by Ken Connolly
THE FIRST English Bibles
The pioneer
Just as it is sometimes very difficult to find the source of
a mighty river, so it is not always easy to find the beginning of
a mighty movement. The German Reformation had its Luther;
Switzerland its Zwingli and Calvin; and Scotland its thundering
voice of Knox. But in the English Reformation there was no one
great human voice. The voice was simply the word of God in the
indestructible book. But as the movement progressed, individual
people had important roles to play. The man who may perhaps be
called the initiator in the translation of the Bible into English
was a man called Thomas Bilney.
Bilney was born in Norfolk around 1495. In 1517, he was at
Trinity Hall in Cambridge, studying canon law, the subject
usually taken by aspiring priests such as Bilney. Canon law had
its beginning when Roman law and church policy were in
disagreement, and major church councils had to be held. Records
were kept of the decisions, and by the fifth century these were
collected into "canons." Later, the decrees of individual bishops
were added, and by AD 1140 they were compiled into Gratian's
Decretum, which became a major field of study and reference for
future priests.
Bilney's religious life was barren. Fasting, vigils and
indulgences had left him with little money (forgiveness being
expensive), poor health (he was too frail physically for
additional penance), and an empty heart, because through it all
he found no peace.
Afraid that every generation had its Judas and that he was
the one for his generation, he decided he might as well go to
hell for good reasons. One night he went out and bought a
blackmarket copy of the Erasmus New Testament, which had been
published the previous year and, though banned, was part of the
religious sub-culture in Cambridge. As he read it, Bilney was
thrilled and stunned. When he read Paul's words in 1 Timothy 1:15
they went like an arrow to his heart. On the spot, he trusted in
the Christ of those pages and his life turned upside down. Doubt
gave way to assurance, hostility was exchanged for peace, and an
effervescent joy dominated his heart. At once he wanted to share
his new-found faith with others.
He picked the White Horse Inn for the field in which to sow
the seed. Nicknamed "Little Germany" because Luther's writings
were often discussed there, the White Horse was a meetingplace
for the scholars of Cambridge who gathered to talk about subjects
prohibited in the classroom. Bilney brought his New Testament to
these discussion tables and the result was cataclysmic.
The news spread through Cambridge and began to attract
notable lecturers from the university. These men came to the
White Horse out of curiosity, and were converted as they read and
discussed Bilney's New Testament. They included Thomas Arthur, a
Fellow of St John's College, who became Bilney's traveling
companion; and the famous Hugh Latimer, though he was converted
in the confessional booth rather than in the pub. George
Stafford, an influential young Fellow of Pembroke Hall, also
joined their ranks. He was probably the most admired professor of
Cambridge, and his conversion shook the entire academic world.
Stafford tried to influence Robert Barnes, another Doctor of
Divinity, who was the prior of a monastery in Cambridge. What
Stafford failed to achieve, Bilney accomplished, and Robert
Barnes became a convert.
The stir aroused all England, attracting other men, such as
Matthew Parker, the future Archbishop of Canterbury; William
Tyndale, the martyr who, as we will go on to see, was the man who
gave England its first English printed Bible; and John Frith, an
eighteen-year-old student of mathematics, the brains of the
Reformation.
Bilney graduated with a Bachelor of Laws degree and was
admitted to holy orders in 1519. In 1525 he was licenced to
preach by the Bishop of Ely, and started to proclaim the gospel
from the pulpit, denouncing the worship of saints and relics. In
1527 he was arrested while preaching in Ipswich, and taken to the
Tower of London. At his trial in the chapter house in
Westminster, his judges included Cardinal Wolsey, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, and several bishops and lawyers. Wolsey had to
depart on urgent business, leaving Tunstall, Bishop of London, in
charge. They played cat and mouse with Bilney. His friends were
allowed to talk to him, and, on the grounds that it would be "for
the benefit of the movement," they succeeded in undermining his
resolve. On December 7, 1527, he signed his recantation. The
following Sunday, with his head shaven and bare, he walked to St
Paul's where he heard a sermon denouncing his heresy, and was
forced to light a fire under a stack of Tyndale's Bibles. This
shattered his soul and left him almost demented. He resolved to
get arrested again so that he could make a stand for the truth.
His second trial took place in 1531 at Norwich, where he had
ministered. His public burning there was intended to put an end
to his influence. The night before his death, he was eating a
hearty meal when Matthew Parker and some friends came to visit
him. They tried to comfort him before the horrible ordeal of the
following day, but Bilney said nothing. When he had finished
eating his meal, he slipped down the bench to where they were
sitting, put his open Bible on the table beside him, held his
index finger over the flame of the candle and burned it to the
bone. He looked at his stunned friends and pointed to Isaiah
43:2: "When thou walkest through fire, thou shalt not be burned."
His captors took Bilney from his cell on the morning of August
19, 1531. As they crossed the Bishop's Bridge he ran forward to
embrace the stake and thank God for the privilege of having a
second opportunity to die for Christ. He was a noble example to
his contemporaries. First, he taught the reformers how to live
for Christ, and then he taught them how to die for Him.
(So was the light of truth and God's word held in such high
esteem. It is our debt that we own our English Bible to such men,
who would freely die to make sure the words of the Bible could be
read by the everyday person in the English language. May we be as
strong as they, when our faith is tested - may we be willing to
die for the faith once delivered to the saints - Keith Hunt)
Archbishop Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer was very different from most heroes of the
Reformation; in fact, he was more of a coward than a hero. But
his very ability to bend under pressure enabled him to play a
vital role among the promoters of the "Indestructible Book."
He was born in Nottinghamshire on July 2, 1489. Recalling his
schooldays, he later said that he attended school under a very
severe master, but became quite skilled as a hawker and a horse
rider.
His father died in 1501 and his mother sent him to
Cambridge, where, in 1510, he became a Fellow of Jesus College.
He had to forfeit his privileges as a Fellow when he married
"Black Joan," a relative of the landlady of the Dolphin Inn, but
he was reinstated after his wife died in childbirth. He was
ordained in 1523, and graduated the following year.
He was given a position teaching divinity at Magdalen
College, and also became an examiner for the University.
When the "sweating sickness" broke out in the summer of 1529,
Cranmer determined to take two boys who were under his
supervision back home to their parents in the county of Essex. By
happenstance, he arrived in the town of Waltham, Essex, when
Henry VIII was also there. While Cranmer was eating, he
recognized Gardiner, the king's secretary, who was traveling with
the king, and they began to talk. During the conversation he
commented that if the university theologians decided that the
king's marriage to Catherine of Aragon had been illegal in the
first place, any ecclesiastical court would grant him a divorce.
When the King heard this, he is reported as saying: "This man I
trow, has got the right sow by the ear."
After an interview with the king at Greenwich, Cranmer was
asked to write down his opinions, quoting the church fathers,
scriptures and general councils which supported the argument. He
was then promoted to the position of an archdeacon and
subsequently was made one of the king's chaplains. He defended
his views before the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and in
1530 was dispatched to Rome to plead the king's case.
