Early Modern English Bible translations
Encyclopedia
Early Modern English Bible translations are those translations of the Bible
which were made between about 1500 and 1800, the period of Early Modern English
. This was the first major period of Bible translation into the English language
including the King James Version and Douai Bible
s. The Reformation
and Counter-Reformation
led to the need for Bibles in the vernacular with competing groups each producing their own versions.
Although Wycliffe's Bible had preceded the Protestant Reformation
, England was actually one of the last countries in Europe to have a printed vernacular Bible. There were several reasons for this. One was that Henry VIII
wanted to avoid the propagation of heresies—a concern subsequently justified by the marginal notes printed in Tyndale's New Testament and the Geneva Bible
, for example. Another was the Roman Catholic doctrine of Magisterium
which describes the Church as the final authority in the interpretation of the Scriptures; in the volatile years of the Reformation, it was not felt that encouraging private Scriptural interpretation, and thereby possible heresy, would be helpful.
Several of the early printed English Bibles were suppressed, at least temporarily. Henry VIII complained about Tyndale's "pestilent gloss
es", and only tolerated the Coverdale
and Matthew
Bibles because the publishers carefully omitted any mention of Tyndale's involvement in them. Later, the "authorized" Great Bible
of 1539 was suppressed under Mary I
because of her Roman Catholic beliefs.
Identification of a particular Bible as belonging to a specific edition is complicated by the flexibility of the whole production process at the time. The text, being set in movable type, could be corrected or changed in the middle of a print run; thus copies of a given edition may differ on some pages. Also, at the binding stage, a title page from one edition might be combined with text from another edition. The exact origins of a Bible can therefore only be determined by detailed examination of the text. Print runs for early Bibles were relatively short by present-day standards; typically perhaps 1000 to 2500 copies.
Editions printed in England required a royal licence. Later the printing of Bibles in England became a monopoly shared between the Oxford University Press, the Cambridge University Press and the "King's Printers". This situation continued into the 20th century, at which time Eyre and Spottiswoode were the King's Printers.
Printers' errors inevitably escaped detection in some editions. Perhaps the most famous faulty edition is the so-called "Wicked Bible", a 1631 printing of the King James version (Herbert #444) in which Exod. 20:14 read: "Thou shalt commit adultery." For this the printer, Robert Barker, was fined heavily. Of the 1000 copies of the "Wicked Bible" only 11 survive.
, all are complete Bibles, although usually the New Testament was also issued separately. The Apocrypha were normally included in Bibles of the Reformation period, although sometimes omitted if the book was subsequently re-bound. Psalters and prayer-books were often bound with the Bible.
In addition, there are a number of other translations of individual books. For example, George Joye
's Protestant translations of the Psalms
(1530), Isaiah
(1531), Proverbs
(1533), Ecclesiastes
(1533), Jeremiah
(1534) and Lamentations
(1534), all executed in Antwerp, were the first printed English translations of these biblical books.
was the first figure in this period. Tyndale was a priest who graduated at Oxford, was a student in Cambridge
when Martin Luther
posted his theses at Wittenberg
and was troubled by the problems within the Church. In 1523, taking advantage of the recent invention of the printing press, Tyndale began to cast the Scriptures into English. His aims were simple but ambitious (as expressed to an educated man): "I defy the Pope and all his laws: and if God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scriptures than thou dost." Within his lifetime, only his New Testament and part of his Old Testament were published.
He set out to London
fully expecting to find support and encouragement there, but he found neither. He found, as he once said, that there was no room in the palace of the Bishop of London to translate the New Testament; indeed, that there was no place to do it in all England. A wealthy London merchant subsidized him with the gift of ten pounds, with which he went across the Channel to Hamburg
; and there and elsewhere on the Continent
, where he could be hid and where printing facilities were more accessible than in England, he brought his translation to completion. Tyndale was compelled to flee at one time with a few printed sheets and complete his work on another press. Several times copies of his books were solemnly burned, and his own life was frequently in danger; he was eventually executed for his work.
The Church had objected to Tyndale's translations because offensive notes (the "pestilent glosses") and, in their belief, deliberate mistranslations had been included in the works in order to promote anticlericalism and heretical views. It is for this reason that Tyndale's earliest editions were so vigorously suppressed that few copies have survived.
There is one story that tells how money came to free Tyndale from heavy debt and prepare the way for more Bibles. The Bishop of London, Cuthbert Tunstall
, was set on destroying copies of the English New Testament. He therefore made a bargain with a merchant of Antwerp, to secure them for him. The merchant was a friend of Tyndale, and went to him to tell him he had a customer for his Bibles, The Bishop of London. Tyndale agreed to give the merchant the Bibles to pay his debt and finance new editions of the Bible.
