The History of the English Bible

The first hand-written English language manuscripts of the
Bible were produced in 1380's AD by Oxford theologian John Wycliff
(Wycliffe). Curiously, he was also the inventor of bifocal eyeglasses. Wycliff spent many of his years arguing against the
teachings of the Roman Catholic Church which he believed to be contrary to the
Bible. Though he died a nonviolent death, the Pope was so infuriated by his
teachings that 44 years after Wycliff had died, he
ordered the bones to be dug-up, crushed, and scattered in the river!

Gutenburg invented the printing
press in the 1450's, and the first book to ever be printed was the Bible. It
was, however, in Latin rather than English. With the onset of the Reformation
in the early 1500's, the first printings of the Bible in the English language
were produced...illegally and at great personal risk of those involved.

William Tyndale was the Captain of the Army of reformers,and was their spiritual
leader. He worked most of his translating years alone, but had help from time
to time as God discerned he needed it. Indirectly, he had the help of Erasmus
in the publication of his Greek/Latin New Testament printed in 1516. Erasmus
and the great printer, scholar, and reformer John Froben
published the first non-Latin Vulgate text of the Bible in a millennium. Latin
was the language for centuries of scholarship and it was understood by
virtually every European who could read or write. Erasmus' Latin was not the
Vulgate translation of Jerome, but his own fresh rendering of the Greek New
Testament text that he had collated from six or seven partial New Testament
manuscripts into a complete Greek New Testament.

The Latin that Erasmus translated from the Greek revealed
enormous corruptions in the Vulgate's integrity amongst the rank and file
scholars, many of whom were already convinced that the established church was
doomed by virtue of its evil hierarchy. Pope Leo X's declaration that "the
fable of Christ was very profitable to him" infuriated the people of God.

With Erasmus' work in 1516, the die was cast. Martin Luther
declared his intolerance with the Roman Curch's
corruption on Halloween in 1517, by nailing 95 Theses of Contention to the
Wittenberg Door. Luther, who would be exiled in the months following the Diet
of Worms Council in 1521 that was designed to martyr him, would translate the
New Testament into German from Erasmus' Greek/Latin New Testament and publish
it in September of 1522. Simultaneously, William Tyndale would become burdened
to translate that same Erasmus text into English. It could not, however, be
done in England.

Tyndale showed up on Luther's doorstep in 1525, and by
year's end had translated the New Testament into English. Tyndale was fluent in
eight languages and is considered by many to be the primary architect of
today's English language. Already hunted because of the rumor spread abroad
that such a project was underway, inquisitors and bounty hunters were on
Tyndale's trail to abort the effort. God foiled their plans, and in 1525/6 Tyndale
printed the first English New Testament. They were burned as soon as the Bishop
could confiscate them, but copies trickled through and actually ended up in the
bedroom of King Henry VIII. The more the King and Bishop resisted its
distribution, the more fascinated the public at large became. The church
declared it contained thousands of errors as they torched hundreds of New
Testaments confiscated by the clergy, while in fact, they burned them because
they could find no errors at all. One risked death by burning if caught in mere
possession of Tyndale's forbidden books.

Having God's Word available to the public in the language of
the common man, English, would have meant disaster to the church. No longer
would they control access to the scriptures. If people were able to read the
Bible in their own tongue, the church's income and power would crumble. They
could not possibly continue to get away with selling indulgences (the
forgiveness of sins) or selling the release of loved ones from a church-manufactured
"Purgatory". People would begin to challenge the church's authority
if the church were exposed as frauds and thieves. The contradictions between
what God's Word said, and what the priests taught, would open the public's eyes
and the truth would set them free from the grip of fear that the institutional
church held. Salvation through faith, not works or donations, would be
understood. The need for priests would vanish through the priesthood of all
believers. The veneration of church-cannonized Saints
and Mary would be called into question. The availablity
of the scriptures in English was the biggest threat imaginable to the wicked
church. Neither side would give up without a fight.

The Tyndale New Testament was the first ever printed in the
English language. Its first printing occurred in 1525/6, but only one complete
copy of the first printing exists. Any Edition printed before 1570 is very rare
and valuable, particularly pre-1540 editions and fragments. Tyndale's flight
was an inspiration to freedom-loving Englishmen who drew courage from the 11
years that he was hunted. Books and Bibles flowed into England in bales of
cotton and sacks of flour. In the end, Tyndale was caught: betrayed by an
Englishman that he had befriended. Tyndale was incarcerated for 500 days before
he was strangled and burned at the stake in 1536. His last words were,
"Lord, open the eyes of the King of England".

