How Did We Get The Bible? (part 7)

I  love church history. There was quite a journey to the English translation of the Bible that we hold in our hands today. This post shows the reader this journey.

The History of English Translations

The Latin Vulgate (written around 400 A.D.)

Facts: 

• The Vulgate is a fourth-century Latin translation of the Bible, produced primarily by St. Jerome.
• He created it from the ancient Greek manuscripts, the original Hebrew, Aramaic texts, and existing Latin translations. 
• Jerome completed his work in 405 AD, but continued to revise the Latin Vulgate for years. 
• The Vulgate became the official Latin Bible of the Catholic church, which it remained until 1979.
• Numerous English words we see in modern Bibles were practically lifted right out of the Vulgate, including “creation,” “salvation,” “justification,” and “testament.” The word “Lucifer,” a common name for the devil among English speakers, owes its existence to this translation.
• The name “Vulgate” comes from the Latin, versio vulgata, meaning “the version commonly used.” 
• In 382, Pope Damasus I asked Jerome to revise the existing Latin translations of the Gospels using the original Greek manuscripts. The goal was to produce a standard, authoritative translation. After completing the project, Jerome took it upon himself to revise the Latin translations of the Old Testament as well and began working from the Septuagint.
• A few years later, Jerome began a new translation project: translating the Old Testament into Latin from the original Hebrew. No one had done this before, because Christians considered the Septuagint to be authoritative. 
• The Vulgate includes all the books in the Protestant bible, plus a few writings that were important to the church. Jerome called these apocryphal, indicating that he did not believe they were part of the Christian canon, but the church of his day disagreed, and called these deuterocanonical, meaning they were part of the “second canon.”

The Wycliffe Bible (written 1362 A.D.)

Facts:

• John Wycliffe was an Oxford professor and theologian who became concerned with the growing power, corruption, and wealth that he observed in the papacy and in the Roman Catholic Church. Wycliffe began speaking and writing against the church’s errors, teaching that salvation was only available through the suffering of Christ, not the power of the church. As Wycliffe gained followers, Rome took notice and eventually pressured Oxford to remove him from his position.
• Wycliffe was convinced that the English people needed a Bible that they could understand in their own language. In 1380, he completed the first English translation of the New Testament, and two years later the entire Bible was completed.
• The first edition of the Wycliffe Bible was a word-for-word translation of the Latin Vulgate (the accepted Bible of the Catholic Church) into Middle English (the language of Chaucer).
• The translation followed the Latin so closely that the meaning in English was often obscured. Six years after the release of the entire Bible (and four years after Wycliffe’s death), a follower, John Purvey, published a revision that was much more readable in English.
• This Bible was the dominant English Bible until William Tyndale’s translation almost 150 years later.
• The Catholic Church condemned the Wycliffe Bible. Anyone caught reading it was subject to heavy fines. Some of Wycliffe’s supporters were burned at the stake with the Wycliffe Bible hung around their necks. However, the prohibition seems to have only made people more interested in reading the banned book. Not only did the English people become more interested in the Bible, but their desire for literacy also increased.
• In 1411 (Wycliffe had already died from a stroke), Archbishop Arundel wrote to the Pope: “This pestilent and wretched John Wycliffe, of cursed memory, that son of the old serpent... endeavoured by every means to attack the very faith and sacred doctrine of Holy Church, devising... to fill up the measure of his malice...the expedient of a new translation of the Scriptures into the mother tongue...”
• At the Council of Constance (1414–1418), Wycliffe’s writings were condemned, and his bones were dug up and burned, and then the ashes were scattered. Because of the impact of Wycliffe’s teaching and his translation of the Bible into the vernacular, he is often referred to as “the Morning Star of the Reformation. ”

The Textus Receptus (written 1516 A.D.; 1519 A.D.; 1527 A.D.; 1535 A.D.)