Ironically, Tyndale's was perhaps the most influential single translation of the Bible ever made into English. Several immediately subsequent publications, among them the Matthews
and Great
Bibles, relied heavily on Tyndale's wording while softening his radical Protestantism. The King James New Testament is reckoned to be nearly 90% Tyndale, with about one-third being verbatim Tyndale. A similar figure applies to the parts of the Old Testament that Tyndale translated.
.
Henry VIII remained implacably hostile to Tyndale's bible - both because of Tyndale's preference for non-ecclesiastical vocabulary, and also on account of his attacks on Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon
- and in 1530 Tyndale's New Testament was officially condemned, with the explicit intention that other learned and catholic persons should be engaged to do the job properly. However, in the absence of an acceptable alternative, it proved very difficult to prevent Tyndale's New Testament from circulating in secret. In 1534, therefore, Thomas Cranmer
initiated a programme to produce a rival, officially authorised, English New Testament; dividing up the task of translation between ten diocesan bishops. No part of this version survives, but it appears to have consisted of a thorough revision of Tyndale towards much more consistency with the Vulgate
text. Stephen Gardiner
reported to Thomas Cromwell that he had completed his allocated part (the Gospels of Luke and John) in June 1535, but other bishops missed their deadlines, while John Stokesley
refused to undertake his own allocation (the Acts of the Apostles) on principle. By 1537, Cranmer commented to Thomas Cromwell that the bishops could not be expected to complete their work till "the day after Doomsday"; and that accordingly some other means would need to be employed to respond to the King's stated wishes.
and published in 1535. It was much influenced by Tyndale: Coverdale took Tyndale's New Testament and the published portions of his Old Testament, and translated the remainder of the Old Testament himself from Latin and German versions.
is a minor revision of Matthew's Bible edited by Richard Taverner and published in 1539.
There appeared what is known as the Great Bible
in 1539, also compiled by Myles Coverdale
. The Great Bible was issued to meet a decree that each church should make available in some convenient place the largest possible copy of the whole Bible, where all the parishioners could have access to it and read it at their will.
The version gets its name from the size of the volume. That decree dates 1538, twelve years after Tyndale's books were burned, and two years after he was burned. The installation of these great books caused tremendous excitement as crowds gathered everywhere. Bishop Bonner had six copies of the great volume located throughout St. Paul's. The Great Bible appeared in seven editions in two years, and continued in recognized power for thirty years. Much of the present English prayer-book is taken from it.
But this liberty was so sudden that the people naturally abused it. King Henry VIII
became vexed because the sacred words "were disputed, rimed, sung, and jangled in every ale-house". King Henry began to put restrictions on the use of the Bible. There were to be no notes or annotations in any versions, and those that existed were to be blacked out. Only the upper classes were to be allowed to possess a Bible. Finally, the year before his death, all versions were again prohibited except the Great Bible, whose cost and size precluded personal use. The decree led to another great burning of Bibles in 1546—Tyndale, Coverdale, Matthew—all but the Great Bible. The leading religious reformers took flight and fled to European Protestant towns like Frankfurt and Strassburg.
Under Edward VI
, the regency cast off all restrictions on translation and publication of the Bible; all the suppressed versions were republished. The order for a Great Bible in every church was renewed, and there was to be added to it a copy of Erasmus's paraphrase of the four gospels, in an English translation undertaken in part by Princess Mary
, the King's Catholic sister. Nearly fifty editions of the Bible, in whole or in part, appeared in those six years. When Mary herself succeeded to the throne in 1553, she maintained her brother's policy of encouraging public reading of the Great Bible and Paraphrases; but versions with overtly Protestant notes were once again liable to be burned.
sought to restore the Church of England
to allegiance to Rome. The secret use of Protestant translations of the Bible began again, despite official efforts to restore England to Roman Catholic unity. The only Bible translation published during Mary's reign was the "Whittingham New Testament" of 1557 printed in Geneva (Herbert #106). English scholarship was driven into exile, and found its way to Frankfurt
and Geneva
again. There the spirit of scholarship was untrammeled. They found material for scholarly study of the Bible, and there they made and published a new version of the Bible in English, the Geneva Bible
. During Elizabeth's reign sixty editions of it appeared.
The Geneva Bible
was first published in 1560 (Herbert #107). It made several changes: for one, the Geneva edition was the first to show the division into verses. The chapter division was made three centuries earlier, but the verses belong to the Genevan version, and are meant to make the book suitable for responsive use and for readier reference. They were taken in large part from the work of Stephanus (Robert Estienne
of Paris), who had divided the Greek Testament into verses in 1551, during a journey which he was compelled to make between Paris
and Lyon
.