Myles Coverdale and John Rogers were loyal disciples the
last six years of Tyndale's life, and they carried the project forward and even
accelerated it. Coverdale finished translating the Old Testament, and in 1535
he printed the first complete Bible in the English language, making use of
Luther's German text and the Latin as sources. Thus, the first complete English
Bible was printed on October 4, 1535, and is known as the Coverdale Bible.

John Rogers went on to print the second complete English
Bible in 1537. He printed it under the pseudonym "Thomas Matthew", as
a considerable part of this Bible was the translation of Tyndale, whose
writings had been condemned by the English authorities. It is a composite made
up of Tyndale's Pentateuch and New Testament (1534-1535 edition) and
Coverdale's Bible and a small amount of Roger's own translation of the text. It
remains known most commonly as the Matthews Bible.

In 1539, Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canturbury, hired Myles Coverdale at the bequest of King
Henry VIII to publish the "Great Bible". It became the first English
Bible authorized for public use, as it was disrtibuted
to every church, chained to the pulpit, and a reader was even provided so that
the illiterate could hear the Word of God in plain English. It would seem that
William Tyndale's last wish had been granted...just three years after his
martyrdom. Cranmer's Bible, published by Coverdale, was known as the Great
Bible due to its great size: a large pulpit folio measuring over 14 inches
tall. Seven editions of this version were printed between April of 1539 and
December of 1541.

The ebb and flow of freedom continued through the
1540's...and into the 1550's. The reign of Queen Mary (a.k.a. "Bloody
Mary") was the next obstacle to the printing of the Bible in English. She
was possessed in her quest to return England to the Roman Church. In 1555, John
Rogers ("Thomas Matthew") and Thomas Cranmer were both burned at the
stake. Mary went on to burn reformers at the stake by the hundreds for the
"crime" of being a Protestant. This era was known as the Marian
Exile, and the refugees fled from England with little hope of ever seeing their
home or friends again.

In the 1550's, the Church at Geneva, Switzerland, was very
sympathetic to the reformer refugees and was one of only a few safe havens for
a desperate people. Many of them met in Geneva, led by Myles Coverdale and John
Foxe (publisher of the famous Foxe's Book of Martyrs, which is to this day the
only exhaustive reference work on the persecution and martyrdom of Early
Christians and Protestants from the first century up to the mid-16th century),
as well as Thomas Sampson and William Whittingham.
There, with the protection of John Calvin and John Knox, the Church of Geneva
determined to produce a Bible that would educate their families while they
continued in exile.

The New Testament was completed in 1557, and the complete
Bible was first published in 1560. It became known as the Geneva Bible. Due to
a passage in Genesis desribing the clothing that God
fashioned for Adam and Eve upon expulsion from the Garden of Eden as
"Breeches" (an antiquated form of "Britches"), some people
referred to the Geneva Bible as the Breeches Bible.

The Geneva Bible was the first Bible to add verses to the
chapters, so that referencing specific passages would be easier. Every chapter
was also accompanied by extensive marginal notes and references so thorough and
complete that the Geneva Bible is also considered the first English "Study
Bible". William Shakespeare quotes thousands of times in his plays from
the Geneva translation of the Bible. The Geneva Bible became the Bible of
choice for over 100 years of English speaking Christians. Between 1560 and 1644
at least 144 editions of this Bible were published. Examination of the 1611
King James Bible shows clearly that its translators were influenced much more
by the Geneva Bible, than by any other source. The Geneva Bible itself retains
over 90% of William Tyndale's original English translation. The Geneva in fact,
remained more popular than the King James Version until decades after its
original release in 1611! The Geneva holds the honor of being the first Bible
taken to America, and the Bible of the Puritans and Pilgrims.

With the end of Queen Mary's bloody rein, the reformers
could safely return to England. The Aglican Church,
under Queen Elizabeth I, reluctantly tolerated the printing and distribution of
Geneva version Bibles in England. The marginal notes, which were vehemently
against the institutional Church of the day, did not rest well with the rulers
of the day, however. Another version, one with a less inflamatory
tone was desired. In 1568, the Bishop's Bible was introduced. Despite 19
editions being printed between 1568 and 1606, the version never gained much of
a foothold of popularity among the people. The Geneva may have simply been too
much to compete with.

By the 1580's, the Roman Catholic Church saw that it had
lost the battle to supress the will of God: that His
Holy Word be available in the English language. In 1582, the Church of Rome
surrendered their fight for "Latin only" and decided that if the
Bible was to be available in English, they would at least have an official
Roman Catholic English translation. And so, using the Latin Vulgate as a source
text, they went on to publish an English Bible with all the distortions and
corruptions that Erasmus had revealed and warned of 75 years earlier. Because
it was translated at the Roman Catholic College in the city of Rheims, it was
known as the Rheims ( or Rhemes)
New Testament. The Old Testament was translated by the Church of Rome in 1609
at the College in the city of Doway (also spelled
Douay and Douai). The combined product is commonly refered
to as the "Doway/Rheims" Version.

