In April of 2017, a routine insurance appraisal of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s rare book collection found that 321 items were missing, including atlases, maps, plate books, photograph albums and manuscripts that were valued by experts to be at around the $8 million mark. The FBI began an investigation into the case and has so far recovered 1.6 million worth of stolen items. As the Smithsonian reports, last week, a 1615 Geneva Bible was recovered.
The stolen tome was recovered from the collection of the director of the Netherlands’ Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs. Bangs claims to have purchased the book from a seemingly “reputable dealer in antiquarian books”, as part of an upcoming exhibition on texts owned by members of Plymouth Colony. Bangs purchased the book for $1,200, though it’s valued to be worth closer to $5,500.
“From a dollar-figure sense, [the Bible] is not priceless,” FBI agent Robert Jones said at the conference. “[But] from a history perspective, it is priceless.”
The ancient Bible is known as the ‘Breeches Bible’ due to its inclusion of describing Adam and Eve sewing fig leaf clothes together in order to hide their naked bodies. This edition of the Bible was translated by English Protestants who fled to Geneva during the reign of Catholic Queen Mary I.
Bangs was first alerted to the Bible’s theft in 2018, and he agreed to hand the artifact over to an expert who would then deliver it to the American Embassy. The FBI’s Art Crime Team took over and managed to transport the book to an agency office in Pittsburgh. From there the book will be returned to the the Carnegie Library.
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