Facts:

• In 1516 a milestone was reached in the Bible’s story when the great monk-scholar Erasmus published the first printed edition of the New Testament in Greek. 
• Erasmus’ Greek text formed the basis of what has become known as the “Received Text” because of a printer’s preface stating this is the text received from the beginning. 
• The Latin equivalent, “Textus Receptus” or the “TR,” are still common names for the fifth edition of Erasmus’ Greek text. 
• Tyndale vowed that if God should spare his life he would see to it that the plowboy would know more Scripture than ignorant priests. Erasmus had expressed a similar sentiment in the preface to his Greek New Testament: “I wish that the farm worker might sing parts of them (the Scriptures) at the plough, that the weaver might hum them at the shuttle, and the traveler might beguile the weariness of the way by reciting them.” 
• Luther made his translation into German from this second edition. 
• The Textus Receptus became the dominant Greek text of the New Testament for the following two hundred and fifty years. It was not until the publication of the Westcott and Hort Greek New Testament in 1881 that the Textus Receptus lost its position.
• Many consider the King James Version of the Bible to be the crown of English Bibles. Even at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Greek text used in preparing the KJV was the Textus Receptus. Both Luther and Tyndale translated the Scriptures into their vernacular languages using the same basic Greek text. Luther used the second edition of the Erasmus New Testament, and Tyndale utilized the third edition.

The Luther Bible (written 1516—NT; 1534 A.D.)

Facts:

• The Luther Bible is a German-language Bible translated from Hebrew and ancient Greek by Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon and many other assistants. 
• Like all the Reformers, Luther believed that the Bible was the one true source of our knowledge of God’s will and that God’s Word should be made available to everyone in a language they could understand. The New Testament of the Luther Bible was published in 1522, and the entire Bible was released in 1534.
• As early as 1517, Luther had already translated some parts of the Bible, such as the penitential psalms, the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Magnificat. On May 4, 1521, Frederick the Wise brought Luther to the Wartburg Castle for his own safety, hoping to thwart the plans of those seeking Luther’s death by taking Luther out of the limelight. During his time in seclusion, Luther devoted himself to the task of translating the New Testament, which he based on Erasmus’ second-edition Greek text (1519) and finished in eleven weeks. 
• The September Bibel (“September Bible”), as it was also called, sold an estimated five thousand copies in the first two months alone.
• In 1523 Martin Luther translated the Pentateuch into German, and in 1524 the Psalms, based on the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek Septuagint. Then, with a group of translators who met weekly, Luther translated all the other books in the Old Testament, as well as the deuterocanical books. The full Bible was completed in 1534. The first edition of the Luther Bible soon sold out, but many more editions followed during Luther’s lifetime.
• In 1546, a half a million copies of the Luther Bible, published in 93 cities, were in circulation. The average cost was 2 florins, approximately US $24.00 in today’s currency.
• The Luther Bible was a great success and was vital to the spread of the Reformation in German-speaking countries as more and more people could read for themselves what God had said. 

The Tyndale Bible (written 1525 A.D.)

Facts:

• William Tyndale was a 16th-century Protestant reformer and scholar who was influenced by the work of Erasmus and Martin Luther. Like Luther, Tyndale was convinced that the way to God was through His Word and that Scripture should be available even to common people. Facing the same opposition from the Catholic Church as Luther, Tyndale declared, “I defy the Pope, and all his laws; and if God spares my life, I will cause the boy that drives the plow to know more of the Scriptures than the Pope himself!" 
• While he did not complete the entire Bible before his death, he did translate the Pentateuch, Jonah and entire New Testament.
• Tyndale’s Bible was extremely influential upon later Bible versions, and he may be considered the single most important Bible translator in history
• Tyndale’s translation is the first English Bible translated directly from Hebrew and Greek (the earlier Wycliffe Bible had been translated from Latin).
• His is also the first English Bible printed in large quantities on the printing press.
• Tyndale used a number of sources when carrying out his translations of both the New and Old Testaments. When translating the New Testament, Tyndale used Erasmus’s Greek and Latin New Testament, as well as Luther’s German version and the Vulgate. The sources Tyndale used for his translation of the Pentateuch, however, are not known for sure.
• An estimated 80-90% of Tyndale’s New Testament is reproduced in the King James Version.
• Tyndale’s Bible introduced new words into the English language such as Passover and scapegoat.
• Tyndale’s translation choices such as “overseer” instead of “bishop” and “repent” instead of “do penance” brought critical response from the Catholic Church, which led to his eventual death and execution.
• Although Tyndale never completed his Bible before his death, Miles Coverdale translated the remaining content for the first complete Bible in English.
• Tyndale was tried for heresy and sentenced to execution. He was tied to a stake where he is said to have yelled, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!”; whereupon he was strangled, and then his lifeless body was burned.