In 1589, Dr. Fulke of Cambridge
published the "Fulke's Refutation", in
which he printed in parallel columns the Bishops Version along
side the Rheims Version, attempting to show the error and distortion of
the Roman Church's corrupt compromise of an English version of the Bible.

With the death of Queen Elizabeth I, Prince James VI of
Scotland became King James I of England. The Protestant clergy approached the
new King in 1604 and announced their desire for a new translation to replace
the Bishop's Bible first printed in 1568. They knew that the Geneva Version had
won the hearts of the people because of its excellent scholarship, accuracy,
and exhaustive commentary. However, they did not want the controversial
marginal notes (proclaiming the Pope an Anti-Christ,etc.) Essentially, the leaders of the church desired
a Bible for the people, with scriptural references only for word clarification
when multiple meanings were possible.

This "translation to end all translations" (for a
while at least) was the result of the combined effort of about fifty scholars.
They took into consideration: The Tyndale New Testament, The Coverdale Bible,
The Matthews Bible, The Great Bible, The Geneva Bible, and even the Rheims New
Testament. The great revision of the Bishop's Bible had begun. From 1605 to
1606 the scholars engaged in private research. From 1607 to 1609 the work was
assembled. In 1610 the work went to press, and in 1611 the first of the huge
(16 inch tall) pulpit folios known as "The King James Bible" came off
the printing press.

A typographical error in Ruth 3:15 rendered the pronoun
"He" instead of the correct "She" in that verse. This
caused some of the 1611 First Editions to be known by collectors as
"He" Bibles, and others as "She" Bibles.

It took many years for it to overtake the Geneva Bible in
popularity with the people, but eventually the King James Version became the
Bible of the English people. It became the most printed book in the history of
the world. In fact, for around 250 years...until the appearance of the Revised
Version of 1881...the King James Version reigned without a rival.

Although the first Bible printed in America was done in the
native Algonquin Indian Language (by John Eliot in 1663), the first English
language Bible to be printed in America (by Robert Aitken in 1782) was a King
James Version. In 1791, Isaac Collins vastly improved upon the quality and size
of the typesetting of American Bibles and produced the first "Family
Bible" printed in America...also a King James Version. Also in 1791,
Isaiah Thomas published the first Illustrated Bible printed in America...in the
King James Version.

In 1841, the English Hexapla New
Testament was printed. This wonderful textual comparison tool shows in parallel
columns: The 1380 Wycliff, 1534 Tyndale, 1539 Great,
1557 Geneva, 1582 Rheims, and 1611 King James versions of the entire New
Testament...with the original Greek at the top of the page.

Consider the following textual comparison of John 3:16 as
they appear in many of these famous printings of the English Bible:

1st Ed. King James (1611): "For God so loued the world, that he gaue his
only begotten Sonne: that whosoeuer
beleeueth in him, should not perish, but haue euerlasting life."

Rheims (1582): "For so God loued
the vvorld, that he gaue
his only-begotten sonne: that euery
one that beleeueth in him, perish not, but may haue life euerlasting"

Geneva (1557): "For God so loueth
the world, that he hath geuen his only begotten Sonne: that none that beleue in
him, should peryshe, but haue
euerlasting lyfe."

Great Bible (1539): "For God so loued
the worlde, that he gaue
his only begotten sonne, that whosoeuer
beleueth in him, shulde not
perisshe, but haue euerlasting lyfe."

Tyndale (1534): "For God so loveth
the worlde, that he hath geven
his only sonne, that none that beleve
in him, shuld perisshe: but
shuld have everlastinge lyfe."

Wycliff (1380): "for god loued so the world; that he gaf
his oon bigetun sone, that eche man that bileueth in him perisch not: but haue euerlastynge liif,"

It is possible to go back to manuscripts earlier than Wycliff, but the language found can only be described as
the "Anglo-Saxon" roots of English, and would not be easily
recognizable as similar to the English spoken today.

For example, the Anglo-Saxon pre-English root language of
the year 995 AD yields a manuscript that quotes John 3:16 as:

"God lufode middan-eard swa, dat he seade his
an-cennedan sunu, dat nan ne forweorde
de on hine gely ac habbe dat ece
lif."

I hope that this short essay has served to enhance your
appreciation for the Bible of our language.

Source: Jeff Johncoat, Greatsite Marketing