gospel manuscript) and 2753 (Gordon College Library Gr. Ms. 2 - six leaves of a XIII Gospel manuscript, containing Matt 27.17-28.20 and some prefatory material to Mark). I couldn’t find out any more information (no bibliography is given in Elliott’s Bibliography (or the available up-dates). If this Christian college has had two Greek New Testament manuscripts for more than 90 years and no one has bothered to publish even a note about them, then it may be best to include them in the sale as well.

The collection also may include a Complutensian Polyglot (I deduce from the reference to “a Ximenes Greek Bible” in this report, which also reports some faculty unease)