Failing at Rome, Cranmer was sent to Germany to air his
views before the Lutheran princes. Also, and significantly, he
was given political authority to lift certain trade embargoes, if
he felt that would strengthen his cause. While he was there, he
stayed with a gifted minister named Osiander, and in 1532 was
secretly married to his niece. The marriage, though difficult to
conceal, was dangerous to reveal, and was kept a secret for many
years. On March 30 the following year, he was consecrated
Archbishop of Canterbury.
We have already seen that it was Cranmer who declared
Henry's marriage to Catherine to be "null and void," Cranmer who
crowned Anne Queen - and Cranmer who, less than three years
later, signed the papers for Henry's divorce from Anne. But above
all, it was Cranmer who supervised the events of the Reformation.
This was his most significant role. In 1538 the king commanded
every parish church to buy an English Bible, and under Cranmer's
influence the order was renewed in 1541. He stood almost alone in
his opposition to Henry's Six Articles of 1539, which spelt out
England's anti-Lutheran position, upholding the Roman doctrine of
transubstantiation, and the celibacy of the priesthood. Though
they were passed, despite his objections, and set Protestantism
back, compliance with them was not rigidly enforced and the
defeat proved to be temporary.
Cranmer was at Henry's bedside when he died. Henry VIII was
never a Protestant at heart and he left a sum of 600 pounds to
pay for prayers to be said to shorten his time in purgatory.
Cranmer crowned Edward VI, shortening the ceremony because of
the young king's frail health, and was at his bedside when he
went out into eternity six years later. Others, seeing the
dangers about to fall on Protestantism in England, fled to the
continent, but Cranmer stayed beside Lady Jane Grey during her
nine days on the throne.
Mary, who, as we have seen, seized the throne from Lady Jane
Grey, was crowned in 1553. She vowed vengeance on Cranmer, whose
views on Henry's divorce from her mother had made Mary
illegitimate and who had helped to turn England towards the
Protestant faith. Later that year he was taken to the Tower of
London on the charge of treason. In September 1555, along with
Ridley and Latimer, he was ordered to be tried, in his absence,
by a papal commission sitting in Rome. In February 1556, when he
was sixty-seven years old, he was stripped of his office by a
special commission sent from Rome. It was at this time that he
signed two recantations.
Because his position was second only to that of the monarch,
and he had served as Archbishop of Canterbury for twenty-three
years, Cranmer was given a specific day to make his recantation
public. At St Mary's church, on March 21, 1556, to the shocked
horror of his judges, he recanted his recantation. He held his
right hand to the crowd and condemned it, promising that it would
be the first part of his body to burn. With quiet confidence, he
submitted himself to his fate. That day he held a meeting with
Ridley, Latimer, Bilney and several other martyrs on the other
side of Jordan.
The brain
John Frith was born in 1503 in Westerham, Kent, the son of
Richard Frith, an inn-keeper. When he was a young man, he was
sent to Cambridge, where he enrolled at the impressive King's
College. It was there that he met Tyndale, who showed him how to
find peace with God. He was a student of the classics, and was
gifted with a brilliant mind and a photographic memory. He
received his degree from Cambridge on December 7, 1525.
At that time Cardinal Wolsey was in the process of founding
Cardinal College in Oxford (later to become Christ Church), and
came to Cambridge in search of men qualified to become its
foundation members. Cranmer, the future Archbishop of Canterbury,
declined his offer, but Frith, with many others, accepted. He
moved to Oxford and became a junior canon when the college opened
in 1526.
It was in November 1527 that Bilney was arrested. At his
trial in London, it came out that Thomas Garret had sold 350
books of Reformed theology on the black market. All of Bilney's
known friends in Cambridge came under suspicion and were
arrested. Frith's position was made more perilous when John
Clark, an ex-Cambridge student and one of Frith's companions in
Oxford, was found in his bedroom in Oxford reading his Bible to
several other students. This led to the arrest of all Bilney's
friends in Oxford, including Frith.
The group were imprisoned in a cave beneath the college,
where salted fish was stored, and the experience killed three of
them, including John Clark. At this point, Wolsey demanded the
release of the rest. Some were made to carry faggots to the top
of the Carfax intersection in Oxford, and burn a collection of
forbidden books, but Frith managed to evade that punishment.
Frith escaped and fled across the Channel to Antwerp, where he
met Tyndale, and a close friendship sprang up between the two
men. Tyndale was one of Wolsey's intended victims, and Frith was
able to strengthen Tyndale's resolve to stand firm. Stephen
Vaughan, an English agent in Antwerp who had attempted to
separate the two reformers, reported that John Frith had married,
but nothing else is known about this.
Frith was out of England from 1528 to 1532, and during this
time he wrote a number of books which were published in Antwerp.
He became known for his forceful logic, his knowledge of the
church fathers, and his forthright attack on Roman doctrines
which needed reforming. The leaders of the opposition marked him
down as a dangerous reformer and put a price on his head.
We are never told why, but Frith crossed the Channel back to
England like a lamb wandering into a lion's lair. He made for the
town of Reading, where the Prior was a friend of the reformers,
holding Protestant services privately in his own home. But Frith
was arrested for loitering before he could reach the prior's
house. When he refused to give his name, he was put into stocks
and held as a rogue and vagabond. Almost starving, he asked to
see a schoolmaster named Cox, who managed to secure his release.
Frith then found that it was easier to get into England than
to get out. He was again arrested at Southend, identified as a
reformer, and sent to the Tower. Two secret reformers, Cromwell
and Cranmer, held him as "a prisoner of the Crown," depriving his
enemies of any opportunity to vent their hatred on him. This
ensured his safety, within his captivity. Five uneventful months
elapsed. During this time Frith endeared himself to the jailor,
and secured some privileges and liberties. A few people were
permitted to visit him in prison, and on more than one occasion
he was even given permission to leave his cell for a night. The
jailor also allowed his friends to smuggle paper into and out of
his cell. Those amenities secured for England the richest
literature produced during the Reformation period. With the aid
of the printing press, Frith was able to conduct a debate from
his cell with no less an enemy of the Reformation than Sir Thomas
More himself, the Chancellor of England. The papers were smuggled
out of prison, published on the continent, and then circulated
throughout England. Frith would write a challenge to More, and
then reply to More's response. He quoted Ambrose, Chrysostom,
Jerome, Tertullian, Origen and Athanasius - yet in his prison he
did not have a single book. It was all entirely from memory. He
was a controversialist par excellence.
Frith's writings on the Lord's Supper were powerful, clear,
and effective. He was able to bring about the conversion of one
of his opponents, and persuade other reformers that the subject
of the Lord's Sup per was serious - so serious that they should
be willing to burn for what they believed. His arguments were
later enshrined in the Book of Common Prayer of 1552.
Refusing many opportunities and encouragements to escape,
Frith was tried at St Paul's on June 20, 1533, found guilty and
imprisoned in Newgate to await execution. On July 4, 1533, he was
taken to Smithfield and tied at the stake, back to back with a
twenty-four-year-old tailor named Andrew Hewet. Though the wind
blew the flames away from Frith, he smiled, knowing that, though
it would prolong his suffering, it would quicken his friend's
death. Frith had just turned thirty years of age when his spirit
left his body at Smithfield.