The Geneva version was printed both in Roman type and in the older typeface, black letter. It had full "notes on hard passages", some of which eventually proved controversial to King James
and were thus a prompt to a new translation; the King James version. The work itself was completed after the accession of Elizabeth, when most of the religious leaders had returned to England from their exile under Mary.
The Geneva Bible
was compiled by William Whittingham
, who had succeeded John Knox
as pastor of the English congregation at Geneva
, Switzerland
. Whittingham was married to John Calvin
's sister, and the translation was viewed as too Calvinist by the Church.
it was found that two versions of the Bible were in common use, the old Great Bible and the new Geneva Bible. There could be no way of gaining approval for the Geneva Bible. For one thing, John Knox had been a party to its preparation; so had Calvin. The Queen and many of the bishops detested them both, especially Knox. For another thing, its notes were not favorable to royal sovereignty. Finally, it had been made in a foreign land, and was under suspicion on that account.
The result was that Elizabeth's archbishop of Canterbury
, Matthew Parker
, set out to have another official version made. He selected a revision committee, with instructions to follow closely wherever possible the Great Bible, to avoid contentious notes, and to make such a version that it might be freely, easily, and naturally read. The result is known as the Bishops' Bible
. It was issued in Elizabeth's tenth year (1568), but there is no record that she ever noticed it, though Parker sent her a copy from his sick-bed. Its publication (as complete Bibles) ceased before the first issue of the new official (though not formally "authorized") version, the King James version
of 1611.
in France. The New Testament was issued at Rheims in 1582, and the Old Testament in two volumes, in 1609 and 1610, just before the King James version. It is made, not from the Hebrew and the Greek, though it refers to both, but from the Vulgate. The result is that the Old Testament of the Douai version is a translation into English from the Latin, which in turn is, mostly, a translation from the Hebrew. Yet scholars are scholars, and it shows some influence of the Genevan version; and, indeed, of other English versions, especially that of Myles Coverdale. Its notes were strongly anti-Protestant, and in its preface it explains its existence by saying that Protestants have been guilty of "casting the holy to dogs and pearls to hogs."
The version's English was not colloquial, but ecclesiastical and highly latinate. In Hebrews 13:17, the version reads, "Obey your prelates and be subject unto them." In Luke 3:3, John came "preaching the baptism of penance." In Psalm xxiii:5, where the King James Version reads, "My cup runneth over," the Douai version, taking its cue from the Greek Septuagint, reads, "My chalice which inebriateth me, how goodly it is." There is a retention of ecclesiastical terms, and an explanation of the passages on which Protestants tended to differ rather sharply from Roman Catholics, as in the matter of the taking of the cup by the people, and elsewhere. In 1589, the Protestant scholar William Fulke
issued a point by point refutation of the notes of the Rheims New Testament, in which he also printed the biblical text both of Rheims and of the Bishop's Bible in parallel columns. This work which sold very widely and had the consequence of making the Rheims New Testament much more accessible than would otherwise have been the case.
The Douai translation was updated in 1750 by Bishop Challoner
and while it continued to be known as the Douai version, many consider it to be equivalent to a separate translation. In various updates, this version remained the standard Catholic English-language Bible until 1941.
at the behest of James I of England
. First published in 1611, it has had a profound impact not only on most English translations that have followed it, but also on English literature as a whole.
The King James Version was first published in 1611 as a complete Bible (Herbert #309) and a New Testament (Herbert #310). Translated by the largest group of translators, around 50, and using the widest range of source texts, it became known as the "Authorized Version" in England and is the most widely used of the Early Modern English Bible translations. Its use has continued in some traditions up to the present. Even though modern scholarship continues to claim problems with some of the translation, it is widely admired for its style and use of language.
The version of the King James Bible found in modern printings is not that of the 1611 edition, but rather an edition extensively modernised in 1769 (to the standards of the mid-18th Century) by Benjamin Blayney for the Oxford University Press
.
have proliferated in the Modern English
age to a degree never before seen.
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
which were made between about 1500 and 1800, the period of Early Modern English
Early Modern English
Early Modern English is the stage of the English language used from about the end of the Middle English period to 1650. Thus, the first edition of the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare both belong to the late phase of Early Modern English...
. This was the first major period of Bible translation into the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
including the King James Version and Douai Bible
Douai Bible
The Douay–Rheims Bible is a translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English made by members of the English College, Douai, in the service of the Catholic Church...
s. The Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
and Counter-Reformation
Counter-Reformation
The Counter-Reformation was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:#Ecclesiastical or...
led to the need for Bibles in the vernacular with competing groups each producing their own versions.
