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The original printing of the Authorized Version was published by Robert Barker, the King's Printer, in 1611 as a complete folio Bible.[55] It was sold looseleaf for ten shillings, or bound for twelve.[56] Robert Barker's father, Christopher, had, in 1589, been granted by Elizabeth I the title of royal Printer,[57] with the perpetual Royal Privilege to print Bibles in England.[b] Robert Barker invested very large sums in printing the new edition, and consequently ran into serious debt,[58] such that he was compelled to sub-lease the privilege to two rival London printers, Bonham Norton and John Bill.[59] It appears that it was initially intended that each printer would print a portion of the text, share printed sheets with the others, and split the proceeds. Bitter financial disputes broke out, as Barker accused Norton and Bill of concealing their profits, while Norton and Bill accused Barker of selling sheets properly due to them as partial Bibles for ready money.[60] There followed decades of continual litigation, and consequent imprisonment for debt for members of the Barker and Norton printing dynasties,[60] while each issued rival editions of the whole Bible. In 1629 the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge successfully managed to assert separate and prior royal licences for Bible printing, for their own university presses – and Cambridge University took the opportunity to print revised editions of the Authorized Version in 1629,[61] and 1638.[62] The editors of these editions included John Bois and John Ward from the original translators. This did not, however, impede the commercial rivalries of the London printers, especially as the Barker family refused to allow any other printers access to the authoritative manuscript of the Authorized Version.[63]
Two editions of the whole Bible are recognized as having been produced in 1611, which may be distinguished by their rendering of Ruth 3:15; the first edition reading "he went into the city", where the second reads "she went into the city.";[64] these are known colloquially as the "He" and "She" Bibles.[65] However, Bibles in all the early editions were made up using sheets originating from several printers, and consequently there is very considerable variation[dubious ] within any one edition. It is only in 1613 that an edition is found,[66] all of whose surviving representatives have substantially the same text.[67]
The original printing was made before English spelling was standardized, and when printers, as a matter of course, expanded and contracted the spelling of the same words in different places, so as to achieve an even column of text.[68] They set v for initial u and v, and u for u and v everywhere else. They used long ſ for non-final s.[69] The glyph j occurs only after i, as in the final letter in a Roman numeral. Punctuation was relatively heavy, and differed from current practice. When space needed to be saved, the printers sometimes used ye for the, (replacing the Middle English thorn with the continental y), set ã for an or am (in the style of scribe's shorthand), and set & for and. On the contrary, on a few occasions, they appear to have inserted these words when they thought a line needed to be padded. Later printings regularized these spellings; the punctuation has also been standardized, but still varies from current usage norms.
The first printing used a black letter typeface instead of a roman typeface, which itself made a political and a religious statement. Like the Great Bible and the Bishops' Bible, the Authorized Version was "appointed to be read in churches". It was a large folio volume meant for public use, not private devotion; the weight of the type mirrored the weight of establishment authority behind it.[citation needed] However, smaller editions and roman-type editions followed rapidly, e.g. quarto roman-type editions of the Bible in 1612.[70] This contrasted with the Geneva Bible, which was the first English Bible printed in a roman typeface (although black-letter editions, particularly in folio format, were issued later).
In contrast to the Geneva Bible and the Bishops' Bible, which had both been extensively illustrated, there were no illustrations at all in the 1611 edition of the Authorized Version, the main form of decoration being the historiated initial letters provided for books and chapters – together with the decorative title pages to the Bible itself, and to the New Testament.
The original printing of the Authorized Version used roman type to distinguish text supplied by translators, or thought needful for English grammar but not present in the Greek or Hebrew. In the first printing, the device of having different type faces to show supplied words was used sparsely and inconsistently. This is perhaps the most significant difference between the original text and the current text. When, from the later 17th century onwards, the Authorized Version began to be printed in roman type, the typeface for supplied words was changed to italics.
The original printing contained two prefatory texts; the first was a formal Epistle Dedicatory to "the most high and mighty Prince" King James. Many British printings reproduce this, while most non-British printings do not.
The second preface was called Translators to the Reader, a long and learned essay that defends the undertaking of the new version. It observes the translators' stated goal, that they, "never thought from the beginning that [they] should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one, ... but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against; that hath been [their] endeavour, that [their] mark." They also give their opinion of previous English Bible translations, stating, "We do not deny, nay, we affirm and avow, that the very meanest translation of the Bible in English, set forth by men of our profession, (for we have seen none of theirs [Roman Catholics] of the whole Bible as yet) containeth the word of God, nay, is the word of God." As with the first preface, some British printings reproduce this, while most non-British printings do not. Almost every printing that includes the second preface also includes the first. The first printing contained a number of other apparatus, including a table for the reading of the Psalms at matins and evensong, and a calendar, an almanac, and a table of holy days and observances. Much of this material became obsolete with the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar by Britain and its colonies in 1752, and thus modern editions invariably omit it.
So as to make it easier to locate a particular passage, each chapter was headed by a brief precis of its contents with verse numbers. Later editors freely substituted their own chapter summaries, or omitted such material entirely. Pilcrow marks are used to indicate the beginnings of paragraphs except after the book of Acts.
The Authorized Version was meant to replace the Bishops' Bible as the official version for readings in the Church of England. No record of its authorization exists; it was probably effected by an order of the Privy Council but the records for the years 1600 to 1613 were destroyed by fire in January 1618/19[10] and it is commonly known as the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom. The King's Printer issued no further editions of the Bishops' Bible,[citation needed] so necessarily the Authorized Version replaced it as the standard lectern Bible in parish church use in England.
