WHICH BIBLE - Part Three

WHICH BIBLE - PART THREE

Having considered original manuscripts and subsequent copies, which then gave rise to textual traditions used in the production of Bible translations, we now come to examine English versions of those translations.

THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE TEXT - EARLY VERSIONS

A number of early efforts sought to produce an English version of Scripture but none succeeded in translating the entire Bible.  From Caedmon (7th cent) who sang Scripture and Aldhelm (640-709) who translated portions of the Bible to Richard Rolle of Yorkshire (c. 1320-40) who also translated only portions of the Bible, English-speaking people waited for the first complete Bible that they could read for themselves.  John Wycliffe was the man God raised up to bring it to them.  These are a selection of the versions produced for the English-speaking church.

Wycliffe's Translation

 

John Wycliffe (c. 1320-84) gradually realised the errors of Rome and began to speak as a religious reformer, which resulted in condemnation by Rome.  He then had a burden to provide his people with a Bible they could read and listen to with understanding and so translated the Latin Vulgate into English.  The New Testament was completed in 1380 and the Old Testament in 1388 (Nicholas of Hereford completed his Old Testament work after his death) from relatively poor Latin manuscripts.

 

Tyndale's Translation

 

William Tyndale (c. 1492-1536) was the first to translate the Bible into English from original Hebrew and Greek sources.  England was in the hands of Rome and so attempts to do his work there failed and thus he left for Cologne.  He had his New Testament printed in 1526 followed by sections of the Old Testament.  Constantly under threat of exposure, arrest and severe punishment, he soldiered on.  Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of London, bought up his first batch of copies to be burned, but only served to finance even more copies.  In 1536 after being captured in Antwerp he was executed at the stake and he cried out while dying, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes."

 

The Geneva Bible (1557, 1560)

 

As a result of persecution in England, a number of people fled for refuge to Geneva and under the leadership of John Knox they prepared a version suitable for their spiritual needs.  In 1557, an edition of the New Testament was completed as an interim measure.  By 1560, they had revised the New Testament and finished the Old Testament.  This translation made use of the best manuscript materials and previous translations available.  It also provided verse divisions for the entire Bible, which made it popular with the people due its ease of use.  In addition, the use of smaller page size and plain Roman type as against the Gothic letter furthered its acceptance among the people.  It did contain notes, which were too Calvinistic for the English monarchy, although milder than Tyndale's.

  

The Bishops' Bible (1568)

 

As a reaction to the popularity of the Geneva Bible, the Anglican Church revised the Great Bible (1539) to produce the Bishops' Bible named after the translators who were bishops from the church.  It was an attempt to provide a dignified and safe version for public reading and was a significant improvement on the Great Bible, but still not as good as the Geneva Bible.  It did however retain a place in the churches from 1568-1611 and was the official basis for the 1611 revision.

 

King James Version (1611)

 

A number of translations were produced for the Roman Catholic segment of the English church prior to this "authorised" version sanctioned by King James.  In response to a request for a version acceptable to all the various religious factions in the Church of England at the conference in Hampton Court (1604), James 1 voiced his complete support, for it gave him the opportunity to replace the Bishops' and Geneva Bibles which were read in two different contexts (church versus home).  He disliked the latter because of the notes, not the translation itself.  A committee was appointed, of which 47 men did the actual revision.  A set of instructions were formulated for the work that identified the English versions to be used when they agreed with the original text better than the Bishops' Bible.  These included Tyndale's version and the Geneva Bible.

 

This new revision was never officially authorised by the king apart from the appointment to be read in the churches.  It replaced the Bishops' Bible for public use and took over from the Geneva Bible in English homes.  Geisler & Nix note that,

 

The King James Version text was based on little if any of the superior texts of the twelfth to fifteenth centuries, as it followed the 1516 and 1522 editions of Erasmus' Greek Text, including the interpolation of 1 John 5:7.  (A General Introduction to the Bible, p. 566)

 

Its popularity was ensured by the ceasing of publication of the Bishops' Bible and several other factors, including the reputation of the translating committee, the support of the king, the quality of the English expression and the religious climate of the day.  Many editions ensued and a number of them are famous for certain unique mistakes within them, such as the "Wicked Bible" (1631) which omitted the word "not" in the seventh commandment concerning adultery, or the "Vinegar Bible" (1717) which rendered the chapter heading of Luke 20 as "vinegar" instead of "vineyard," or the "Murderer's Bible" (1795) which misspelled "filled" as "killed" in Mark 7:27.  No edition of the Bible has been perfect, not even the King James Version.

As we have seen, other good English versions were produced in the same time period as the King James Version.  It is not valid to claim an exclusive place for the King James Version as a uniquely inspired Bible or even the best one produced at that time.  Next time, we will consider some modern versions and translation method.