(Again, what a testimony for us, to hold fast to the faith once
delivered to the saints, even if it means our death at the hands
of those who think they do God a service. Jesus said, at the end
time, once more there would come a great tribulation on the true
Church of God, and some would be called upon by the Lord to die
for the truth of God's word. Such it has been through the ages,
from righteous Abel to those you are now reading about, to whom
truth was being revealed which they could not deny, and would
defend even to their death. May we be of their same mind -
defenders of THE faith - Keith Hunt)
The orator
John Frith debated the teaching of the Bible, Queen Anne
Boleyn encouraged its circulation, and Hugh Latimer preached its
message. He was probably born in 1485 at Thurcaston, only twelve
miles from Lutterworth, where John Wycliffe had ministered. His
father was a yeoman who rented his farm, and was earning "three
or four pounds a year at the uttermost." To help his father, he
looked after the five sheep and milked the thirty cows.
Latimer was enrolled as a student at Clare College,
Cambridge, where he earned his B.A. degree in 1510, and his M.A.
degree four years later. After that, he decided to study
divinity. He worked hard and
.......................
To be continued
The Work of Tyndale!The English Bible hits the market!
Continued from previous page:
gained his degree in 1524. To graduate, he was required to
deliver an oration on a religious subject, and selected for his
topic a denunciation of Melanchthon, Luther's associate. His
scathing criticisms of the German Reformation and the dexterity
and skill with which they were delivered marked him out as a man
of indisputable leadership gifts.
Latimer's mental prowess, along with his gift as an orator,
were noticed by Thomas Bilney, who, as a Fellow of a college, was
compelled to be present at the oration. As he listened, Bilney
could visualize that gift being used in the cause of the
Reformation. But Bilney was wellknown as a heretic. How could he
get a hearing with Latimer? When the applause had ended, and the
congratulatory remarks were over, Bilney approached Latimer, and
asked if he would hear his confession. In the confessional Bilney
quoted very many passages of Scripture, and asked for his
understanding of them to be corrected. Latimer listened for two
hours, and then admitted that what Bilney had, he needed; and so
another reformer was born.
When Latimer associated himself with the radicals who met at
the White Horse Inn, he provoked anger from the opposition. The
Bishop of Ely forbade him to preach in the region of Cambridge;
but, strangely, Cardinal Wolsey gave him freedom to preach
anywhere in all England. In December 1529, he preached his two
famous sermons entitled Sermons on Cards, in which he denounced
card playing during the Christmas celebrations and suggested
better employment with "Christ's cards," that is, His
commandments.
(We must remember it was only SOME truths that God was revealing
to these men; many other theology matters they were as blind as
bats on. But some truth to proclaim in a spiritually dark world
was still a victory for the Lord and His word. This was only the
very beginning of events and people that would in the years
before Jesus comes will be the restitution of all things - Keith
Hunt)
The sermons caused turbulent controversy and attracted the
king's attention. Latimer was invited to preach before Henry
during Lent 1530, and that resulted in his appointment as a royal
chaplain. Unlike others who addressed the king, Latimer was
forthright. He reminded Henry that he was a mortal man, "having
in you the corrupt nature of Adam ... and no less needing the
merits of Christ's passion." He even pictured the apostle Paul
being forced to "carry faggots" to St Paul's for having declared,
"Ye are not under law, but under grace."
John Stokesley, the Bishop of London, summoned Latimer to be
examined by a board of bishops. This resulted in his
excommunication and imprisonment. But the king intervened in
Latimer's favor. The Encyclopedia Britannica comments: "It was,
however, Latimer's preaching more than the edicts of Henry that
established the principles of the Reformation in the minds and
hearts of the people. His sermons are classics of their kind.
Vivid, racy, terse in expression; profound in religious feeling,
sagacious in their advice on human conduct. To the historical
student they are of great value as a mirror of the social and
political life of the period."
Latimer was consecrated Bishop of Winchester in 1535. Five
years later, as bishop, he had the unpleasant task of preaching
at the burning of John Forest, who had refused to acknowledge the
king as head of the Church - this was required by the Six
Articles of 1539. Latimer himself could not do this either, and
so he resigned his bishopric, and was confined to the precincts
of the palace belonging to the Bishop of Chichester. For the
following seven years, he seems to have dropped out of sight. In
1546 he was brought before the Privy Council at Greenwich, and
was again condemned and imprisoned at the Tower of London. By
this time, Henry VIII had died, to be succeeded, as we have seen,
by his only legitimate son, the young and sickly Edward VI, who
strongly supported the Protestant faith. Latimer was released and
the House of Commons invited him to return to his see. In January
of 1548 he resumed his preaching to larger crowds than ever.
In 1553, when Mary occupied the throne, he was summoned once
more to appear before a council at Westminster. Though he could
have escaped to the continent, he chose to attend, passing
Smithfield on the way and commenting that it "groaned" for him.
In 1554, he occupied a cell in the Tower with two good friends,
Ridley, the Bishop of London, and Cranmer, the Archbishop of
Canterbury. At their trial they were interrogated about the
elements of the Lord's Supper and the propitiatory effects of the
Mass. They were offered a final chance to recant, which neither
Ridley nor Latimer accepted. On October 16, 1555, they were taken
to the Oxford "town ditch" for execution on October 16, 1555.
After listening to a sermon preached against them, they were tied
to the stake and the faggots were lit. Latimer encouraged Ridley,
saying, "Master Ridley, play the man. We shall this day light
such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never
be put out."
Latimer was seventy when his charred body, held up by
chains, slumped over the embers. It was the "Indestructible Book"
that changed his life, comforted him in distress, and from which
he preached to others; and it changed England.
(Such were a few of the great men of faith, that for the faith
and truth revealed to them they were willing to die, and indeed
light began to be seen which was never put out. To this day more
and more light has been revealed, and so we move forward to the
restitution of all things - Keith Hunt)
The bridge builder
It is impossible to tell the story of the "Indestructible
Book" without including the name of Thomas Cromwell. Many of his
motives are questionable, but his involvement was fundamental to
the success of reform in England. Without him, the story of the
English Bible would have been significantly different. He was the
bridge builder between the political and religious reforms.
Thomas Cromwell was probably born in 1485. His father Walter
Cromwell, alias Smith, of Putney, was a drunken and dishonest
brewer, blacksmith and fuller. After a quarrel, Thomas fled from
his father's house, and it seems he went to Italy, where he
joined the French army.
In December 1503, at the age of eighteen, he fought in the
battle of Garigliano. From Italy he went to Florence and all we
know is that he was befriended by a banker. When we next hear of
him it is 1510 and he is in Antwerp, where he met a small group
of Bostonians who were on their way to Rome seeking an indulgence
from the Pope to build a business guild in Boston. They hired
Thomas to be their spokesman. He agreed, but before he addressed
Pope Julius II he managed to present him with some candies from
England. Permission for the guild was granted.
His next appearance is in London in 1512, when he married a
wellto-do lady from Putney. By the early 1520s he was on the
staff of the famous Cardinal Wolsey. By 1523 he became a Member
of Parliament, and in 1524 was admitted to Grays Inn, one of the
legal societies of London. His first speech in Parliament was on
November 2, 1529, against the bill condemning Wolsey. The bill
had already passed the House of Lords, and Wolsey was in serious
trouble, but Cromwell's brilliant defense in the Commons turned
the tide in Wolsey's favor. That speech brought Cromwell into the
national spotlight. For the next decade, Cromwell was Henry's
spokesman in Parliament, and Henry governed Parliament through
Cromwell.