In the 1662 Book Of Common Prayer, the text of the Authorized Version finally supplanted that of the Great Bible in the Epistle and Gospel readings[71] – though the Prayer Book Psalter nevertheless continues in the Great Bible version.[72]
The case was different in Scotland, where the Geneva Bible had long been the standard church bible. It was not until 1633 that a Scottish edition of the Authorized Version was printed – in conjunction with the Scots coronation in that year of Charles I.[73] The inclusion of illustrations in the edition raised accusations of Popery from opponents of the religious policies of Charles and William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. However, official policy favoured the Authorized Version, and this favour returned during the Commonwealth – as London printers succeeded in re-asserting their monopoly on Bible printing with support from Oliver Cromwell – and the "New Translation" was the only edition on the market.[74] F.F. Bruce reports that the last recorded instance of a Scots parish continuing to use the "Old Translation" (i.e. Geneva) as being in 1674.[75]
The Authorized Version's acceptance by the general public took longer. The Geneva Bible continued to be popular, and large numbers were imported from Amsterdam, where printing continued up to 1644 in editions carrying a false London imprint.[76] However, few if any genuine Geneva editions appear to have been printed in London after 1616, and in 1637 Archbishop Laud prohibited their printing or importation. In the period of the English Civil War, soldiers of the New Model Army were issued a book of Geneva selections called "The Soldiers' Bible" .[77] In the first half of the 17th century the Authorized Version is most commonly referred to as "The Bible without notes", thereby distinguishing it from the Geneva "Bible with notes". There were several printings of the Authorized Version in Amsterdam – one as late as 1715 [78] which combined the Authorized Version translation text with the Geneva marginal notes;[79] one such edition was printed in London in 1649. During the Commonwealth a commission was established by Parliament to recommend a revision of the Authorized Version with acceptably Protestant explanatory notes,[76] but the project was abandoned when it became clear that these would be nearly double the bulk of the Bible text. After the English Restoration, the Geneva Bible was held to be politically suspect and a reminder of the repudiated Puritan era. Furthermore, disputes over the lucrative rights to print the Authorized Version dragged on through the 17th century, so none of the printers involved saw any commercial advantage in marketing a rival translation. The Authorized Version became the only current version circulating among English speaking people.
A small minority of critical scholars were slow to accept the latest translation. Hugh Broughton, the most highly regarded English Hebraist of his time (but who had been excluded from the panel of translators because of his utterly uncongenial temperament), issued in 1611 a total condemnation of the new version,[80] criticizing especially the translators' rejection of word-for-word equivalence and stated that "he would rather be torn in pieces by wild horses than that this abominable translation (KJV) should ever be foisted upon the English people".[81] Walton's London Polyglot of 1657 disregards the Authorized Version (and indeed the English Language) entirely.[82] Walton's reference text throughout is the Vulgate. The Vulgate Latin is also found as the standard text of scripture in Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan of 1651,[83] indeed Hobbes gives Vulgate chapter and verse numbers (e.g., Job 41:24, not Job 41:33) for his head text. In Chapter 35: 'The Signification in Scripture of Kingdom of God' , Hobbes discusses Exodus 19:5, first in his own translation of the 'Vulgar Latin' , and then subsequently as found in the versions he terms "...the English translation made in the beginning of the reign of King James", and "The Geneva French" (i.e. Olivétan). Hobbes advances detailed critical arguments why the Vulgate rendering is to be preferred. For most of the 17th century the assumption remained that, while it had been of vital importance to provide the scriptures in the vernacular for ordinary people, nevertheless for those with sufficient education to do so, Biblical study was best undertaken within the international common medium of Latin. It was only in 1700 that modern bilingual Bibles appeared in which the Authorized Version was compared with counterpart Dutch and French Protestant vernacular Bibles.[84]
In consequence of the continual disputes over printing privileges, successive printings of the Authorized Version were notably less careful than the 1611 edition had been – compositors freely varying spelling, capitalization and punctuation[85] – and also, over the years, introducing about 1,500 misprints (some of which, like the omission of "not" from the commandment "Thou shalt not commit adultery" in the "Wicked Bible",[86] became notorious). The two Cambridge editions of 1629 and 1638 attempted to restore the proper text – while introducing over 200 revisions of the original translators' work, chiefly by incorporating into the main text a more literal reading originally presented as a marginal note.[87] A more thoroughly corrected edition was proposed following the Restoration, in conjunction with the revised 1662 Book of Common Prayer, but Parliament then decided against it.
By the first half of the 18th century, the Authorized Version was effectively unchallenged as the sole English translation in current use in Protestant churches,[8] and was so dominant that the Roman Catholic Church in England issued in 1750 a revision of the 1610 Douay-Rheims Bible by Richard Challoner that was very much closer to the Authorized Version than to the original.[88] However, general standards of spelling, punctuation, typesetting, capitalization and grammar had changed radically in the 100 years since the first edition of the Authorized Version, and all printers in the market were introducing continual piecemeal changes to their Bible texts to bring them into line with current practice – and with public expectations of standardized spelling and grammatical construction.[89]
Over the course of the 18th century, the Authorized Version supplanted the Hebrew, Greek and the Latin Vulgate as the standard version of scripture for English speaking scholars and divines, and indeed came to be regarded by some as an inspired text in itself – so much so that any challenge to its readings or textual base came to be regarded by many as an assault on Holy Scripture.[90] This has been contemptuously labelled "AVolatry", a play on the name "Authorized Version" (AV) and idolatry.[91]
By the mid-18th century the wide variation in the various modernized printed texts of the Authorized Version, combined with the notorious accumulation of misprints, had reached the proportion of a scandal, and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge both sought to produce an updated standard text. First of the two was the Cambridge edition of 1760, the culmination of twenty-years work by Francis Sawyer Parris,[92] who died in May of that year. This 1760 edition was reprinted without change in 1762 [93] and in John Baskerville's fine folio edition of 1763.[94] This was effectively superseded by the 1769 Oxford edition, edited by Benjamin Blayney,[95] though with comparatively few changes from Parris's edition; but which became the Oxford standard text, and is reproduced almost unchanged in most current printings.[96] Parris and Blayney sought consistently to remove those elements of the 1611 and subsequent editions that they believed were due to the vagaries of printers, while incorporating most of the revised readings of the Cambridge editions of 1629 and 1638, and each also introducing a few improved readings of their own. They undertook the mammoth task of standardizing the wide variation in punctuation and spelling of the original, making many thousands of minor changes to the text; although some of these updates appear to alter the ostensible sense – as when the original text of Genesis 2:21 "in stead" ("in that place") was standardized to read "instead" ("as an alternative"). In addition, Blayney and Parris thoroughly revised and greatly extended the italicization of "supplied" words not found in the original languages by cross-checking against the presumed source texts. Blayney seems to have worked from the 1550 Stephanus edition of the Textus Receptus, rather than the later editions of Beza that the translators of the 1611 New Testament had favoured; accordingly the current Oxford standard text alters around a dozen italicizations where Beza and Stephanus differ.[97] Like the 1611 edition, the 1769 Oxford edition included the Apocrypha, although Blayney tended to remove cross-references to the Books of the Apocrypha from the margins of their Old and New Testaments wherever these had been provided by the original translators. Altogether, Blayney's 1769 text differed from the 1611 text in around 24,000 places.[98] Since that date, a few further changes have been introduced to the Oxford standard text. The Oxford University Press paperback edition of the "Authorized King James Version" provides Oxford's standard text, and also includes the prefatory section "The Translators to the Reader".[99]
The 1611 and 1769 texts of the first three verses from I Corinthians 13 are given below, respectively.
