December 30, 2018
Yesterday we started talking about Bible translations. As you can imagine, it’s quite a long and winding road from Moses writing Genesis to what we see today in our Bibles. There is certainly not enough room in a blog to go through all of that history in one reading. If you would like to do further research, it’s all really quite fascinating. Following are some of the highlights. This is certainly not a full or comprehensive history of Bible translations.
The first hand-written English language Bible manuscripts were produced in the 1380’s by John Wycliffe, a seminary professor at Oxford, scholar, theologian, reformer, and English priest. He was well-known throughout Europe for his opposition to the teaching of the organized Church, which he believed to be contrary to the Bible. According to the website of Christianity Today,
“Believing that every Christian should have access to Scripture (only Latin translations were available at the time), he began translating the Bible into English, with the help of his good friend John Purvey.
The church bitterly opposed it: ‘By this translation, the Scriptures have become vulgar, and they are more available to lay, and even to women who can read, than they were to learned scholars, who have a high intelligence. So the pearl of the gospel is scattered and trodden underfoot by swine.’
Wycliffe replied, ‘Englishmen learn Christ’s law best in English. Moses heard God’s law in his own tongue; so did Christ’s apostles.’ ”
He became an influential dissident within the Roman Catholic priesthood during the 14th century and is considered an important predecessor to Protestantism. With the help of his followers, and many scribes, Wycliffe produced dozens of hand-written English language copies of the scriptures. They were translated out of Latin, which was the only source text available to Wycliffe. The Pope was so infuriated by his teachings and his translation of the Bible into English, that 44 years after Wycliffe had died, he ordered the bones to be dug-up, crushed, and scattered in the river!
When Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 1450’s, the first book to ever be printed was a Latin language Bible. Early documentation states that a total of 200 copies were scheduled to be printed on rag cotton linen paper, and 30 copies on velum animal skin. Today, only 22 copies are known to exist, of which 7 are on velum. That first Bible was in two volumes, each of which had three hundred pages, while each of the pages had forty-two lines. (Obviously not a complete Bible.). They had been printed from movable types of metal. Gutenberg’s Bibles were surprisingly beautiful, as each leaf Gutenberg printed was later colorfully hand-illuminated. The invention of the movable-type printing press meant that Bibles and books could finally be effectively produced in large quantities in a short period of time. This was essential in the coming Reformation.
Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German for the first time and published it in September of 1522. In the 1530’s he would go on to publish the entire Bible in German. Volumes have been written on Martin Luther. I encourage you to read up on church history.
In 1526 William Tyndale was the first man to ever print the New Testament in the English language. Because of the politics at the time, Tyndale was eventually jailed and burned at the stake in 1536, for his crime of printing the New Testament in English. The Church much preferred to have the populace dependent on them for God’s Word. This is a long and deep history that, hopefully, we can dig into more someday.
A mere 3 years after putting William Tyndale to death for publishing the New Testament in English, in 1539 what is known as the “Great Bible” was printed. It was the first English language Bible that was authorized by King Henry VIII, for use by the general public .
The King James Bible was printed in 1611. It was actually a revision of a Bible that was printed in 1568, and called the Bishops Bible.
After producing his dictionary, Noah Webster printed his own revision of the King James Bible in 1833.
The American Standard Version of the Bible was printed in 1901. This was the first major American revision of the King James Bible.
Since the time of the American Standard Bible being published, there have been several other versions released. For our Bible in a year blog, I’ll be using a version known as the New International Version. One more day and then we’ll get started!
Study the Word 