Although Wycliffe's Bible had preceded the Protestant Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
, England was actually one of the last countries in Europe to have a printed vernacular Bible. There were several reasons for this. One was that Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
wanted to avoid the propagation of heresies—a concern subsequently justified by the marginal notes printed in Tyndale's New Testament and the Geneva Bible
Geneva Bible
The Geneva Bible is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into the English language, preceding the King James translation by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of the 16th century Protestant movement and was the Bible used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John...
, for example. Another was the Roman Catholic doctrine of Magisterium
Magisterium
In the Catholic Church the Magisterium is the teaching authority of the Church. This authority is understood to be embodied in the episcopacy, which is the aggregation of the current bishops of the Church in union with the Pope, led by the Bishop of Rome , who has authority over the bishops,...
which describes the Church as the final authority in the interpretation of the Scriptures; in the volatile years of the Reformation, it was not felt that encouraging private Scriptural interpretation, and thereby possible heresy, would be helpful.
Several of the early printed English Bibles were suppressed, at least temporarily. Henry VIII complained about Tyndale's "pestilent gloss
Gloss
A gloss is a brief notation of the meaning of a word or wording in a text. It may be in the language of the text, or in the reader's language if that is different....
es", and only tolerated the Coverdale
Coverdale Bible
The Coverdale Bible, compiled by Myles Coverdale and published in 1535, was the first complete Modern English translation of the Bible , and the first complete printed translation into English . The later editions published in 1539 were the first complete Bibles printed in England...
and Matthew
Matthew Bible
The Matthew Bible, also known as Matthew's Version, was first published in 1537 by John Rogers, under the pseudonym "Thomas Matthew". It combined the New Testament of William Tyndale, and as much of the Old Testament as he had been able to translate before being captured and put to death...
Bibles because the publishers carefully omitted any mention of Tyndale's involvement in them. Later, the "authorized" Great Bible
Great Bible
The Great Bible was the first authorized edition of the Bible in English, authorized by King Henry VIII of England to be read aloud in the church services of the Church of England. The Great Bible was prepared by Myles Coverdale, working under commission of Sir Thomas Cromwell, Secretary to Henry...
of 1539 was suppressed under Mary I
Mary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...
because of her Roman Catholic beliefs.
Process of publication
In this period the roles of printer and publisher were not necessarily as now, and the accuracy of the information given on title pages cannot be relied on. The person named as translator might at most be an editor, since all Bible versions depended heavily on Tyndale's and/or Coverdale's work. Printers and others involved in the publication sometimes worked under pseudonyms. Dates and places of publication might also be given incorrectly.Identification of a particular Bible as belonging to a specific edition is complicated by the flexibility of the whole production process at the time. The text, being set in movable type, could be corrected or changed in the middle of a print run; thus copies of a given edition may differ on some pages. Also, at the binding stage, a title page from one edition might be combined with text from another edition. The exact origins of a Bible can therefore only be determined by detailed examination of the text. Print runs for early Bibles were relatively short by present-day standards; typically perhaps 1000 to 2500 copies.
Editions printed in England required a royal licence. Later the printing of Bibles in England became a monopoly shared between the Oxford University Press, the Cambridge University Press and the "King's Printers". This situation continued into the 20th century, at which time Eyre and Spottiswoode were the King's Printers.
Printers' errors inevitably escaped detection in some editions. Perhaps the most famous faulty edition is the so-called "Wicked Bible", a 1631 printing of the King James version (Herbert #444) in which Exod. 20:14 read: "Thou shalt commit adultery." For this the printer, Robert Barker, was fined heavily. Of the 1000 copies of the "Wicked Bible" only 11 survive.
Versions
The nine versions summarized below are dealt with in separate articles. With the exception of Tyndale’s BibleTyndale Bible
The Tyndale Bible generally refers to the body of biblical translations by William Tyndale. Tyndale’s Bible is credited with being the first English translation to work directly from Hebrew and Greek texts. Furthermore it was the first English biblical translation that was mass produced as a result...
, all are complete Bibles, although usually the New Testament was also issued separately. The Apocrypha were normally included in Bibles of the Reformation period, although sometimes omitted if the book was subsequently re-bound. Psalters and prayer-books were often bound with the Bible.
In addition, there are a number of other translations of individual books. For example, George Joye
George Joye
George Joye was a 16th-century Bible translator who produced the first printed translation of several books of the Old Testament into English , as well as the first English Primer .-Education:...
's Protestant translations of the Psalms
Psalms
The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...
(1530), Isaiah
Isaiah
Isaiah ; Greek: ', Ēsaïās ; "Yahu is salvation") was a prophet in the 8th-century BC Kingdom of Judah.Jews and Christians consider the Book of Isaiah a part of their Biblical canon; he is the first listed of the neviim akharonim, the later prophets. Many of the New Testament teachings of Jesus...