1. Though I speake with the tongues of men & of Angels, and haue not charity, I am become as sounding brasse or a tinkling cymbal. 2 And though I haue the gift of prophesie, and vnderstand all mysteries and all knowledge: and though I haue all faith, so that I could remooue mountaines, and haue no charitie, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestowe all my goods to feede the poore, and though I giue my body to bee burned, and haue not charitie, it profiteth me nothing.
1. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
There are a number of superficial edits in these three verses: eleven changes of spelling, sixteen changes of typesetting (including the changed conventions for the use of u and v), three changes of punctuation, and one variant text – where "not charity" is substituted for "no charity" in verse two, in the erroneous belief that the original reading was a misprint.
A particular verse for which Blayney's 1769 text differs from Parris's 1760 version is Matthew 5:13, where Parris (1760) has
Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be troden under foot of men.
Blayney (1769) changes 'lost his savour' to 'lost its savour', and troden to trodden.
For a period, Cambridge continued to issue Bibles using the Parris text, but the market demand for absolute standardization was now such that they eventually adapted Blayney's work, but omitted some of the idiosyncratic Oxford spellings. By the mid-19th century, almost all printings of the Authorized Version were derived from the 1769 Oxford text – increasingly without Blayney's variant notes and cross references, and commonly excluding the Apocrypha.[100] One exception to this was a scrupulous original-spelling, page-for-page, and line-for-line reprint of the 1611 edition (including all chapter headings, marginalia, and original italicization, but with Roman type substituted for the black letter of the original), published by Oxford in 1833.[c] Another important exception was the 1873 Cambridge Paragraph Bible, thoroughly revised, modernized and re-edited by F. H. A. Scrivener, who for the first time consistently identified the source texts underlying the 1611 translation and its marginal notes.[102] Scrivener, like Blayney, opted to revise the translation where he considered the judgement of the 1611 translators had been faulty.[103] In 2005, Cambridge University Press released its New Cambridge Paragraph Bible with Apocrypha, edited by David Norton, which followed in the spirit of Scrivener's work, attempting to bring spelling to present-day standards. Norton also innovated with the introduction of quotation marks, while returning to a hypothetical 1611 text, so far as possible, to the wording used by its translators, especially in the light of the re-emphasis on some of their draft documents.[104] This text has been issued in paperback by Penguin books.[105]
From the early nineteenth century the Authorized Version has remained almost completely unchanged – and since, due to advances in printing technology, it could now be produced in very large editions for mass sale, it established complete dominance in public and ecclesiastical use in the English-speaking Protestant world. Academic debate through that century, however, increasingly reflected concerns about the Authorized Version shared by some scholars: (a) that subsequent study in oriental languages suggested a need to revise the translation of the Hebrew Bible – both in terms of specific vocabulary, and also in distinguishing descriptive terms from proper names; (b) that the Authorized Version was unsatisfactory in translating the same Greek words and phrases into different English, especially where parallel passages are found in the synoptic gospels; and (c) in the light of subsequent ancient manuscript discoveries, the New Testament translation base of the Greek Textus Receptus could no longer be considered to be the best representation of the original text.[106]
Responding to these concerns, the Convocation of Canterbury resolved in 1870 to undertake a revision of the text of the Authorized Version, intending to retain the original text "except where in the judgement of competent scholars such a change is necessary". The resulting revision was issued as the Revised Version in 1881 (New Testament), 1885 (Old Testament) and 1894 (Apocrypha); but, although it sold widely, the revision did not find popular favour, and it was only reluctantly in 1899 that Convocation approved it for reading in churches.[107]
By the early twentieth century, editing had been completed in Cambridge's text, with at least 6 new changes since 1769, and the reversing of at least 30 of the standard Oxford readings. The distinct Cambridge text was printed in the millions, and after the Second World War "the unchanging steadiness of the KJB was a huge asset."[108] The Cambridge edition is preferred by scholars.[109]
The Authorized Version maintained its effective dominance throughout the first half of the 20th century. New translations in the second half of the 20th century displaced its 250 years of dominance (roughly 1700 to 1950),[110] but groups do exist – sometimes termed the King James Only movement – that distrust anything not in agreement with ("that changes") the Authorized Version.[111]
F. H. A. Scrivener and D. Norton have both written in detail on editorial variations which have occurred through the history of the publishing of the Authorized Version from 1611 to 1769. In the 19th century, there were effectively three main guardians of the text. Norton identified five variations among the Oxford, Cambridge and London (Eyre and Spottiswoode) texts of 1857, such as the spelling of "farther" or "further" at Matthew 26:39.[112]
In the 20th century, variation between the editions was reduced to comparing the Cambridge to the Oxford. Distinctly identified Cambridge readings included "or Sheba" (Joshua 19:2), "sin" (2 Chronicles 33:19), "clifts" (Job 30:6), "vapour" (Psalm 148:8), "flieth" (Nahum 3:16), "further" (Matthew 26:39) and a number of other references. In effect the Cambridge was considered the current text in comparison to the Oxford.[113] These are instances where both Oxford and Cambridge have now diverged from Blayney's 1769 Edition. The distinctions between the Oxford and Cambridge editions have been a major point in the Bible version debate,[109] and a potential theological issue,[114] particularly in regard to the identification of the Pure Cambridge Edition.[115]
Cambridge University Press introduced a change at 1 John 5:8 in 1985, reversing its longstanding tradition of printing the word "spirit" in lower case by using a capital letter "S".[116] At the time, Anabaptist pastor Daniel Mack Hardin of Bedford, Pennsylvania had been discussing supposed typographical errors in the Cambridge Bible with another Anabaptist minister, R.M. McRae. One of their discussions centered upon the lower case "s" in 1 John 5:8. Rev. Hardin wrote a letter to Cambridge inquiring about this verse, and subsequently received a reply from Dr. Cooper on June 3, 1985, admitting that it was a "matter of some embarrassment regarding the lower case 's' in Spirit".
Like Tyndale's translation and the Geneva Bible, the Authorized Version was translated primarily from Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic texts, although with secondary reference both to the Latin Vulgate, and to more recent scholarly Latin versions; two books of the Apocrypha were translated from a Latin source. Following the example of the Geneva Bible, words implied but not actually in the original source were distinguished by being printed in distinct type (albeit inconsistently), but otherwise the translators explicitly rejected word-for-word equivalence.[117] F.F Bruce gives an example from Romans Chapter 5:[118]
2 By whom also wee have accesse by faith, into this grace wherein wee stand, and rejoyce in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not onely so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience:
The English terms "rejoice" and "glory" stand for the same word in the Greek original. In Tyndale, Geneva and the Bishops' Bibles, both instances are translated "rejoice". In the Douay – Rheims New Testament, both are translated "glory". Only in the Authorized Version does the translation vary between the two verses.
