Acre Bible

The Acre Bible is a partial Old French version of the Old Testament, containing both new and revised translations of 15 canonical and 4 deuterocanonical books, plus a prologue and glosses.

The books are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, Judith, Esther, Job, Tobit, Proverbs, 1 and 2 Maccabees and Ruth.

The earliest preserved copy—a deluxe illuminated manuscript—was produced in Acre in the Kingdom of Jerusalem between 1250 and 1254 for King Louis IX of France.

[2][3] Hugo Buchthal argues that the Acre Bible originated as the preferred vernacular version of the Outremer aristocracy.

[4] The earliest copy is the so-called Arsenal Bible commissioned by King Louis IX of France during his stay in the Holy Land between May 1250 and April 1254.

[5][6] Chronicle sources record Louis commissioning several books while he was in the Holy Land, although none can be identified with the Acre Bible.

[a] He may have brought the bible back with him to France,[b] where he founded the library of Sainte-Chapelle shortly after his return.

[21] Richard traveled to Acre in 1185, probably bringing with him his copy of Judges, which passed to the Templar house in that city on his death.

[1] The language of the Acre Bible contains Arabicisms and Occitanisms consistent with an origin in the Near East.

This suggests that the compiling, editing and translation and not just the copying of the oldest manuscript was performed in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

[24] The Acre Bible "may have been sponsored by the king", but in its choice of what books to include, it "appears better fitted to the ideals of the aristocratic warriors who defended what little was left of the Kingdom of Jerusalem"[25] The prologue is in octosyllabic verse.

[h] It contains twenty large (usually full-page) miniatures, one at the start of each book (counting 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings and the three divisions of Proverbs separately, but Maccabbees as one).