(1531), Proverbs
Book of Proverbs
The Book of Proverbs , commonly referred to simply as Proverbs, is a book of the Hebrew Bible.The original Hebrew title of the book of Proverbs is "Míshlê Shlomoh" . When translated into Greek and Latin, the title took on different forms. In the Greek Septuagint the title became "paroimai paroimiae"...
(1533), Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes
The Book of Ecclesiastes, called , is a book of the Hebrew Bible. The English name derives from the Greek translation of the Hebrew title.The main speaker in the book, identified by the name or title Qoheleth , introduces himself as "son of David, king in Jerusalem." The work consists of personal...
(1533), Jeremiah
Jeremiah
Jeremiah Hebrew：יִרְמְיָה , Modern Hebrew:Yirməyāhū, IPA: jirməˈjaːhu, Tiberian:Yirmĭyahu, Greek:Ἰερεμίας), meaning "Yahweh exalts", or called the "Weeping prophet" was one of the main prophets of the Hebrew Bible...
(1534) and Lamentations
Book of Lamentations
The Book of Lamentations ) is a poetic book of the Hebrew Bible composed by the Jewish prophet Jeremiah. It mourns the destruction of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple in the 6th Century BCE....
(1534), all executed in Antwerp, were the first printed English translations of these biblical books.
Tyndale's Bible
William TyndaleWilliam Tyndale
William Tyndale was an English scholar and translator who became a leading figure in Protestant reformism towards the end of his life. He was influenced by the work of Desiderius Erasmus, who made the Greek New Testament available in Europe, and by Martin Luther...
was the first figure in this period. Tyndale was a priest who graduated at Oxford, was a student in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
when Martin Luther
Martin Luther
Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...
posted his theses at Wittenberg
Wittenberg
Wittenberg, officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg, is a city in Germany in the Bundesland Saxony-Anhalt, on the river Elbe. It has a population of about 50,000....
and was troubled by the problems within the Church. In 1523, taking advantage of the recent invention of the printing press, Tyndale began to cast the Scriptures into English. His aims were simple but ambitious (as expressed to an educated man): "I defy the Pope and all his laws: and if God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scriptures than thou dost." Within his lifetime, only his New Testament and part of his Old Testament were published.
He set out to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
fully expecting to find support and encouragement there, but he found neither. He found, as he once said, that there was no room in the palace of the Bishop of London to translate the New Testament; indeed, that there was no place to do it in all England. A wealthy London merchant subsidized him with the gift of ten pounds, with which he went across the Channel to Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
; and there and elsewhere on the Continent
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....
, where he could be hid and where printing facilities were more accessible than in England, he brought his translation to completion. Tyndale was compelled to flee at one time with a few printed sheets and complete his work on another press. Several times copies of his books were solemnly burned, and his own life was frequently in danger; he was eventually executed for his work.
The Church had objected to Tyndale's translations because offensive notes (the "pestilent glosses") and, in their belief, deliberate mistranslations had been included in the works in order to promote anticlericalism and heretical views. It is for this reason that Tyndale's earliest editions were so vigorously suppressed that few copies have survived.
There is one story that tells how money came to free Tyndale from heavy debt and prepare the way for more Bibles. The Bishop of London, Cuthbert Tunstall
Cuthbert Tunstall
Cuthbert Tunstall was an English Scholastic, church leader, diplomat, administrator and royal adviser...
, was set on destroying copies of the English New Testament. He therefore made a bargain with a merchant of Antwerp, to secure them for him. The merchant was a friend of Tyndale, and went to him to tell him he had a customer for his Bibles, The Bishop of London. Tyndale agreed to give the merchant the Bibles to pay his debt and finance new editions of the Bible.
Ironically, Tyndale's was perhaps the most influential single translation of the Bible ever made into English. Several immediately subsequent publications, among them the Matthews
Matthew Bible
The Matthew Bible, also known as Matthew's Version, was first published in 1537 by John Rogers, under the pseudonym "Thomas Matthew". It combined the New Testament of William Tyndale, and as much of the Old Testament as he had been able to translate before being captured and put to death...
and Great
Great Bible
The Great Bible was the first authorized edition of the Bible in English, authorized by King Henry VIII of England to be read aloud in the church services of the Church of England. The Great Bible was prepared by Myles Coverdale, working under commission of Sir Thomas Cromwell, Secretary to Henry...
Bibles, relied heavily on Tyndale's wording while softening his radical Protestantism. The King James New Testament is reckoned to be nearly 90% Tyndale, with about one-third being verbatim Tyndale. A similar figure applies to the parts of the Old Testament that Tyndale translated.