In obedience to their instructions, the translators provided no marginal interpretation of the text, but in some 8,500 places a marginal note offers an alternative English wording.[119] The majority of these notes offer a more literal rendering of the original (introduced as "Heb", "Chal", "Gr" or "Lat"), but others indicate a variant reading of the source text (introduced by "or"). Some of the annotated variants derive from alternative editions in the original languages, or from variant forms quoted in the fathers. More commonly, though, they indicate a difference between the original language reading and that in the translators' preferred recent Latin versions: Tremellius for the Old Testament, Junius for the Apocrypha, and Beza for the New Testament.[120] A few more extensive notes clarify Biblical names, units of measurement or currency, and in a very few places (e.g. Luke 17:36) record that a verse is absent from most Greek manuscripts. Modern reprintings rarely reproduce these annotated variants – although they are to be found in the New Cambridge Paragraph Bible. In addition, there were originally some 9,000 scriptural cross-references, in which one text was related to another. Such cross-references had long been common in Latin Bibles, and most of those in the Authorized Version were copied unaltered from this Latin tradition. Consequently the early editions of the KJV retain many Vulgate verse references – e.g. in the numbering of the Psalms.[121] At the head of each chapter, the translators provided a short précis of its contents, with verse numbers; these are rarely included in complete form in modern editions.
In the Old Testament the translators render the Tetragrammaton YHWH by "the LORD" (in later editions in small capitals as LORD),[d] or "the LORD God" (for YHWH Elohim, יהוה אלהים),[e] except in four places by "IEHOVAH" (Exodus 6:3, Psalm 83:18, Isaiah 12:2 and Isaiah 26:4) and three times in a combination form. (Genesis 22:14, Exodus 17:15, Judges 6:24) However, if the Tetragrammaton occurs with the Hebrew word adonai (Lord) then it is rendered not as the "Lord LORD" but as the "Lord God". (Psalm 73:28,etc.) In later editions as "Lord GOD" with "GOD" in small capitals indicating to the reader that God's name appears in the original Hebrew.
For their Old Testament, the translators used a text originating in the editions of the Hebrew Rabbinic Bible by Daniel Bomberg (1524/5),[122] but adjusted this to conform to the Greek LXX or Latin Vulgate in passages to which Christian tradition had attached a Christological interpretation.[123] For example, the Septuagint reading "They pierced my hands and my feet" was used in Psalm 22:16 (vs. the Masoretes' reading of the Hebrew "like lions my hands and feet"[124]). Otherwise, however, the Authorized Version is closer to the Hebrew tradition than any previous English translation – especially in making use of the rabbinic commentaries, such as Kimhi, in elucidating obscure passages in the Masoretic Text;[125] earlier versions had been more likely to adopt LXX or Vulgate readings in such places.
For their New Testament, the translators chiefly used the 1598 and 1588/89 Greek editions of Theodore Beza,[126] which also present Beza's Latin version of the Greek and Stephanus's edition of the Latin Vulgate. Both of these versions were extensively referred to, as the translators conducted all discussions amongst themselves in Latin. F.H.A. Scrivener identifies 190 readings where the Authorized Version translators depart from Beza's Greek text, generally in maintaining the wording of the Bishop's Bible and other earlier English translations.[127] In about half of these instances, the Authorized Version translators appear to follow the earlier 1550 Greek Textus Receptus of Stephanus. For the other half, Scrivener was usually able to find corresponding Greek readings in the editions of Erasmus, or in the Complutensian Polyglot. However, in several dozen readings he notes that no printed Greek text corresponds to the English of the Authorized Version, which in these places derives directly from the Vulgate.[128] For example, at John 10:16, the Authorized Version reads "one fold" (as did the Bishops' Bible, and the 16th century vernacular versions produced in Geneva), following the Latin Vulgate "unum ovile", whereas Tyndale had agreed more closely with the Greek, "one flocke" (μία ποίμνη). The Authorized Version New Testament owes much more to the Vulgate than does the Old Testament; still, at least 80% of the text is unaltered from Tyndale's translation.[129]
Unlike the rest of the Bible, the translators of the Apocrypha identified their source texts in their marginal notes.[130] From these it can be determined that the books of the Apocrypha were translated from the Septuagint – primarily, from the Greek Old Testament column in the Antwerp Polyglot – but with extensive reference to the counterpart Latin Vulgate text, and to Junius's Latin translation. The translators record references to the Sixtine Septuagint of 1587, which is substantially a printing of the Old Testament text from the Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209, and also to the 1518 Greek Septuagint edition of Aldus Manutius. They had, however, no Greek texts for 2 Esdras, or for the Prayer of Manasses, and Scrivener found that they here used an unidentified Latin manuscript.[130]
The translators appear to have otherwise made no first-hand study of ancient manuscript sources, even those that – like the Codex Bezae – would have been readily available to them.[131] In addition to all previous English versions (including, and contrary to their instructions,[132] the Rheimish New Testament[133] which in their preface they criticized); they made wide and eclectic use of all printed editions in the original languages then available, including the ancient Syriac New Testament printed with an interlinear Latin gloss in the Antwerp Polyglot of 1573.[134] In the preface the translators acknowledge consulting translations and commentaries in Chaldee, Hebrew, Syrian, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, and German.[135]
The translators took the Bishop's Bible as their source text, and where they departed from that in favour of another translation, this was most commonly the Geneva Bible. However, the degree to which readings from the Bishop's Bible survived into final text of the King James Bible varies greatly from company to company, as did the propensity of the King James translators to coin phrases of their own. John Bois's notes of the General Committee of Review show that they discussed readings derived from a wide variety of sources and versions, including explicitly both Henry Savile's 1610 edition of the works of John Chrysostom, and also the Rheims New Testament,[136] which was the primary source for many of the literal alternative readings provided for the marginal notes.
