The Pilgrims & Plymouth Colony 1620 P2

The version of the bible that Elder William Brewster, the interim pastor in America to the Pilgrims, and is seen holding in the picture displayed in the US Capitol Rotunda is the Geneva Bible. It was the primary Bible of the English Reformation, used extensively by the Pilgrims and Puritans.

The Geneva Bible was first published in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1560 by English Reformers who fled there to escape the religious persecution at the hands of State-established churches. (In 1560, they specifically fled Queen Mary, known as “Bloody Mary.”) That Bible, which was the first English Bible to add numbered verses to each chapter, was so popular it went through 140 printings from 1560 to 1644. It was also one of the first Bibles taken to America, carried originally by the Virginia colonists then by the Pilgrims and others after them.

Content sourced from "The American Story, the beginnings" by David Barton and Tim Barton