The Coverdale Bible (written 1535 A.D.)

Facts:

• The Coverdale Bible, named after its compiler, Myles Coverdale, was published on October 4, 1535, in Europe. 
• It was the first English translation of the Bible to be printed (not handwritten), containing the entireties of the Old and New Testaments.
• Myles Coverdale used the New Testament of the Tyndale Bible for the Coverdale Bible and Luther’s German translation, Ulrich Zwingli’s Zürich Bible, and the Latin Vulgate as the basis for his Old Testament translation.
• Coverdale was the first translator to include chapter summaries in his Bible. 
• In 1539 Coverdale was hired by the king to assist Thomas, Lord Cromwell produce the Great Bible, authorized for public use in Anglican churches. 
• In 1553 the Catholic Mary Tudor (Blood Mary) ascended the throne of England and began persecuting the Protestants in her realm. Myles Coverdale and other Reformers fled to Geneva, Switzerland, where they began work on the Geneva Bible in 1557. 
• This popular translation was the first Bible to include chapter and verse numbers. Myles Coverdale helped write the study notes for the Geneva Bible, although he died before the edition was published. 
• Besides his work on the Coverdale Bible, the Great Bible and the Geneva Bible, Myles Coverdale also helped publish a dual-language New Testament (in English and Latin) and an illustrated New Testament. 

The Matthew Bible (written 1537 A.D.)

Facts:

• The Matthew Bible, also known as Matthew’s Bible and Matthew’s Version, was an early compilation of English translations of the books of the Bible. 
• It was first published in 1537 by an Englishman named John Rogers, who used the name Thomas Matthew in an attempt to protect his identity and conceal William Tyndale’s involvement in the project. At that time, it was illegal in England to translate the Bible into English.
• The complete New Testament and much of the Old Testament of the Matthew Bible was from the Tyndale Bible, the translation work William Tyndale was able to complete before his martyrdom. 
• The rest of the Old Testament and most of the Apocrypha were the work of Myles Coverdale. Thomas Matthew (John Rogers) himself translated the Prayer of Manasseh.
• Because the Matthew Bible relied so heavily on Tyndale’s version, the Matthew Bible is often called the Matthew-Tyndale Bible.
• Published two years after the Coverdale Bible, the Matthew Bible was the second complete translation of the Bible to be printed in English. Other Bible versions that preceded the Matthew Bible were those by Wycliffe (handwritten), Tyndale (the New Testament only), Luther (in German), and Zwingli (in German). 
• Thankfully, two years after the publication of the Matthew Bible, King Henry VIII authorized the translation of the Great Bible, which was very similar to the Matthew Bible. 
• Bloody Mary had John Rogers arrested and imprisoned in Newgate Prison. On February 4, 1555, Rogers was led out of prison and past his wife and children (including their infant child whom Rogers had never seen) on his way to the stake. According to Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Rogers recited Psalm 51 on his way to his death. 

The Great Bible (written 1539 A.D.)

Facts:

• The Great Bible, also known as the Cromwell Bible, the Whitchurch’s Bible, and the Chained Bible, was published in England in 1539. 
• The Great Bible was the first authorized translation of the Bible into English—up till then, it had been illegal to print or distribute English Bibles in England. 
• King Henry VIII authorized the creation of the Great Bible so there would be a Bible that could be read aloud in the vernacular during church services in England. Overseeing the production of the Great Bible were Thomas, Lord Cromwell, secretary to the king; and Myles Coverdale, who had previously published the Coverdale Bible. 
• Much of the Great Bible is identical to the Tyndale Bible, the work of William Tyndale. The parts of the Old Testament that Tyndale was unable to complete before his martyrdom were translated by Myles Coverdale. The Great Bible was also similar in content to the Matthew Bible, published by John Rogers in 1537. 
• The Great Bible, as the first authorized translation of the Bible into English, had a strong influence on subsequent English translations of the Bible, including the Bishop’s Bible and the King James Version. 
• The Great Bible was called “great” due to its large size—it was over fourteen inches tall. The Great Bible was intended to be a pulpit Bible and was often chained to something in the church to prevent its removal, hence the “Chained Bible” moniker. 
• The Great Bible was only allowed to be kept in churches. It could not be taken home for personal study. The Great Bible was an important bridge: it was the first legal English translation of the Bible in England—a great step forward in religious freedom. But it was confined to the church building. The Reformers’ dream of putting the Word of God in every person’s hand was still yet to be realized.