Cromwell was not the source of Henry's policy, but he was
the instrument by which it was executed. The Reformation Acts
which came between 1532 and 1539 were drafted by him. He was
privy to all the off-the-record discussions, and dutifully
reported them to the king. Cromwell's philosophy was clear. When
Parliament considered independence from Rome, it was he who
stated: "We have reflected upon the wants of the realm, and have
come to the conclusion that the nation ought to form one body;
that body can have but one head, and that head must be the king."
Forming "one body" meant that the church must be an arm of the
state, with the king as its head in place of the Pope. As we have
seen, good men on both sides of the Reformation divide suffered
martyrdom for refusing to acknowledge this edict - men such as
Sir Thomas More, and Bishop Fisher of Rochester. This Act of
Parliament had unprecedented influence on the course to be
followed by the church and the state, and Cromwell was the bridge
between them.
In 1533 Cromwell became secretary to the king, in 1534
principal secretary and Master of the Rolls, and in 1536 keeper
of the Privy Seal. He was the administrator responsible for
effecting the king's decision to close down all monasteries in
England, with the money from their sale going to the king. It was
not the monks' immorality that drove him with such ruthless
efficiency, but their submission to a foreign potentate in Rome.
He was later rewarded by being made Earl of Essex, and his two
associates were made secretaries to the king. Cromwell also
centralized the administration of the country, so adding to his
own importance.
But Cromwell over-played his hand, and the higher you go,
the further there is to fall. His downfall was brought about by
the changing faces of international politics. Charles V and
Francis 1, two powerful rulers in Europe, totally committed to
the Catholic faith, were planning to unite against Henry, and
Cromwell devised a scheme to gain a counteralliance with the
Schmalkaldic League of German states. Henry was, at this time,
between wives, and Princess Anne was available for marriage. She
was the daughter of the Duke of Cleves, and sister-in-law to the
Elector of Saxony. With the king's consent, Cromwell arranged the
marriage. After great public fanfare, Anne of Cleves arrived in
England, and was escorted to the king's palace at Greenwich. She
turned out to be portly, ungainly, and ugly, lacking in grace and
refinement. Henry was vastly disappointed, and although he felt
he had to go through with the wedding for reasons of state, he
never consummated the marriage.
The Anne of Cleves fiasco enabled Cromwell's enemies to turn
Henry against Cromwell. Henry struck at Cromwell remorselessly
and suddenly, like a beast of prey. On June 10, 1540, six months
after the arranged marriage, Henry accused Cromwell of treason,
and sent him to the Tower. His ruthlessness and powerseeking had
made him unpopular and a bill to have him executed was passed in
Parliament, without a dissenting voice. He had not one friend
left in the world, except perhaps for Cranmer. He lost his head
by an axe on Tower Hill on June 20, 1540. He died attesting that
he was a loyal and faithful adherent of the Catholic religion.
It must be said to Cromwell's credit that he was the principal
instrument in making the Bible available to every Englishman,
through every parish church in England. That fact cannot be
overlooked, and will leave the church forever indebted to him. He
also imposed the keeping of a register of births, deaths and
marriages, and changed centuries of tradition by ordering certain
parts of Anglican services to be recited in English instead of
Latin.
(Even in being a Roman Catholic God obviously still used Cromwell
to bring the English Bible to the common people - the Lord can
use whom He decides for His work to do - Keith Hunt)
Father of the English Bible
William Tyndale is in most respects "the father of the
English Bible." It is true that Wycliffe's Bible preceded
Tyndale's by 143 years, but it had never been printed. Moreover,
since it had not been translated from the original languages but
from the Latin Vulgate, it contained many errors. Erasmus' New
Testament preceded Tyndale's by nine years, but it was in Greek
and Latin, and only the academic world benefited. While Erasmus
desired, according to the preface of his New Testament, "that the
ploughman would sing a text of Scripture at his plough," he did
not make it possible, unless the ploughman was educated in Greek.
It was Tyndale who provided the Bible in the laborer's
language.
William Tyndale was born near the Welsh border in the early
1490s. Nothing is known about his parents, or his brothers John
and Edward. He became a student at Magdalen Hall in Oxford, and
graduated with his Master's degree in 1515. He left Oxford for
Cambridge and may have become associated with Bilney's White
Horse Inn fellowship which was to produce archbishops, bishops
and martyrs. It was here in Cambridge that Tyndale witnessed the
spellbinding and regenerating power of the Word of God.
Tyndale realized that only the barriers of culture prevented
revival spreading beyond Cambridge and decided that if the
ordinary man cannot step up to where he can understand the Bible,
then the Bible must step down. Thus he was fired with the vision
of translating the Bible into the language of the common man. It
became the task of his life and the cause of his death.
Tyndale left Cambridge in 1521 for Little Sodbury Manor,
near the city of Bristol, where he worked for Sir John Walsh,
probably as tutor to his children. He spent his spare time
preaching in the neighborhood, and in his small attic room he
started on the work of translating the Bible. But this was a
dangerous occupation. Back in 1408 a law had been passed against
the Lollards, forbidding any use of Scripture that was not in
Latin. Just two years before Tyndale started his task, six men
and one woman had been burned to death in Coventry for teaching
their children to recite the Lord's Prayer in English. Tyndale
was endangering the lives of the Walsh family by translating the
Bible under their roof.
(Do you see what the terrible climate was in those days - people
being burnt to death for teaching their children to recite the
Lord's Prayer in English!!! Such was the horror of the spiritual
dark ages! It seems today impossible to imagine some nations of
that age actually went that far as to burn people to death for
learning the Bible in English. All of this history is seldom
taught anywhere today. And being so we still have over ONE
BILLION Roman Catholics on earth today - the GREATEST tool Satan
the Devil has used for centuries to bring the whole world under
the "mysteries of Babylon" and the whore drunk with the blood of
the saints, as the book of Revelation depicts this false church -
Keith Hunt)
Tyndale knew it was within the power of the Bishop of
London, Cuthbert Tunstall, to give him a job in his household
translating the Bible, so he left Little Sodbury for London, but
it soon became clear that neither in London nor in all England
would he receive the permission he needed. Tyndale was determined
to translate the Bible into English no matter what the cost, and
he decided to exile himself from his native land. He spent six
months working for a merchant who was involved in subsidizing and
importing forbidden Protestant books, and then set sail for the
continent, never to see his homeland again.
The translation was finished in Wittenberg, Luther's town.
Though Luther was ten years Tyndale's senior, and they did not
agree on all interpretations of Scripture, they were strongly
united by the motto "Isola scriptura" - the Scriptures alone.
While he was in Wittenberg, Tyndale enrolled at the university
under an assumed name and became friends with William Roy, a
fellow Englishman, who assisted him with the writing and promised
to help him get the manuscript published.
