Biblia Hebraica . . . editio prima Americana, sine punctis Masorethicis, Philadelphia, 1814, 2 vols

Rosenbach, American Jewish Bibliography: 171; Wright, Early Bibles of America , 123-24; Darlow and Moule 5168a; Shaw & Shoemaker 30857; Wolf & Whiteman, History of the Jews of Philadelphia, 306; Goldman and Kinsberg, Hebrew Printing in America, #3.

The first complete edition of the Hebrew Bible published in America

This copy includes the exceedingly scarce publisher's preface which briefly recounts the edition's history.

"In the year 1812, Mr. [Jonathan] Horwitz, had proposed the publication of an edition of the Hebrew Bible, being the first proposal of the kind ever offered in the United States. The undertaking was strongly recommended by many clergymen... and a considerable number of subscriptions for the work were obtained by him."

Horwitz, recently arrived from Amsterdam with a font of Hebrew type was not alone in his desire to produce a bible for the American market. Facing competition from several others hoping to publish an edition before his, Horwitz decided instead to pursue a career in medicine, enrolling in the medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. Early in 1813 he sold the Hebrew type to William Fry and transferred his right to publish and the subscription lists to Philadelphia publisher Thomas Dobson. It was Dobson who eventually succeeded in bringing out this edition in 1814. 

This two-volume work  was a reprinting of the second edition of the Athias Amsterdam Hebrew Bible, edited by Johannes Leusden with Latin notes by Van der Hought.   The final product included masoretic notations in Hebrew as well as Van Der Hooght's Latin preface and marginalia. While the absence of Hebrew vowel points and cantillation marks precluded its widespread use among American Jews, this edition of the Hebrew bible marked an important milestone in the advancement of American biblical scholarship as well as inter-denominational cooperation. According to Rabbi Abraham Karp "The appearance of a work in the Hebrew language which bore approbation from both leading Christian clergymen and leading Jews marked the beginning of friendlier intellectual discourse" (Karp, Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress , 291-292).