A number of Bible verses in the King James Version of the New Testament are not found in more recent Bible translations; where these are based on modern critical texts. In the early seventeenth century, the source Greek texts of the New Testament used for the production of Protestant bible versions depended mainly on manuscripts of the late Byzantine text-type, and with minor variations contained what became known as the Textus Receptus.[137] With the subsequent identification of much earlier manuscripts, most modern textual scholars value the evidence of manuscripts belonging to the Alexandrian family as better witnesses to the original text of the biblical authors,[138] without giving it, or any family, automatic preference.[139]
A primary concern of the translators was to produce a Bible that would be appropriate, dignified and resonant in public reading. Although the Authorized Version's written style is an important part of its influence on English, research has found only one verse – Hebrews 13:8 – for which translators debated the wording's literary merits. While they stated in the preface that they used stylistic variation, finding multiple English words or verbal forms in places where the original language employed repetition, in practice they also did the opposite; for example, 14 different Hebrew words were translated into the single English word "prince".[140]
In a period of rapid linguistic change the translators avoided contemporary idioms, tending instead towards forms that were already slightly archaic, like verily and it came to pass.[141] The pronouns thou/thee and ye/you are consistently used as singular and plural respectively, even though by this time you was often found as the singular in general English usage, especially when addressing a social superior (as is evidenced, for example, in Shakespeare).[142] For the possessive of the third person pronoun, the word its, first recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1598, is avoided.[143] The older his is usually employed, as for example at Matthew 5:13: "if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?";[143] in other places of it, thereof or bare it are found.[f] Another sign of linguistic conservativism is the invariable use of -eth for the third person singular present form of the verb, as at Matthew 2:13: "the Angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dreame". The rival ending -(e)s, as found in present-day English, was already widely used by this time (for example, it predominates over -eth in the plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe).[145] Furthermore, the translators preferred which to who or whom as the relative pronoun for persons, as in Genesis 13:5: "And Lot also which went with Abram, had flocks and heards, & tents"[146] although who(m) is also found.[g]
The Authorized Version is notably more Latinate than previous English versions,[132] especially the Geneva Bible. This results in part from the academic stylistic preferences of a number of the translators – several of whom admitted to being more comfortable writing in Latin than in English – but was also, in part, a consequence of the royal proscription against explanatory notes.[147] Hence, where the Geneva Bible might use a common English word – and gloss its particular application in a marginal note – the Authorized Version tends rather to prefer a technical term, frequently in Anglicized Latin. Consequently, although the King had instructed the translators to use the Bishops' Bible as a base text, the New Testament in particular owes much stylistically to the Catholic Rheims New Testament, whose translators had also been concerned to find English equivalents for Latin terminology.[148] In addition, the translators of the New Testament books habitually quote Old Testament names in the renderings familiar from the Vulgate Latin, rather than in their Hebrew forms (e.g. "Elias", "Jeremias" for "Elijah", "Jeremiah").
While the Authorized Version remains among the most widely sold, modern critical New Testament translations differ substantially from it in a number of passages, primarily because they rely on source manuscripts not then accessible to (or not then highly regarded by) early 17th-century Biblical scholarship.[149] In the Old Testament, there are also many differences from modern translations that are based not on manuscript differences, but on a different understanding of Ancient Hebrew vocabulary or grammar by the translators. For example, in modern translations it is clear that Job 28:1–11 is referring throughout to mining operations, which is not at all apparent from the text of the Authorized Version.[150]
The King James version contains several mistranslations; especially in the Old Testament where the knowledge of Hebrew and cognate languages was uncertain at the time. Most of these are minor and do not significantly change the meaning compared to the source material.[151] Among the most commonly cited errors is in the Hebrew of Job and Deuteronomy, where רֶאֵם "Re'em" with the probable meaning of "wild-ox, auroch", is translated in the KJV as "unicorn"; following in this the Vulgate unicornis and several medieval rabbinic commentators. The translators of the KJV note the alternative rendering, "rhinocerots" in the margin at Isaiah 34:7. Otherwise, the translators on several occasions mistakenly interpreted a Hebrew descriptive phrase as a proper name (or vice versa); as at 2 Samuel 1:18 where 'the Book of Jasher' סֵפֶר הַיׇּשׇׁר properly refers not to a work by an author of that name, but should rather be rendered as "the Book of the Upright".
Despite royal patronage and encouragement, there was never any overt mandate to use the new translation. It was not until 1661 that the Authorized Version replaced the Bishops Bible in the Epistle and Gospel lessons of the Book of Common Prayer, and it never did replace the older translation in the Psalter. In 1763 The Critical Review complained that "many false interpretations, ambiguous phrases, obsolete words and indelicate expressions...excite the derision of the scorner". Blayney's 1769 version, with its revised spelling and punctuation, helped to change the public perception of the Authorized Version to a masterpiece of the English language.[140] By the 19th century, F. W. Faber could say of the translation, "It lives on the ear, like music that can never be forgotten, like the sound of church bells, which the convert hardly knows how he can forego."[152]
The Authorized Version has been called "the most influential version of the most influential book in the world, in what is now its most influential language", "the most important book in English religion and culture", and "the most celebrated book in the English-speaking world". It has contributed 257 idioms to English, more than any other single source, including Shakespeare; examples include feet of clay and reap the whirlwind. Although the Authorized Version's former monopoly in the English-speaking world has diminished – for example, the Church of England recommends six other versions in addition to it – it is still the most popular translation in the United States, especially among Evangelicals.[140] In addition, in the Orthodox Church in America, the King James Version is used liturgically, and was made "the 'official' translation for a whole generation of American Orthodox". The later Service Book of the Antiochian Archdiocese, in vogue today, also uses the King James Version.[h] The King James Version is also one of the versions authorized to be used in the services of the Episcopal Church,[154] as it is the historical Bible of this Church.
The Authorized Version is in the public domain in most of the world. However, in the United Kingdom, the right to print, publish and distribute it is a Royal prerogative and the Crown licenses publishers to reproduce it under letters patent. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the letters patent are held by the Queen's Printer, and in Scotland by the Scottish Bible Board. The office of Queen's Printer has been associated with the right to reproduce the Bible for centuries, the earliest known reference coming in 1577. In the 18th century all surviving interests in the monopoly were bought out by John Baskett. The Baskett rights descended through a number of printers and, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Queen's Printer is now Cambridge University Press, who inherited the right when they took over the firm of Eyre & Spottiswoode in 1990.[155]
Other royal charters of similar antiquity grant Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press the right to produce the Authorized Version independently of the Queen's Printer. In Scotland the Authorized Version is published by Collins under licence from the Scottish Bible Board. The terms of the letters patent prohibit any other than the holders, or those authorized by the holders, from printing, publishing or importing the Authorized Version into the United Kingdom. The protection that the Authorized Version, and also the Book of Common Prayer, enjoy is the last remnant of the time when the Crown held a monopoly over all printing and publishing in the United Kingdom.[155] All provisions granting copyright in perpetuity were abolished by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, but because the Authorized Version is protected by royal prerogative rather than copyright, it will remain protected, as specified in CDPA s171(1)(b) .