The printing was the most difficult task of all. They went
to Cologne, where they found a willing printer, but English spies
broke up the operation. As the spies came in through the front
door Tyndale was escaping through the back door with whatever
copies were finished. It was a narrow escape. If he had been
found it would almost certainly have meant imprisonment and
death. The two men traveled to Worms, where they found Peter
Schoeffer, a printer who was willing to complete the task. The
Bibles were ready for shipping in December, 1525, and Tyndale and
Roy parted company, the goal of their partnership achieved.
The Bibles reached England in the spring of 1526 and
fomented national unrest. The king condemned them to a public
burning and harassed and persecuted all found guilty of
possessing or distributing them. The story is told that Tunstall
authorized a merchant trading in Antwerp to buy every available
volume and bring them back to London for burning. What Tunstall
did not know was that the merchant was Tyndale's friend, and at
the king's expense paid Tyndale four times the cost of production
for each copy. So, for every Bible Tunstall burned, the king paid
for three more to be added to Tyndale's arsenal.
There was now a price on Tyndale's head. Bounty hunters from
England began traveling all over the continent, wearing
disguises, paying for information and tracking down leads, but
all without success. They would bump into each other - but not
into Tyndale! Not one of them had the slightest knowledge of his
whereabouts. Tyndale moved to Marburg and, in disguise, started
to study Hebrew so that he might begin the translation of the Old
Testament. Having mastered this language, he moved to Hamburg,
and from there to Antwerp. It was at this point that he
influenced both John Frith and Miles Coverdale. Frith was to die
by burning at Smithfield, but Coverdale survived to play a major
part in the translation and publication of the Bible in English.
For the next few years, Tyndale must have known how a fox
feels when the countryside is surrounded by hounds in the hunt.
He became a fugitive, wandering in various disguises from city to
city. What made him particularly elusive was his mastery of seven
languages, each of which he spoke like a native.
........................
To be continued
Coverdale and the Matthew BibleThe English Bible moves on!Continued from previous page:
Indelible ink
The difficulties of life on the run were not the only
pressures on Tyndale. He also had the pressure of his exacting
translation work. "Scripture derives its authority from him who
sent it," he stated, and he never deviated from this conviction
that he was translating the inspired Word of God. Such a task
demanded the utmost care, no matter how adverse the conditions.
Foxe reports that Tyndale would say: "I call God to record that I
have never altered, against the voice of my conscience, one
syllable of his Word. Nor would do this day, if all the
pleasures, honours, and riches of the earth might be given me."
A further pressure was the burden to complete his task. When
he had translated the Pentateuch, he traveled from Antwerp to
Hamburg by ship. On the voyage, a fierce storm wrecked the ship
and everything was lost, including his precious manuscripts and
his money. He had lost many hours' work. When he eventually
arrived in Hamburg, Miles Coverdale met him there, and between
April and December 1529 they worked together on the translation
of the five books of Moses. Early in 1530, the first publication
of Tyndale's Pentateuch came off the presses. By the time of his
capture, he had finished translating up to 2 Chronicles and the
book of Jonah. He was never able to complete the rest of the Old
Testament, but, inspired by his vision, others completed it on
his behalf.
It might be assumed that a man of such indomitable
commitment would have no time for anything else, but Tyndale
wrote other books dealing with the issues of the Reformation. In
1528 he wrote two which were to become standards for the reform
movement. The first was The Parable of the Wicked Mammon, and the
second was The Obedience of a Christian Man. These two books
defended two significant principles: the authority of the Bible
in the church, and the supremacy of the king in the state. They
were followed two years later by another publication, The
Practice of Prelates, which was a strong indictment against the
Roman Catholic Church and the divorce of Henry VIII. These became
well known and influential in England. A martyr named Tewkesbury
was put to the body rack at the Tower of London because he
refused to renounce the teaching in Wicked Mammon. He testified
that this book had introduced him to Christ.
1529 was the year of one of Tyndale's most famous
controversies. Thomas More had written his Dialogue of Sir Thomas
More, touching the Pestilent Sect of Luther and Tyndale, and as
More was considered the leading English defender of the Church of
Rome, Tyndale picked up his pen to reply. The dispute which
followed dealt with all the arguments for and against the
Reformation, and centered on whether the church or Scripture held
the higher authority. C. S. Lewis described the debate as a
"great Platonic dialogue, perhaps the best specimen of that form
ever produced in English." Some of Tyndale's strongest critics
complimented him on his skill, and Erasmus, one of More's closest
friends, wrote to Tunstall, the Bishop of London, admitting, "I
cannot heartily congratulate More."
Tyndale found refuge for some time in the city of Antwerp,
where he may have stayed at the home of Thomas Poyntz, a relative
of Mrs Walsh from Little Sodbury Manor. Here he worked on his
translations, and edited his previous publications. He was unable
to stay and supervise a new edition of his New Testament, which
was published in 1534, "full of printing errors." He returned in
1535 to the same home, where he met Henry Phillips, a man to whom
the family had shown much kindness, and who professed to be a
student of the new faith. It was Phillips who betrayed the
identity of the reformer. He borrowed forty shillings from
Tyndale and, going out to dine, pointed him out to the men lying
in wait. On May 24, 1535, Tyndale was captured and taken to the
impregnable Vilvorde Castle near Brussels, in Belgium.
When he was tried, Tyndale rejected the offer of counsel. He
deemed his judges to be both prejudiced and bitter, and felt that
the outcome was already decided. His counsel would merely have
argued over issues of no real consequence, but he himself could
bear witness to the truth of the gospel. He did not want to
defend himself, but he did want to defend his Bible. He was found
guilty of sacrilege, dressed in his sacerdotal robes and brought
before the bishop. The bishop pronounced him excommunicated, had
the official robes taken from him, and had a barber shave his
head; then he was taken back to his cell.
Bibles imported from Europe are burned at the bishop's
instruction.
It was not until September or October 1536 that his
executioners brought him out to be killed. They chained him to a
pillar with two holes in it, through which they threaded a piece
of wire in order that, according to his sentence, he might be
strangled as well as burned. Tyndale showed no fear, regret or
hesitation. When the executioner was attaching the wire around
his throat, he made his last recorded comment. It was a prayer:
"Lord, open the king of England's eyes."
They strangled his voice. They burned his hands. They
ravaged and destroyed his property, burning every Bible they
could find. But their efforts to silence him failed. Though only
one copy of the first edition of his New Testament survived the
biblical holocaust, his commitment inspired thousands, his
priorities gave guidance to the movement, and his translation
influenced nearly every succeeding translation of the Bible.
(Another mighty hand in the hand of the Lord had to suffer death
for the glory of God; for the truth of God; for the writing of
the English Bible, so the common people could have it, read it,
find in it the wonder of the truths of God, and so in time, God's
time, the restitution of all things could be accomplished; a
people prepared to stand on the Bible alone for the faith once
delivered to the saints - Keith Hunt)
The Bishop of Exeter
Another young man who came through that unique Bible study
group at the White Horse Inn in Cambridge was Miles Coverdale. He
was born in Yorkshire in 1488, was ordained priest at Norwich in
1514, and entered the convent of Augustinian friars at Cambridge,
where he studied philosophy and theology. While there he made the
acquaintance of Sir Thomas More, and in More's home he met Thomas
Cromwell, the future Chancellor of England. The prior of his
abbey was Robert Barnes, who was converted under the ministry of
Thomas Bilney. Barnes introduced Coverdale to the study of the
scriptures, and this eventually led him to participate in the
disputes at the White Horse Inn. When his prior was arrested, and
placed on trial in London, Coverdale went to give him legal
assistance.