The Geneva Bible (written 1560 A.D.)

Facts:

• Its name comes from the fact it was first published in Geneva in 1560. 
• In 1553 Mary Tudor became Queen of England. Under her rule there was a time of intense persecution of Protestants known as the Marian Persecutions, which earned her the nickname “Bloody Mary”. She had over 300 Protestant believers burned at the stake, and many others fled to other countries rather than face certain death for not supporting Roman Catholicism.
• During this time period, several key English Protestant leaders fled to Geneva, Switzerland, to avoid the persecution in England. Among them were Miles Coverdale, John Foxe, Thomas Sampson, and William Whittingham. With the support of John Calvin and the Scottish Reformer John Knox, these English Reformers decided to publish an English Bible that was not dependent upon the approval of English royalty. 
• Building upon earlier English translations such as those done by William Tyndale and Myles Coverdale, the Geneva Bible was the first English translation in which all of the Old Testament was translated directly from Hebrew manuscripts. Much of the translation work was done by William Whittingham, the brother-in-law of John Calvin.
• Pre-dating the King James Version by 51 years, the Geneva Bible was one of the earliest mass-produced English Bibles commonly available to the public. 
• It was the primary English Bible used by 16th-century English Protestant Reformers. William Shakespeare alluded to the Geneva Bible in his plays more than any other version. John Milton and John Bunyan also made use of the Geneva Bible.
• Often considered one of the earliest examples of a study Bible, the Geneva Bible contained detailed notes, verse citations that allowed cross-referencing of passages, and also study aids such as book introductions, maps, and woodcut illustrations. 
• It was printed in at least three different sizes and was reasonably affordable, costing less than a week’s wages even for the lowest paid workers.
• The annotations or notes in the Geneva Bible were distinctly Calvinist and Puritan in character, which made the translation unpopular with some of the pro-government Church of England leaders as well as King James I. 
• This led King James I to commission the new translation that would become known as the Authorized Version or the King James Bible. 
• Eventually, the King James Version would replace the Geneva Bible as the most popular English translation. The Geneva Bible is a very important English translation and was the primary Bible used by many early settlers in America. 

The Bishop’s Bible (written 1568 A.D.)

Facts:

• The Bishops' Bible was an English translation of the Bible produced under the authority of the established Church of England in 1568, whose bishops were offended by the Geneva Bible, the notes of which were decidedly Calvinistic in tone. 
• Since the Great Bible, the only authorized version in use in the Anglican Church, was considered deficient because it was translated from the Latin Vulgate, a new translation was authorized by the Anglican bishops and came to be known as the “Bishops’” Bible.
• The first edition was exceptionally large and included 124 full-page illustrations. It was substantially revised in 1572, and this revised edition was to be prescribed as the base text for the Authorized King James Version of 1611, which became the standard for the Church of England.
• Along with the Great Bible and the King James Version, the Bishops’ Bible was authorized to be read in church, although the Geneva Bible remained the favorite of the people for reading at home. 
• Portions of the text were assigned to various revisers, the majority of whom were bishops. In spite of their prejudice against the Geneva Bible because of its blatant advocacy of lay elders and church leaders—as opposed to the clergy-led paradigm embraced by the Anglican hierarchy—the Geneva Bible was the basis for the Bishops’ Bible, although the offending anti-episcopal notes were removed. 
• No doubt this is partly why the Bishops’ Bible never achieved the support among the common people enjoyed by the Geneva Bible.

The Douay-Rheims Bible (written 1582 A.D.)