Cambridge University Press permits the reproduction of at most 500 verses for "liturgical and non-commercial educational use" if their prescribed acknowledgement is included, the quoted verses do not exceed 25% of the publication quoting them and do not include a complete Bible book.[156] For use beyond this, the Press is willing to consider permission requested on a case-by-case basis and in 2011 a spokesman said the Press generally does not charge a fee but tries to ensure that a reputable source text is used.[157][158]
English-language Protestant Bibles in the 16th century included the books of the Apocrypha – generally in a separate section between the Old and New Testaments to indicate they were not part of the Old Testament text – and there is evidence that these were widely read as popular literature, especially in Puritan circles.[159][160] However, starting in 1630, volumes of the Geneva Bible were occasionally bound with the pages of the Apocrypha section excluded. In 1644 the Long Parliament forbade the reading of the Apocrypha in Church and in 1666 the first editions of the King James Bible without the Apocrypha were bound.[161]
The standardization of the text of the Authorized Version after 1769 together with the technological development of stereotype printing made it possible to produce Bibles in large-print runs at very low unit prices. For commercial and charitable publishers, editions of the Authorized Version without the Apocrypha reduced the cost, while having increased market appeal to non-Anglican Protestant readers.[162]
With the rise of the Bible societies, most editions have omitted the whole section of Apocryphal books.[163] The British and Foreign Bible Society withdrew subsidies for bible printing and dissemination in 1826, under the following resolution:
"That the funds of the Society be applied to the printing and circulation of the Canonical Books of Scripture, to the exclusion of those Books and parts of Books usually termed Apocryphal;"[164]
The American Bible Society adopted a similar policy. Both societies eventually reversed these policies in light of 20th century ecumenical efforts on translations, the ABS doing so in 1964 and the BFBS in 1966.[165]
The King James Only movement advocates the superiority of the King James Version of all other English translations. Most adherents of the movement believe that the Textus Receptus is very close, if not identical, to the original text. They argue that most modern English translations are based on a corrupted New Testament text that relies on the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. Some adherents also believe that the translation process itself was also inspired by God in some way.[166]
(11) 우리나라 최초 성경 완역은 1937년 공인개역 성경 등장
참고자료
(John Wycliffe)
출생 | 1330경, 영국 |
---|---|
사망 | 1384. 12. 31, 레스터셔 루터워스 |
최초로 영어 성경 완역을 추진했으며, 프로테스탄트 종교개혁의 선구자들 가운데 한 사람이었다. 옥스퍼드대학을 졸업하였다.
(12)Myles Coverdale
Myles Coverdale, first name also spelt Miles (1488 – 20 January 1569), was an English ecclesiastical reformer chiefly known as a Bible translator, preacher and, briefly, Bishop of Exeter (1551-1553).[1] Regarding his probable birth county, Daniell cites Bale, author of a sixteenth century scriptorium, giving it as Yorkshire.[1][note 1] Having studied philosophy and theology in Cambridge, Coverdale became an Augustinian friar and went to the house of his order, also in Cambridge. In 1514 John Underwood, a suffragan bishop and archdeacon of Norfolk, ordained him priest in Norwich. He was at the house of the Augustinians when in about 1520,[1] Robert Barnes returned from Louvain to become its prior. In 1535 Coverdale produced the first complete printed translation of the Bible into English.[2] He is also significant because during his long life, he experienced eight decades of crucial importance in religious history.[3](pp100 & 111) His theological development is a paradigm of the progress of the English Reformation from 1530 to 1552. By the time of his death, he had evolved into an early Puritan, affiliated to Calvin, yet still advocating the teachings of Augustine.
Coverdale studied at Cambridge, becoming bachelor of canon law in 1513.[1][note 2] He was ordained in Norwich in 1514 and entered the house of the Augustinian friars in Cambridge, where Robert Barnes had returned from Louvain to become its prior. This is thought to have been about 1520 - 1525.[1] According to Trueman,[4] Barnes returned to Cambridge in the early to mid-1520s. [note 3] At Louvain Barnes had studied under Erasmus and had developed humanist sympathies. In Cambridge, he read aloud to his students from St. Paul's epistles in translation and taught from classical authors.[1] This undoubtedly influenced them towards Reform. In February 1526, Coverdale was part of a group of friars that travelled from Cambridge to London to present the defence of their superior, after Barnes was summoned before Cardinal Wolsey.[1][4] Barnes had been arrested as a heretic after being accused of preaching Lutheran views in St Edward's Church, Cambridge on Christmas Eve. Coverdale is said to have acted as Barnes' secretary during the trial.[5] By the standards of the time, Barnes received relatively lenient treatment, being made to do public penance by carrying a faggot to Paul's Cross.[4] However on the 10 June 1539, Parliament passed the Act of Six Articles, marking a turning point in the progress of radical protestantism.[6](pp423–424) Barnes was burned at the stake on 30 July 1540, at Smithfield, along with two other reformers. Also executed that day were three Roman Catholics, who were hanged, drawn and quartered.
Coverdale probably met Thomas Cromwell some time before 1527. A letter survives showing that later, in 1531, he wrote to Cromwell, requesting his guidance on his behaviour and preaching; also stating his need for books.[1] By Lent 1528, he had left the Augustinians and, wearing simple garments, was preaching in Essex against transubstantiation, the worship of images, and the traditional form of confession. At that date, such views were very dangerous, for the future course of the religious revolution that began during the reign of Henry VIII was as yet very uncertain. Reforms, both of the type proposed by the Lollards, and those preached by Luther, were being pursued by a vigorous campaign against heresy.[6](pp379–380) Consequently, towards the end of 1528, Coverdale fled from England to the Continent of Europe.
From 1528 to 1535 Coverdale spent most of his time in continental Europe, mainly in Antwerp. Celia Hughes believes that upon arriving there, he rendered considerable assistance to William Tyndale in his revisions and partial completion of his English versions of the bible.[3](p100)[note 4] In 1531, Tyndale spoke to Stephen Vaughan of his poverty and the hardships of exile, although he was relatively safe in the English House in Antwerp, where the inhabitants supposedly enjoyed diplomatic immunity.[7] But in the spring of 1535 a "debauched and villainous young Englishman wanting money" named Henry Phillips insinuated himself into Tyndale's trust. Phillips had gambled away money from his father and had fled abroad. He promised the authorities of the Holy Roman Emperor that he would betray Tyndale for cash. On the morning of 21 May 1535, having arranged for the imperial officers to be ready, Phillips tricked Tyndale into leaving the English House, whereupon he was immediately seized. Tyndale languished in prison throughout the remainder of 1535 and despite attempts to have him released, organised by Cromwell through Thomas Poyntz at the English House, Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake in October 1536. Meanwhile Coverdale continued his work alone to produce what became the first complete English Bible in print, namely the Coverdale Bible. Not yet proficient in Hebrew or Greek, he used Latin, English and German sources plus the translations of Tyndale himself.