Coverdale later left the friary, abandoning his vows to
become an itinerant preacher. He traveled considerably,
especially on the continent. He was in Hamburg in 1529, where, as
we have seen, he aided Tyndale in his translation of the
Pentateuch, though it is difficult to know what assistance he
gave, since as far as we can tell he had no knowledge of the
Hebrew language. At the same time, he started his own writing
career. Most of his twenty-six publications were English
translations of reformed writers.
Jacob van Meteren, an Antwerp merchant, hired him to produce
an English translation of the Bible, a task he completed in 1535.
When his fellow clergy argued for the retention of the Scriptures
in Latin, he said: "No, the Holy Ghost is as much the author of
it in Hebrew, Greek, French, Dutch, and English, as in Latin."
The first edition of this, the first Bible to be printed in
English, appeared on October 4, 1535. There are no complete
copies in existence, and on the five or six fragments which have
a title page there is no indication of the publisher or the place
of its publication. In order to make his translation more
acceptable in England, Coverdale dedicated it to the king and to
"his dearest just wife, and most virtuous princess, Queen Anne."
But when Anne was disgraced and executed a few months later, this
dedication became a liability.
In December 1534, Coverdale had attended a Convocation
called by Archbishop Cranmer, which petitioned for an authorized
translation of the scriptures in English. Coverdale now wanted to
have his edition authorized, but this attempt failed. The version
was not even particularly scholarly. Some of the title pages
state that it was translated out of German and Latin but
Coverdale admitted to using five translationstwo Latin, two
German (Luther's and the Zurich Bible), and Tyndale's New
Testament and Pentateuch. Two fresh editions appeared in 1537,
but none received official approval; in fact, in 1542
CoverdaleI's Bible was placed on a list of banned books.
Coverdale was in Geneva in December 1538, and participated in the
preparation of the Geneva Bible. But his greatest accomplishment
in the history of the English Bible was yet ahead of him. This
came in 1539 when Thomas Cromwell commissioned him to edit the
Matthew Bible, giving England its greatest authorized version of
Henry's reign.
Apart from his work on the Bible, Coverdale contributed to
the reform movement by offering support and help in many ways.
First, though the Six Articles condemned marriage among priests,
Coverdale defied this law by openly marrying Elizabeth Machson.
Second, he was staying at Windsor Castle in October 1548 when
Cranmer was drawing up the First Book of Common Prayer, and he
helped in that task. Third, he was active in many of the
reforming measures of the reign of Edward VI. Fourth, as Bishop
of Exeter, a position he held from 1551 to 1553, he was in
constant attendance at the Parliaments. Fifth, he was an
aggressive persecutor of the anabaptist movement, which at that
time was considered detrimental to the reformers' cause. Finally,
and most important, he was an exceptionally gifted preacher. (On
one significant occasion, he preached at St Paul's on the second
Sunday of Lent to mark the ceremonial abolition of multiple
altars and masses, and his sermon was immediately followed by the
pulling down of the high altar.)
Coverdale lost his bishopric when Mary came to the throne in
1553. He was required to stand before the Privy Council but was
spared burning by the intercession in his favor of Christian III
of Denmark, and was allowed to go to the continent "with two of
his servants" (one of whom was his wife!). He returned to England
when Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1558 and ministered in the
area of London Bridge, always attracting large crowds. He died in
February 1568, and is buried in the graveyard at St Magnus
Church.
(Some light given to Coverdale, much light not given. God brings
light to whom He will and the amount of light that they will have
- Keith Hunt)
Mary's first victim
While it is contended by some that "Matthew" was merely a
harmless pen name attached to a Bible translation, it would be
more accurate to say that the name was used in a deliberate
attempt to deceive the authorities, and get the book distributed
on the black market. While Tyndale also broke the law by
distributing an undercover Bible, he did not use a false name.
The Matthew Bible, as it came to be known, is directly traced to
John Rogers.
Rogers was born near the city of Birmingham about the year
1500. He was educated at Pembroke Hall, in Cambridge, and in 1526
graduated with a B.A. degree, apparently unmoved by the spiritual
stirring which affected the university during his student days.
In 1532 he became rector of Holy Trinity, Queenhithe, in London.
Two years later, he accepted the post of chaplain to the English
merchants who traded in Antwerp. It was there that he came into
contact with William Tyndale.
Tyndale had a profound effect upon Rogers, though their
friendship was very brief. The change in Rogers' life was
evidenced by his desertion of the Catholic Church; by his
marriage to a woman from Antwerp; and by the fact that Tyndale
trusted him so implicitly that he left all his unpublished
translations in his possession for safe keeping. Tyndale had
already translated the Old Testament as far as 2 Chronicles, but
nothing had been published since the Pentateuch. The translation
had to be finished and the complete Bible published.
It is questionable whether John Rogers knew enough Hebrew to
complete the translating work. The similarity of the second half
of the Old Testament to that of Coverdale's Bible seems to
indicate that Coverdale helped to supervise the finishing of the
Old Testament. It seems there was a deliberate subterfuge, and
that Tyndale's translation was edited in order to conceal the
source. The completed Bible, under the pseudonym of Thomas
Matthew, was published in 1537, just one year after Tyndale's
death.
The manuscripts were given for publication to Richard
Grafton, a merchant in Antwerp who felt constrained to go to
England and present a copy to Cranmer, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, in an effort to get approval for an English
publication. Cranmer examined the book and was greatly impressed,
but he felt he was not the best person to obtain the king's
approval. He therefore asked Thomas Cromwell to submit it and
obtain permission from Henry VIII. The permission he was asking
for was temporary: it was to be only until a better translation
could be produced by the bishops - which, suggested Cranmer,
"will not be till a day after domesday." The king took the book
and looked through it. At the end of Malachi, Rogers had etched
the initials W.T., standing for William Tyndale. The letters were
large enough to cover half the page, but either the King's
fingers skipped the page, or he did not look at the initials
properly, or his mind was too dull to interpret their
significance; as far as he could see, Tyndale's name was not
associated with the new Bible. The book had a pleasant dedication
to His Majesty, and Henry thought that it might be a useful
implement to weaken the grip of Rome on England. He handed it
back to Cromwell and granted permission, provided Cromwell could
get Cranmer's approval! Cromwell had succeeded, and an edition of
1,500 copies was sold in England as the first "authorized"
version. According to its title page, it was published "by the
king's most gracious licence."
This was a red-letter day in the history of the English
Bible. Though the Matthew Bible was not to survive for long, it
paved the way for later editions and translations. It succeeded
where Coverdale's had failed, in obtaining the king's
authorization.
For several years Rogers was the pastor of a Protestant
congregation in Wittenberg, returning to England in 1548. In 1550
he ministered at two churches in London, and the following year
he was made a preben dary of St Paul's. After a brief examination
of his gifts, he was made a lecturer in divinity.
