Library Of Congress Gutenberg Bible Novels & Stories

Richard said as he looked at me and back at the fire, sucking on his pipe. “Are you ready?” Ben sat on the sofa beside me, and the cushions threatened to swallow us both into its comfort. Was I ready? Ready for what? He reached to pick up the King James Bible. Beneath it was various other books, none that I recognized except a translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

“Winked at me, the son of a bitch.” Richard looked down at what he’d been given. It was a Bible, the object the admiral had been holding in his lap—removed from its lectern not twenty-four hours prior when Lawrie had hugged himself and ran out of the church with it beneath his jacket. Leather-bound and tattered, really, really old. Rich lifted the worn cover and saw it was printed in a foreign language, glimpsed D. Martin Luthers on a crumbling inner page, 1670 below that. German. Over three hundred years worth of old. But why—

"A book?" Hugh immediately raised his voice. "A book? This is a treasure! A handwritten prayer book by a monk from the Abbey of Saint-Germain in Paris, dating back to the 13th century--complete with gold illumination. Fewer than ten copies still exist. I had someone camp out at a Vatican manuscript auction for half a year before I managed to get it!" Liam lifted a brow, looking at him with faint amusement. "You came all the way to the hospital just to show me this?"

In addition to the Song of Songs, the Book of Ruth, the Book of Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and the Book of Esther, their version included the Book of Vashti. At first, the decision to publish a new bible created a major uproar in both the Jewish and Christian communities, but once the artifacts found in the cabin and the book itself were authenticated, many other bible publishers also edited theirs as well. While other publishing houses were being downsized, merging, or going out of business altogether, Steine and Stein was thriving. Anna also decided to keep the company name, even though she shortened Nate’s last name and changed hers to Anna Brave.

I had just gotten why this book was so important and it wasn't good. The Devil's Bible, also known as the Codex Gigas was rumored to have been created by a Bohemian monk in the 13th century. There are several myths concerning the creation but the most popular being that this unnamed monk was sentenced to death for breaking his monastic vows, and struck a deal with the Devil to complete this book in one night in return for his immortality. As a last gasp for survival, he attempted to make this monumental book containing all the world's knowledge. The monk failed. The Codex Gigas has appeared in different time lapses, never completed and in the late 1940s, all traces of it was completely lost.

Caitlin sat in the Beinecke Rare Book Library on the Yale campus, hunched over the Voynich manuscript, a librarian standing discreetly over her shoulder, hands clasped, waiting, watching over her. Caitlin reached out, latex gloves on, and studied the book, fingering each page gently.