Bishops' Bible (1534)
Not to be confused with the translation of 1568 commonly known as the Bishops' BibleBishops' Bible
The Bishops' Bible is an English translation of the Bible which was produced under the authority of the established Church of England in 1568. 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...
.
Henry VIII remained implacably hostile to Tyndale's bible - both because of Tyndale's preference for non-ecclesiastical vocabulary, and also on account of his attacks on Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon , also known as Katherine or Katharine, was Queen consort of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII of England and Princess of Wales as the wife to Arthur, Prince of Wales...
- and in 1530 Tyndale's New Testament was officially condemned, with the explicit intention that other learned and catholic persons should be engaged to do the job properly. However, in the absence of an acceptable alternative, it proved very difficult to prevent Tyndale's New Testament from circulating in secret. In 1534, therefore, Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build a favourable case for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon which resulted in the separation of the English Church from...
initiated a programme to produce a rival, officially authorised, English New Testament; dividing up the task of translation between ten diocesan bishops. No part of this version survives, but it appears to have consisted of a thorough revision of Tyndale towards much more consistency with the Vulgate
Vulgate
The Vulgate is a late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was largely the work of St. Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of the old Latin translations...
text. Stephen Gardiner
Stephen Gardiner
Stephen Gardiner was an English Roman Catholic bishop and politician during the English Reformation period who served as Lord Chancellor during the reign of Queen Mary I of England.-Early life:...
reported to Thomas Cromwell that he had completed his allocated part (the Gospels of Luke and John) in June 1535, but other bishops missed their deadlines, while John Stokesley
John Stokesley
John Stokesley was an English church leader who was Catholic Bishop of London during the reign of Henry VIII.He was born at Collyweston in Northamptonshire, and became a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford in 1495, serving also as a lecturer. In 1498 he was made principal of Magdalen Hall, and in...
refused to undertake his own allocation (the Acts of the Apostles) on principle. By 1537, Cranmer commented to Thomas Cromwell that the bishops could not be expected to complete their work till "the day after Doomsday"; and that accordingly some other means would need to be employed to respond to the King's stated wishes.
Coverdale's Bible
The first complete printed translation into English, and the first complete translation into Modern English, was compiled by Myles CoverdaleMyles Coverdale
Myles Coverdale was a 16th-century Bible translator who produced the first complete printed translation of the Bible into English.-Life:...
and published in 1535. It was much influenced by Tyndale: Coverdale took Tyndale's New Testament and the published portions of his Old Testament, and translated the remainder of the Old Testament himself from Latin and German versions.
Matthew's Bible
Matthew's Bible was produced by John Rodgers, working under the pseudonym "Thomas Matthew" for safety, in 1537. It was based on Tyndale's previously published editions with the addition of his unpublished Old Testament material. The remainder used Coverdale's translation. It received the approval of Henry VIII.Taverner's Bible
Taverner's BibleTaverner's Bible
Taverner's Bible, more correctly called The Most Sacred Bible whiche is the holy scripture, conteyning the old and new testament, translated into English, and newly recognized with great diligence after most faythful exemplars by Rychard Taverner, is a minor revision of Matthew's Bible edited by...
is a minor revision of Matthew's Bible edited by Richard Taverner and published in 1539.
The Great Bible: the first "authorized version"
Great Bible
The Great Bible was the first authorized edition of the Bible in English, authorized by King Henry VIII of England to be read aloud in the church services of the Church of England. The Great Bible was prepared by Myles Coverdale, working under commission of Sir Thomas Cromwell, Secretary to Henry...
in 1539, also compiled by Myles Coverdale
Myles Coverdale
Myles Coverdale was a 16th-century Bible translator who produced the first complete printed translation of the Bible into English.-Life:...
. The Great Bible was issued to meet a decree that each church should make available in some convenient place the largest possible copy of the whole Bible, where all the parishioners could have access to it and read it at their will.
The version gets its name from the size of the volume. That decree dates 1538, twelve years after Tyndale's books were burned, and two years after he was burned. The installation of these great books caused tremendous excitement as crowds gathered everywhere. Bishop Bonner had six copies of the great volume located throughout St. Paul's. The Great Bible appeared in seven editions in two years, and continued in recognized power for thirty years. Much of the present English prayer-book is taken from it.
But this liberty was so sudden that the people naturally abused it. King Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
became vexed because the sacred words "were disputed, rimed, sung, and jangled in every ale-house". King Henry began to put restrictions on the use of the Bible. There were to be no notes or annotations in any versions, and those that existed were to be blacked out. Only the upper classes were to be allowed to possess a Bible. Finally, the year before his death, all versions were again prohibited except the Great Bible, whose cost and size precluded personal use. The decree led to another great burning of Bibles in 1546—Tyndale, Coverdale, Matthew—all but the Great Bible. The leading religious reformers took flight and fled to European Protestant towns like Frankfurt and Strassburg.