When Mary became sovereign, many of the leaders of the
Reformation fled to the continent, but Rogers was obstinate,
determined and a fully committed reformer. On July 27, 1553, he
preached at St Paul's on "the true doctrine taught in King
Edward's days" and warned his congregation against any going back
to "pestilent Popery." Ten days later he was placed under house
arrest.
In January 1554, Bonner, the new Bishop of London, sent
Rogers to Newgate, where he was imprisoned with John Hooper and
John Bradford. He was confined in Newgate for twelve months until
January 22, 1555, and then was brought to the home of Gardiner,
the notorious persecutor of the reformers. Six days later he had
to face a commission appointed by Cardinal Pole, at which
Gardiner sentenced him to death for denying the Christian
character of the Church of Rome and refusing to accept that the
elements at the Lord's Supper turned into the actual body and
blood of Christ. Six days later, on February 4, 1555, he was
taken to Smithfield and was burned to death, the first Christian
martyr during the reign of Mary. His fellow prisoner, Bradford,
said "he broke the ice valiantly."
Chains of freedom
The Matthew Bible, which was growing in popularity, had many
strongly anti-Catholic footnotes. Since the edition had official
approval, these were something of an embarrassment to Cromwell
when he was handling delicate foreign affairs involving Catholic
countries. Cromwell therefore decided that another Bible must
replace the Matthew version.
Having obtained the king's permission, Cromwell commissioned
Coverdale and the publisher Richard Grafton to revise the Matthew
text and eliminate the footnotes. To speed the operation and
improve the quality of production, Cromwell arrannged for it to
be printed in Paris, where there was finer paper and a superior
printing press. Charles I of France agreed, since it would be in
a language his people did not understand and would immediately be
shipped out of France. At the end of spring, 1538, Coverdale and
his assistant arrived in Paris, selecting Francois Regnault as
printer.
On December 13 Coverdale and Grafton, who were worried about
a resurgence in the activities of the Inquisition, persuaded the
English ambassador, Bonner, to take most of the completed pages
to Cromwell. Whether because of the Inquisition or because
Charles had changed his mind, work stopped, and four days later
the revisers had to flee for their lives. The pages they had to
leave behind were condemned to be burned in the Place Maulbert.
However, a haberdasher who was an English agent bought some on
the pretext that he needed the paper to stuff his hats, and other
agents, working at night in cloak and dagger style, stole the
presses and all the type and even the printers, and transported
them all to London. In April 1539 the whole Bible was finished,
and the editors added the words: "To the Lord the achievement is
due."
Because the work was undertaken under royal patronage, there
was no dedication. The 9 x 15 - inch pages had no footnotes. The
title page was a wood engraving, artistically created by Holbein,
which eloquently told the story of royal supremacy. The Bible was
given to the public not by the church but by the king, and was
distributed through the priests to the people.
The title page reads: "The Byble in Englyshe, that is to
saye the content of all the Holy Scrypture, bothe of ye Olde and
Newe Testament, truly translated after the veryte of the Hebrue
and Greke Textes, by ye dylygent studye of dyuerse excellent
learned men, expert in theforsayde tongues. Prynted by Rychard
Graftoni & Edward Whitchurch ... 1539."
Within two years, 20,000 copies had been sold (rendering
obsolete another version of the Matthew Bible with softened
footnotes, which the Oxford scholar Richard Taverner had
published in 1539). Cranmer passed the verdict that it contained
"no heresies," and a royal declaration commanded it to be bought
by every parish church in the land and made accessible on a
reading desk for the public to read at any time. Readers had to
be provided for those who could not read it themselves. Bible
reading, which had once been forbidden, then silently tolerated,
then licensed, was now commanded, and for this we are indebted to
Thomas Cromwell.
Because of its bulk, the new Bible came to be known as the
Great Bible. It is also sometimes called the Chained Bible,
because copies were chained to the reading desks, or Cranmer's
Bible, because of an elaborate preface which Cranmer added to the
second edition in 1540. By the end of 1541 there were no fewer
than seven editions.
Based as it was on the Matthew Bible, which in turn had been
based on Tyndale, this stands as Tyndale's memorial. The Great
Bible remained the English Bible for twenty years. Tyndale had
burned to ashes in a foreign land, but the Great Bible was in
every respect the fruit of his labor and the memorial of his
life.
........................
To be continued
Towards the KJV of 1611A Bible in English for EVERYONE!
Continued from previous page:
Committee work
It seems odd that an English Bible should have the word
Geneva in its title, yet that is what happened. Here is the story
behind it. In 1543 an Act of Parliament for the "Advancement of
True Religion," took away permission for the use of any Bible
other than the Great Bible. The Act specifically outlawed the
writings of Tyndale, and a later Act added Wycliffe and
Coverdale. Tyndale's Bible was "clearly and utterly abolished and
forbidden to be kept or used." But Henry VIII died on January 28,
1547, and the young Edward VI's coronation brought a reversal of
attitude. At his coronation, when he was given the three swords
symbolizing the countries under his dominion, he asked the
whereabouts of the fourth. His nobles asked him what he meant.
"The Bible," he responded, "the sword of the Spirit, and to be
preferred before these swords." During Edward's reign, there were
at least thirteen editions of the whole Bible and thirty-five of
the New Testament. It was during his reign that the Book of
Common Prayer was introduced, and the Church of England's
doctrinal standard appeared in the Forty-Two Articles, later to
be reduced to the Thirty-Nine Articles.
But as we have seen, "Bloody Mary" came to the throne in
July 1553 and her husband, Philip II of Spain, was a fanatical
champion of the Inquisition. When Mary forbade the public use of
Scripture, a migration to Europe began, especially to Calvin's
city; deans and bishops of England and Scotland, including Miles
Coverdale and Scotland's John Knox, made a European London out of
Geneva.
Whittingham's New Testament
A new translation of the New Testament in English came out
of Geneva in 1557. It was the work of one man, William
Whittingham, who was married to Calvin's sister-in-law and who
succeeded Knox in the pastorate of the English congregation in
Geneva in 1559. His New Testament was a revision of Tyndale's,
with an introduction written by Calvin, and was addressed to
"simple lambs which partly are already in the fold ... and partly
wandering, through ignorance." It aimed to use everyday
Anglo-Saxon language rather than literary words derived from
Latin. Thus a parable was a "biword," regeneration was
"gainbirth," and crucified became "crossed."
Whittingham's New Testament had two unique features. First,
it used verse divisions for the first time in an English Bible.
While traveling between Paris and Lyons in 1551, the printer
Robert Estienne had hastily marked up the verses for one of his
editions of the Greek Testament. Some of his divisions are
questionable: "I think it had been better done on his knees in a
closet," said one Bible historian. But though these divisions are
criticized, they remain in universal use.
Whittingham's second innovation was the use of different
type to indicate words added in translation which are not in the
original text - a practice which was to be followed by the King
James version of 1611. So extensive are Whittingham's analyses
and notes that the edition has been called "the first critical
edition of the New Testament in English."
While the reformers in Geneva waited for political change to
come at home, they "could think of nothing which could be more
acceptable to God, and as comfortable to His Church, than in the
translating of the Scriptures into our native tongue." The Bible
they produced was called the Geneva Bible, and was printed in
1560.