In 1534 Canterbury Convocation petitioned Henry VIII that the whole Bible might be translated into English. Consequently, in 1535, Coverdale dedicated this complete Bible to the King.[8] (p201) After much scholarly debate, it is now considered very probable that the place of printing of the Coverdale Bible was Antwerp.[1][9] The printing was financed by Jacobus van Meteren. The printing of the first edition was finished on 4 October 1535.[note 5] Coverdale based the text in part on Tyndale's translation of the New Testament (following Tyndale's November 1534 Antwerp edition) and of those books which were translated by Tyndale: the Pentateuch, and the book of Jonah. Other Old Testament Books he translated from the German of Luther and others.[note 6] Based on Coverdale's translation of the Book of Psalms in his 1535 bible, his later Psalter has remained in use in the Book of Common Prayer down to the present day.[note 7]
In 1537 the Matthew Bible was printed, also in Antwerp, at the expense of R. Grafton and E. Whitchurch who issued it in London.[8](p1058) It comprised Tyndale's Pentateuch; a version of Joshua 2 and Chronicles translated from the Hebrew, probably by Tyndale and not previously published; the remainder of the Old Testament from Coverdale; Tyndale's New Testament from 1535. It was dedicated to Henry VIII who licensed it for general reading. "Thomas Matthew" the supposed editor, was an alias for John Rogers.
The Matthew Bible was theologically controversial.[10] Furthermore it bore evidence of its origin from Tyndale. If Henry VIII had become aware of this, the position of Cromwell and Cranmer would have been precarious. Consequently in 1538 Coverdale was sent to Paris by Cromwell to superintend the printing of the planned "Great Bible". [note 8] François Regnault, who had supplied all English service books from 1519 to 1534, was selected as the printer because his typography was more sumptuous than that available in England.[1] According to Kenyon, the assent of the French king was obtained.[10] In May 1538 printing began. Nevertheless, a coalition of certain English bishops together with French theologians at the Sorbonne interfered with the operations and the Pope issued an edict that the English Bibles should be burned and the presses stopped. Some completed sheets were seized, but Coverdale rescued others, together with the type, transferring them to London.[note 9] Ultimately, the work was completed in London by Grafton and Whitchurch.[note 10]
Also in 1538, editions were published, both in Paris and in London, of a diglot (dual-language) New Testament. In this, Coverdale compared the Latin Vulgate text with his own English translation, in parallel columns on each page.[11][12][note 11]
An injunction was issued by Cromwell in September 1538, strengthening an earlier one that had been issued but widely ignored in 1536. This second injunction firmly declared opposition to "pilgrimages, feigned relics, or images, or any such superstitions" whilst correspondingly placing heavy emphasis on scripture as "the very lively word of God". Coverdale’s Great Bible was now almost ready for circulation and the injunction called for the use of "one book of the whole Bible of the largest volume" in every English church.[13][14] However at the time insufficient Great Bibles were actually printed in London so an edition of the Matthew Bible that had been re-edited by Coverdale started to be used.[note 12] The laity were also intended to learn other core items of worship in English, including the Creed, the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments.[6](p406)
In February 1539, Coverdale was in Newbury communicating with Thomas Cromwell.[15] The printing of the London edition of the Great Bible was in progress.[1] It was finally published in April of the same year.[16] John Winchcombe, son of “Jack O'Newbury”, a famous clothier, served as a confidential messenger to Coverdale who was performing an ecclesiastical visitation. Coverdale commended Winchcombe for his true heart towards the King's Highness and in 1540, Henry VIII granted to Winchcombe the manor of Bucklebury, a former demesne of Reading Abbey.[17] Also from Newbury, Coverdale reported to Cromwell via Winchcombe about breaches in the king's laws against papism, sought out churches in the district where the sanctity of Becket was still maintained, and arranged to burn primers and other church books which had not been altered to match the king's proceedings.
Sometime between 1535 and 1540 (the exact date(s) being uncertain), separate printings were made of Coverdale's translations into English of the psalms. These first versions of his psalm renditions were based mainly or completely upon his translation of the Book of Psalms in the 1535 Coverdale Bible.
In the final years of the decade, the conservative clerics, led by Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, were rapidly recovering their power and influence, opposing Cromwell's policies.[1] On the 28th of June 1539 the Act of Six Articles became law, ending official tolerance of religious reform. Cromwell was executed on 28 July 1540.[13] This was close to the date of the burning of Coverdale's Augustinian mentor Robert Barnes. Cromwell had protected Coverdale since at least 1527 and the latter was obliged to seek refuge again.
In April 1540 there was a second edition of the Great Bible, this time with a prologue by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. For this reason, the Great Bible is sometimes known as Cranmer’s Bible although he had no part in its translation. According to Kenyon,[10] there were seven editions in total, up until the end of 1541, with the later versions including some revisions.
Before leaving England, Coverdale married Elizabeth Macheson (d. 1565), a Scotswoman of noble family who had come to England with her sister and brother-in-law as religious exiles from Scotland.[1] They went first to Strasbourg, where they remained for about three years. He translated books from Latin and German and wrote an important defence of Barnes. This is regarded as his most significant reforming statement apart from his Bible prefaces. He received the degree of DTh from Tübingen and visited Denmark, where he wrote reforming tracts. In Strasbourg he befriended Conrad Hubert, Martin Bucer's secretary and a preacher at the church of St Thomas. Hubert was a native of Bergzabern (now Bad Bergzabern) in the duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken. In September 1543, on the recommendation of Hubert, Coverdale became assistant minister in Bergzabern as well as schoolmaster in the town's grammar school. During this period, he opposed Luther's attack on the Reformed view of the Lord's Supper. He also began to learn Hebrew, becoming competent in the language, as had been Tyndale.[1]
When he succeeded Henry VIII, [note 13] Edward VI (1547–53) was only 9 years old.[18] (entry title Edward VI) For most of his reign he was being educated, whilst his uncle, Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, acted as Lord Protector of the Realm and Governor of the King's Person. Immediately upon receiving these appointments he became Duke of Somerset. Coverdale did not immediately return to England, although the prospects looked better for him. Religious policy followed that of the chief ministers and during Edward's reign this moved towards Protestantism. However in March 1548 he wrote to John Calvin that he was now returning, after eight years of exile for his faith. He was well received at the court of the new monarch. He became a royal chaplain in Windsor, and was appointed almoner to the queen dowager, Catherine Parr.