Under Edward VI
Edward VI of England
Edward VI was the King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death. He was crowned on 20 February at the age of nine. The son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, Edward was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first monarch who was raised as a Protestant...
, the regency cast off all restrictions on translation and publication of the Bible; all the suppressed versions were republished. The order for a Great Bible in every church was renewed, and there was to be added to it a copy of Erasmus's paraphrase of the four gospels, in an English translation undertaken in part by Princess Mary
Mary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...
, the King's Catholic sister. Nearly fifty editions of the Bible, in whole or in part, appeared in those six years. When Mary herself succeeded to the throne in 1553, she maintained her brother's policy of encouraging public reading of the Great Bible and Paraphrases; but versions with overtly Protestant notes were once again liable to be burned.
The Geneva Bible
Queen MaryMary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...
sought to restore the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
to allegiance to Rome. The secret use of Protestant translations of the Bible began again, despite official efforts to restore England to Roman Catholic unity. The only Bible translation published during Mary's reign was the "Whittingham New Testament" of 1557 printed in Geneva (Herbert #106). English scholarship was driven into exile, and found its way to Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
and Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
again. There the spirit of scholarship was untrammeled. They found material for scholarly study of the Bible, and there they made and published a new version of the Bible in English, the Geneva Bible
Geneva Bible
The Geneva Bible is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into the English language, preceding the King James translation by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of the 16th century Protestant movement and was the Bible used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John...
. During Elizabeth's reign sixty editions of it appeared.
The Geneva Bible
Geneva Bible
The Geneva Bible is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into the English language, preceding the King James translation by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of the 16th century Protestant movement and was the Bible used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John...
was first published in 1560 (Herbert #107). It made several changes: for one, the Geneva edition was the first to show the division into verses. The chapter division was made three centuries earlier, but the verses belong to the Genevan version, and are meant to make the book suitable for responsive use and for readier reference. They were taken in large part from the work of Stephanus (Robert Estienne
Robert Estienne
Robert I Estienne , known as Robertus Stephanus in Latin and also referred to as Robert Stephens by 18th and 19th-century English writers, was a 16th century printer and classical scholar in Paris...
of Paris), who had divided the Greek Testament into verses in 1551, during a journey which he was compelled to make between Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
.
The Geneva version was printed both in Roman type and in the older typeface, black letter. It had full "notes on hard passages", some of which eventually proved controversial to King James
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
and were thus a prompt to a new translation; the King James version. The work itself was completed after the accession of Elizabeth, when most of the religious leaders had returned to England from their exile under Mary.
The Geneva Bible
Geneva Bible
The Geneva Bible is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into the English language, preceding the King James translation by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of the 16th century Protestant movement and was the Bible used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John...
was compiled by William Whittingham
William Whittingham
William Whittingham was an English Biblical scholar and religious reformer. Educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, he became a zealous Protestant; as such he found it prudent to flee to France when Mary I ascended the throne of England....
, who had succeeded John Knox
John Knox
John Knox was a Scottish clergyman and a leader of the Protestant Reformation who brought reformation to the church in Scotland. He was educated at the University of St Andrews or possibly the University of Glasgow and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1536...
as pastor of the English congregation at Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. Whittingham was married to John Calvin
John Calvin
John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...
's sister, and the translation was viewed as too Calvinist by the Church.
The Bishops' Bible
During the reign of Elizabeth I of EnglandElizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
it was found that two versions of the Bible were in common use, the old Great Bible and the new Geneva Bible. There could be no way of gaining approval for the Geneva Bible. For one thing, John Knox had been a party to its preparation; so had Calvin. The Queen and many of the bishops detested them both, especially Knox. For another thing, its notes were not favorable to royal sovereignty. Finally, it had been made in a foreign land, and was under suspicion on that account.
The result was that Elizabeth's archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
, Matthew Parker
Matthew Parker
Matthew Parker was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1559 until his death in 1575. He was also an influential theologian and arguably the co-founder of Anglican theological thought....
, set out to have another official version made. He selected a revision committee, with instructions to follow closely wherever possible the Great Bible, to avoid contentious notes, and to make such a version that it might be freely, easily, and naturally read. The result is known as the Bishops' Bible
Bishops' Bible
The Bishops' Bible is an English translation of the Bible which was produced under the authority of the established Church of England in 1568. 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...