Geneva Bible
The group who produced the Geneva Bible included John Knox,
Miles Coverdale, William Whittingham and other less well known
authorities. They were, to use their own description, "so many
godly and learned men." John Calvin and Theodore Beza were at
hand when they needed scholarly help, and they had access to
other translations in several foreign languages. In fact, their
source material was greater than that afforded to any previous
translator. They painstakingly worked over every minute detail of
the text, giving a faithful translation and achieving agreement
between all the collaborators. They prided themselves on their
accomplishment: the text proved to be so good that a complete
revision was never needed, and the method of translation worked
so well that it was later adopted by the committees who worked on
the King James Version.
The Bible became known as the Breeches Bible because of its
translation of Genesis 3:7, which says that Adam and Eve sowed
fig leaves into "breeches." The translators also included
marginal readings. Though some were biased in favor of Calvin's
theology, and some were strongly anti-papal, the majority were
simply explanatory notes. The Bible was intended for personal use
rather than for reading in church and therefore it was issued in
a moderate quarto format which made it easier to carry.
Though it was never sanctioned for public use in England,
its convenient size quickly made the Geneva Bible the "household"
Bible. When the 1644 edition appeared in England, thirty-three
years after the publication of the Authorized Version, it had
already passed through more than 140 editions. It was
particularly the puritans' Bible, and became the Bible of the
Commonwealth army. Soldiers did not carry a full Bible, but they
did have a pocket-sized reader, which quoted from the Geneva
version. It was the Bible exclusively used by the Pilgrim
Fathers. The Geneva text was also used for the first Bible
printed in Scotland, named the Bassandyne Bible after its printer
(1679). Parliament required every householder having a certain
income to possess a copy. In June, 1580, a man called John
Williamson was commissioned to visit and search every house, "and
to require sight of their Bible and Psalm-book, if they have one,
to be marked with their own name." The name was to stop anyone
trying to get away with borrowing a copy from a neighbor!
The Bishops' Bible
As Elizabeth's coronation procession wound its way through
the streets of London, a man appeared with a scythe and wings,
representing Father Time, leading his daughter, representing
Truth. She carried an English Bible, bearing the inscription The
Word of Truth, and presented it to Her Majesty. Queen Elizabeth
graciously received it and pressed it to her breast, having
promised that she would "oftentimes read over that book."
In 1559 Elizabeth pleased her citizens by originating an Act, as
Edward VI had done before her, which stated that "one book of the
whole Bible of the largest volume in English" should be set up in
every parish. The following year she allowed an English printing
of the Geneva Bible to be dedicated to her.
The next Reformation Bible appeared in 1586. Sometimes
called the fourth revision of the Tyndale translation, it came
into existence through the insistence of Matthew Parker. He had
been Anne Boleyn's chaplain, and by 1544 had been elected the
master of Corpus Christi College, at the recommendation of Henry
VIII. When Anne Boleyn was executed, she surrendered her young
daughter Elizabeth to his care; and on August 1, 1559, Elizabeth,
now the reigning queen, appointed him Archbishop of Canterbury.
Parker believed that a new Bible was needed because the success
of the Geneva Bible not only undermined the prestige of the Great
Bible, England's official Bible, but also weakened the authority
of the bishops. In 1564, he organized a committee of some eight
or nine bishops whom he considered to be the bestqualified men
among the clergy, and they determined to make another revision of
the Great Bible, re-establishing its prestige. Their revision
became known as the Bishops' Bible.
Parker divided "the whole Bible in to parcels," and told his
translators to "peruse and collate" the text. They were, he said,
to "follow the common English translation used in the churches,
and not recede from it, but where it varieth manifestly from the
Hebrew or Greek original." They were to "make no bitter notes
upon any text," nor were they allowed to "set down any
determination in places of controversy."
The bishops' version followed the Great Bible in the
historical sections, but elsewhere it showed the distinct
influence of the Geneva Bible. Some scholars contend that the
translators purposely limited the number of times they used the
Geneva version-after all, they could not show too much
indebtedness to the very version they were attempting to replace.
It was claimed by others that this reduced its accuracy. The 1574
version marked certain passages in "places not edifying ... so
that the reader may eschew them in his public reading."
To improve the quality of the production, the thickest paper was
used, together with the best printing facilities available. The
Bible included a number of woodcuts, a description of the Holy
Land, and a chart of St Paul's journeys. The front page contained
the simple title, The Holie Bible, with the words of Romans 1:16
written in Latin beneath the title. The title page had an
engraving of Elizabeth, and there were portraits of the Earl of
Leicester and the Earl of Cecil at the beginning of the Book of
Joshua and the Book of Psalms.
Its many woodcuts made the book costly and cumbersome.
Moreover, scholars did not find the translation satisfying.
Different sections were translated in a variety of styles by
scholars from different fields of study, and nobody attempted to
co-ordinate and harmonize the finished product.
The English Bible: Chronology
THE BIBLE IN MANUSCRIPT
1384 Wycliffe's translation (from the Latin)
1396 Purvey's revision
THE BIBLE IN PRINT
1525 Tyndale's New Testament
1530 Tyndale's Old Testament
1534 Tyndale's New Testament (revised)
1535 Coverdale's Bible (from the Latin, Luther and Zwingli)
1537 Matthew (based on Tyndale)
1539 Taverner's revision (based on Matthew)
1539 Great Bible (based on Matthew)
1557 Whittingham's New Testament
1560 Geneva Bible
1568 Bishops' Bible
1582 Rheims New Testament (based on Latin)
1610 Douai Bible (Old Testament based on Latin)
1611 Authorized Version
1881 Revised New Testament
1885 Revised Old Testament
1901 American Revision (of the Revised Version)
Parker assumed that he would obtain royal favour for his
efforts. On October 5, 1568, a copy of the completed translation
was ready for presentation to the queen. It was to be presented
by Sir William Cecil, Secretary of State, and Parker wrote to ask
him to get the queen to licence it as the sole edition for public
reading in churches. This, he said, would achieve uniformity. But
despite the favor Parker enjoyed with Elizabeth, she never
granted him his desire. The Constitutions and Canons of 1571
stated that "Every archbishop and bishop should have at his house
a copy of the Holy Bible of the largest volume, as lately printed
in London." But the Bible referred to here was the Great Bible.
The decree of 1573 that the Bishops' Bible should be read
publicly in the churches came from Parker himself, without royal
authority.
The Bishops' Bible was never officially accepted. Though it
survived for forty years, and went through twenty editions, the
last being in 1606, it was considered to be the weakest of all
the Reformation Bibles.
.........................
So was the life and death of many dedicated people, to bring the
Bible into the English language, so we today can read it from cover
to cover, as I trust you will do. It is the word of LIFE to those
who will believe and obey, who will "trust and obey", as one famous
hymn is called, "for there is no other way, to be happy in Jesus,
But to trust and obey."
For you that will live into the final 42 months of the end of this age,
the Great Tribulation and the Day of the Lord, may you be inspired
by the lives of those who have gone before, who were willing to stand
up and be counted, willing to not save their life, but put it down
in death, even for the glory of the Lord, and for the faith once
delivered to the saints.
Keith Hunt
June 2010
|
|
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment