Early Modern English Bible translations

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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 landmark King James Version and Douai Bibles. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation led to the need for Bibles in the vernacular with competing groups each producing their own versions.

Although Wyclif's Bible had been one of the drivers of 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 English monarchs were much concerned to avoid the propagation of heresies—a concern subsequently justified by the subversive marginal notes printed in Tyndale's New Testament and the Geneva Bible, for example. Another was the Roman Catholic doctrine of magisterium, still in force today, whereby the Church claims to be the sole authority in the interpretation of the Scriptures.

Several of the early printed English Bibles were suppressed, at least temporarily. Henry VIII complained about Tyndale's "pestilent glosses", and only tolerated the Coverdale and Matthew Bibles because the publishers carefully omitted to mention Tyndale's involvement in them. Even the "authorized" Great Bible of 1539 was later suppressed under Mary I because of her Roman Catholic beliefs.

Contents

[edit] 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 1000–2500 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 twentieth 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. Only 11 copies survive from the edition of 1000.

[edit] Versions

The nine versions summarized below are dealt with in separate articles. With the exception of Tyndale’s Bible, all are complete Bibles, although the New Testament was also issued separately. The Apocrypha were often included. In addition, Herbert’s Historical Catalogue lists a number of other translations of individual books; for example, George Joye's translation of the Psalms, published in Antwerp as early as 1530 (Herbert #3).

[edit] Tyndale's Bible

Main article: Tyndale Bible

William Tyndale 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 the current 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.

Tyndale did not have copies of "original" Hebrew texts. In fact the quality of the Hebrew documents was poor, since no original Hebrew sources earlier than the 10th Century had survived. 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 munificent 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, 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.

Tyndale may be considered the father of the King James Version (KJV) since much of his work was transferred to the KJV. The KJV 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.

[edit] Coverdale's Bible

Main article: Coverdale Bible

The first complete printed translation into English, and the first complete translation into Modern English, was compiled by Myles Coverdale 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.

[edit] Matthew's Bible

Main article: Matthew Bible

Matthew's Bible was produced by John Rogers, 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. This version can be considered the beginning of the main sequence of English Bibles. It received the approval of Henry VIII, who had previously banned Tyndale's work.

[edit] The Great Bible: the first "authorized version"

Main article: Great Bible

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 solely 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. He found it difficult to make people leave them during the sermons. He was so often interrupted by voices reading to a group, and by the discussions that ensued, that he threatened to have them taken out during the service if people would not be quiet. 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". There had grown up a series of wild ballads and ribald songs in contempt of "the old faith", while it was not really the old faith which was in dispute, but only foreign control of English faith. They had mistaken Henry's meaning. So 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 prohibited except the Great Bible, whose cost and size precluded secret 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. Nearly fifty editions of the Bible, in whole or in part, appeared in those six years.

[edit] Taverner's Bible

Main article: Taverner's Bible

Taverner's Bible is a minor revision of Matthew's Bible edited by Richard Taverner and published in 1539.

[edit] The Geneva Bible

Main article: Geneva Bible

Then came Queen Mary who again gave in the nominal allegiance of England to the Roman control. But she missed the spirit of the people, who she thought were weary with the excesses of rabid Protestantism; but they were by no means ready to admit the principle of foreign control in religious matters. So the secret use of protestant translations of the Bible continued, despite official efforts to restore England to Catholic unity.

English Protestant scholarship was driven into exile, and found its way to Frankfurt and Geneva again. There the spirit of scholarship was untrammeled; there 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, by all means the best that had been made. (The only Bible translation published during Mary's reign was its forerunner, the "Whittingham New Testament" of 1557 printed in Geneva (Herbert #106).) In later years, under Elizabeth, the Geneva Bible drove the Great Bible off the field by sheer power of excellence. 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 familiar 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 Robert Stephens, who had divided the Greek Testament into verses in 1551, during a journey which he was compelled to make between Paris and Lyon.

The Genevan version was printed in both Roman type, with which we are all familiar, and in the older type face, 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 British authorities.

[edit] The Bishops' Bible

Main article: Bishops' Bible

During the reign of Elizabeth I of England it was found that two versions of the Bible were in common use, the old Great Bible and the new Geneva Bible. Yet there could be no hope of gaining the approval of Elizabeth for the Geneva Bible. For one thing, John Knox had been a party to its preparation; so had Calvin. Elizabeth detested them both, especially Knox. For another thing, its notes were not favorable to royal sovereignty, but smacked so much of popular government as to be offensive. For another thing, it had been made in a foreign land, and was under suspicion on that account.

The result was that Elizabeth's archbishop, Parker, set out to have an authorized version made, selected a revision committee, with instructions to follow wherever possible the Great Bible, to avoid bitter 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. The Bishops' Bible shows influence of the Geneva Bible in many ways, though it gives no credit for that. Only its official standing gave it life. Its publication (as complete Bibles) ceased even before the first issue of the new official (though not formally "authorized") version, the King James version of 1611.

[edit] The Douay-Rheims Version

Main article: Douay-Rheims Bible

The Douai (or Douay) version was the work of English Catholic scholars connected with the University of Douai in France. The New Testament was issued at Rheims in 1582, and the Old Testament in 1609, 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 large part is a translation into Latin from the Greek Septuagint, which in turn is a translation into Greek from the Hebrew. Yet scholars are scholars, and it shows some influence of the Genevan version, and, indeed, of other English versions. 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 is not in the direct line of the ascent of the familiar version—its English was not colloquial, but ecclesiastical. 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 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 had come to differ rather sharply from Catholics, as in the matter of the taking of the cup by the people, and elsewhere.

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.

[edit] King James Bible

Main article: King James Version of the Bible

The King James Version (KJV) is an English translation of the Holy Bible, commissioned for the benefit of the Church of England 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 the "Authorized Version" in Britain 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.

A sample of the King James shows the similarity to modern English:
Our father which art in heauen, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heauen. Giue us this day our daily bread. And forgiue us our debts as we forgiue our debters. And lead us not into temptation, but deliuer us from euill. Amen.

[edit] The next age

With new standards of scholarship, increasing fragmentation of churches, and discovery of more ancient sources, Modern English Bible translations have proliferated in the Modern English age to a degree never before seen.

[edit] References

  • This article incorporates public domain text from: McAfee, Cleland Boyd (1912). A Study of the King James Version of the Bible. New York: Harper.
  • A. S. Herbert, Historical Catalogue of Printed Editions of the English Bible 1525–1961, London: British and Foreign Bible Society; New York: American Bible Society, 1968. SBN 564-00130-9.

[edit] 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)

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