. It was issued in Elizabeth's tenth year (1568), but there is no record that she ever noticed it, though Parker sent her a copy from his sick-bed. Its publication (as complete Bibles) ceased before the first issue of the new official (though not formally "authorized") version, the King James version
King James Version of the Bible
The Authorized Version, commonly known as the King James Version, King James Bible or KJV, is an English translation of the Christian Bible by the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611...
of 1611.
The Douay-Rheims Version
The Douai (or Douay) version was the work of English Roman Catholic scholars connected with the University of DouaiUniversity of Douai
The University of Douai is a former university in Douai, France. With a Middle Ages heritage of scholar activities in Douai, the university was established in 1559 and lectures started in 1562. It closed from 1795 to 1808...
in France. The New Testament was issued at Rheims in 1582, and the Old Testament in two volumes, in 1609 and 1610, just before the King James version. It is made, not from the Hebrew and the Greek, though it refers to both, but from the Vulgate. The result is that the Old Testament of the Douai version is a translation into English from the Latin, which in turn is, mostly, a translation from the Hebrew. Yet scholars are scholars, and it shows some influence of the Genevan version; and, indeed, of other English versions, especially that of Myles Coverdale. Its notes were strongly anti-Protestant, and in its preface it explains its existence by saying that Protestants have been guilty of "casting the holy to dogs and pearls to hogs."
The version's English was not colloquial, but ecclesiastical and highly latinate. In Hebrews 13:17, the version reads, "Obey your prelates and be subject unto them." In Luke 3:3, John came "preaching the baptism of penance." In Psalm xxiii:5, where the King James Version reads, "My cup runneth over," the Douai version, taking its cue from the Greek Septuagint, reads, "My chalice which inebriateth me, how goodly it is." There is a retention of ecclesiastical terms, and an explanation of the passages on which Protestants tended to differ rather sharply from Roman Catholics, as in the matter of the taking of the cup by the people, and elsewhere. In 1589, the Protestant scholar William Fulke
William Fulke
William Fulke was an English Puritan divine.-Life:He was born in London and educated at St John's College, Cambridge graduating in 1557/58....
issued a point by point refutation of the notes of the Rheims New Testament, in which he also printed the biblical text both of Rheims and of the Bishop's Bible in parallel columns. This work which sold very widely and had the consequence of making the Rheims New Testament much more accessible than would otherwise have been the case.
The Douai translation was updated in 1750 by Bishop Challoner
Richard Challoner
Richard Challoner was an English Roman Catholic bishop, a leading figure of English Catholicism during the greater part of the 18th century. He is perhaps most famous for his revision of the Douay Rheims translation of the Bible.-Early life:Challoner was born in the Protestant town of Lewes,...
and while it continued to be known as the Douai version, many consider it to be equivalent to a separate translation. In various updates, this version remained the standard Catholic English-language Bible until 1941.
Authorized King James Bible
The King James Version (KJV), or Authorized Version is an English translation of the Holy Bible, commissioned for the benefit of the Church of EnglandChurch of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
at the behest of James I of England
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
. First published in 1611, it has had a profound impact not only on most English translations that have followed it, but also on English literature as a whole.
The King James Version was first published in 1611 as a complete Bible (Herbert #309) and a New Testament (Herbert #310). Translated by the largest group of translators, around 50, and using the widest range of source texts, it became known as the "Authorized Version" in England and is the most widely used of the Early Modern English Bible translations. Its use has continued in some traditions up to the present. Even though modern scholarship continues to claim problems with some of the translation, it is widely admired for its style and use of language.
The version of the King James Bible found in modern printings is not that of the 1611 edition, but rather an edition extensively modernised in 1769 (to the standards of the mid-18th Century) by Benjamin Blayney for the Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
.
- A sample of the King James - as updated by Blayney - shows the similarity to modern English:
-
- Our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
The next age
With new standards of scholarship, increasing fragmentation of Christian communities, and discovery of more ancient sources, Modern English Bible translationsModern English Bible translations
Many attempts have been made to translate the Bible into modern English, which is defined as the form of English in use after 1800 . Since the early nineteenth century, there have been several translational responses to the rapid spread of Christianity throughout the world...
have proliferated in the Modern English
Modern English
Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, completed in roughly 1550.Despite some differences in vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern...
age to a degree never before seen.
Further reading
- C. C. Butterworth, The Literary Lineage of the King James Bible 1340–1611, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1941.
- Alister McGrath, In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible, New York: Doubleday, 2001.
- Adam Nicolson, Power and Glory: Jacobean England and the Making of the King James Bible, London: HarperCollins, 2003. (U.S. edition under title God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible)
- David Daniell, The Bible in English, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-300-11408-7.
- History of the Douay Version