Facts:

• Gregory Martin, an Oxford scholar and one of the Catholics who fled England, translated the Latin Vulgate into English. When the New Testament was released in 1582, the College was located in Rheims. The Old Testament translation was completed at about the same time, but lack of funding kept it from being released until 1609. This shows well the Vatican's attitude toward this new translation. If the Pope had really wanted an English Bible, he would have seen that resources were available to print it. It took a long time for the Vatican to soften its stand on Bible translations. The only Bible version recognized by the Catholic Church was the Latin Vulgate, and it had been that way for more than 1,000 years!
• This version is officially authorized by the Catholic Church. 
• The Douay-Rheims Bible is a translation into English of the Latin Vulgate Bible which St. Jerome (342-420) translated into Latin from the original languages. 
• In their preface, the translators of the 1582 DRV New Testament gave 10 reasons for using the Vulgate as their primary text, rather than the original Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, stating that the Latin Vulgate "is not only better than all other Latin translations, but than the Greek text itself, in those places where they disagree."
• Also in the Preface to the Bible, the translators stated that their purpose was to provide a proper translation of the Bible in English to counteract the Protestant versions whose authors were charged with "corrupting both the letter and the sense by false translation, adding, detracting, altering, transposing, and all other guileful means, especially where it serveth for the advantage of their private opinions." Some would question whether the Catholics did any better.
• The style of the Rheims-Douay Bible was very "Latin" — little attempt was made to translate words that had a special meaning in Catholic theology. So readers came across words like "azymes", "prefinition", "scenopegia", and "exinanited". These words were as confusing to people in the 1500's as they are to us today.
• The Rheims-Douay Bible never had much success in England. It wasn't so much the quality of the translation — although that certainly was part of it. The main reason why the Rheims-Douay wasn't successful was that there wasn't much of a need for it. It had been written for English-speaking Catholics. But for centuries, to Catholics the Bible had been a book in Latin; it was read, translated, explained and enforced by the clergy. Although some Catholics at the time risked excommunication by possessing a Geneva Translation, most Catholics were quite satisfied with the status quo. They just weren't ready for an English Bible.

The King James Version Bible (written 1611 A.D.)

Facts:

• In 1604, King James I of England authorized a new translation of the Bible into English to be started. 
• The King James Version quickly became the standard for English-speaking Protestants. Its flowing language and prose rhythms have had a profound influence on the literature of the past 400 years.
• The King James translation was done by 47 scholars, all of whom were members of the Church of England. In common with most other translations of the period, the New Testament was translated from the Textus Receptus (Received Text) series of the Greek texts. The Old Testament was translated from the Masoretic Hebrew text, while the Apocrypha was translated from the Greek Septuagint (LXX), except for 2 Esdras, which was translated from the Latin Vulgate. In 1769, the Oxford edition, which excluded the Apocrypha, became the standard text and is the text which is reproduced almost unchanged in most current printings.
• For nearly 400 years, and through several revisions of the original, the King James Version has been deeply revered by English-speaking peoples worldwide, not only for the precision of the translation from the original languages, but for the beauty and majesty of the style, which has greatly influenced literature for centuries.
• Unfortunately, much avoidable dissension among Christians occurs about the use of the King James Version. While many people claim that the KJV is the only “true” translation, rarely are they actually in possession of the 1611 Authorized Version of the KJV. Rather, they have the more readable 1769 version. 

The difference between the two becomes clear when comparing passages from the two versions. For example, I Corinthians 13:1-3 in the 1611 version is as follows:

“Though I speake with the tongues of men & of Angels, and haue not charity, I am become as sounding brasse or a tinkling cymbal. And though I haue the gift of prophesie, and vnderstand all mysteries and all knowledge: and though I haue all faith, so that I could remooue mountaines, and haue no charitie, I am nothing. And though I bestowe all my goods to feede the poore, and though I giue my body to bee burned, and haue not charitie, it profiteth me nothing.”

The 1769 version, on the other hand, is much more readable and understandable:

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

• The King James Version of the Bible is the best-selling Bible version of all time.
• Almost every American president has been sworn into office with his hand on a King James Bible.
• Once the King James Bible caught on, it was virtually the only Bible used in the English-speaking world for the next three centuries.