On the 10 June 1549, the Prayer Book Rebellion broke out in Devon and Cornwall. There, Coverdale was directly involved in preaching and pacification attempts.[1] Recognising the continuing unpopularity of the Book of Common Prayer in such areas, the Act of Uniformity had been introduced, making the Latin liturgical rites unlawful from Whitsunday 1549 onward. The west-country rebels complained that the new English liturgy was "but lyke a Christmas game" - men and women should form separate files to receive communion, reminding them of country dancing.[19] The direct spark of rebellion occurred at Sampford Courtenay where, in attempting to enforce the orders, an altercation led to a death, with a proponent of the changes being run through with a pitchfork.[20] Unrest was said also to have been fuelled by several years of increasing social dissatisfaction.[21] Lord John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford was sent by the Lord Protector to put down the rapidly spreading rebellion and Coverdale accompanied him as chaplain. [note 14] The Battle of Sampford Courtenay effectively ended the rebellion by the end of August. However Coverdale remained in Devon for several more months, helping to pacify the people and doing the work that properly belonged to the Bishop of Exeter. The incumbent, John Vesey, was eighty-six, and had not stirred from Sutton Coldfield in Warwickshire, his birthplace and long-term residence.
Coverdale spent Easter 1551 in Oxford with the Florentine-born Augustinian reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli. At that time, Martyr was Regius Professor of divinity, belonging to Magdalen College.[8](p1267) He had been assisting Cranmer with a revision of the Anglican prayer book.[1] Coverdale attended Martyr's lectures on the Epistle to the Romans and Martyr called him a "a good man who in former years acted as parish minister in Germany" who now "labours greatly in Devon in preaching and explaining the Scriptures". He predicted that Coverdale would become Bishop of Exeter and this took place on the 14th of August 1551 when John Vesey was ejected from his see.[1]
Edward VI died of tuberculosis on the 6th of July 1553.[18](entry title Edward VI) Shortly before, he had attempted to deter a Roman Catholic revival by switching the succession from Mary daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon to Lady Jane Grey. However his settlement of the succession lasted barely a fortnight. After a brief struggle between the opposing factions, Mary was proclaimed Queen of England on the 19th of July. [note 15] The renewed danger to reformers such as Coverdale was obvious.[1] He was summoned almost immediately to appear before the Privy Council and on the 1st of September he was placed under house arrest in Exeter.[note 16] On the 18th of September, he was ejected from his see and Vesey, now ninety and still in Warwickshire, was reinstated. Following an intervention by his brother-in-law, chaplain to the king of Denmark, Coverdale and his wife were permitted to leave for that country. They then went on to Wesel, and finally back to Bergzabern.
On 24 October 1558, Coverdale received leave to settle in Geneva.[1] Commenting on his contribution to the Geneva Bible (the exact details of which are scarce), Daniell says: ″Although his Hebrew, and ... now his Greek, could not match the local scholars' skills, Coverdale would no doubt have special things to offer as one who nearly two dozen years before had first translated the whole Bible ... the only Englishman to have done so, and then revised it under royal authority for the successive editions of the Great Bible.″ On 29 November 1558 Coverdale stood godfather to John Knox's son. On 16 December he became an elder of the English church in Geneva, and participated in a reconciling letter from its leaders to other English churches on the continent.
In August 1559, Coverdale and his family returned to London, where they lodged with the Duchess of Suffolk, whom they had known at Wesel.[1] He was appointed as preacher and tutor to her children. He wrote to William Cole in Geneva, saying that the duchess had "like us, the greatest abhorrence of the ceremonies" (meaning the increasing reversion to the use of vestments).[note 17]
His stance on vestments was one of the reasons why he was not reinstated to his bishopric. However Hughes believes that it is likely that in his own opinion, he felt too elderly to undertake the responsibility properly.[3] From 1564 to 1566, he was rector of St Magnus the Martyr in the City of London near London Bridge. Coverdale’s first wife, Elizabeth, died early in September 1565, and was buried in St Michael Paternoster Royal, City of London, on the 8th. On the 7 April 1566 he married his second wife, Katherine, at the same church.[1] After the summer of 1566, when he had resigned his last living at St Magnus, Coverdale became popular in early Puritan circles, because of his quiet but firm stance against ceremonies and elaborate clerical dress.[3] On 20 January 1569, Coverdale died in London and was buried at St Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange. When that church was demolished in 1840 to make way for the new Royal Exchange, his remains were moved to St Magnus, where there is a tablet in his memory on the east wall, close to the altar.[1] T. S. Eliot described these church walls in part 3 of The Waste Land as having the inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold. Coverdale left no will and on the 23rd of January 1569 letters of administration were granted to his second wife, Katherine. Daniell says that it appears that he has no living descendants.
Coverdale's legacy has been far-reaching, especially that of his first complete English Bible of 1535. For the 400th anniversary of the Authorised King James Bible, in 2011, the Church of England issued a resolution, which was endorsed by the General Synod.[22] Starting with the Coverdale Bible, the text included a brief description of the continuing significance of the Authorised King James Bible (1611) and its immediate antecedents:
As indicated above, Coverdale was involved with the first four of the above. He was partially responsible for Matthew's Bible.[1][note 18] In addition to those mentioned above, he produced a diglot New Testament in 1538.[3](p101) He was extensively involved with editing and producing the Great Bible. He was also part of the group of "Geneva Exiles" who produced the Geneva Bible [1] - the edition preferred, some ninety-five years later, by Oliver Cromwell's army and his parliamentarians.
Coverdale's translation of the Psalms (based on Luther's version and the Latin Vulgate) have a particular importance in the history of the English Bible.[23] His translation is still used in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.[8] It is the most familiar translation for many in the Anglican Communion worldwide, particularly those in collegiate and cathedral churches.[24] Many musical settings of the psalms also make use of the Coverdale translation. For example Coverdale's renderings are used in Handel's Messiah, based on the Prayer Book Psalter rather than the King James Bible version. His translation of the Roman Canon is still used in some Anglican and Anglican Use Roman Catholic churches.
Less well known is Coverdale’s early involvement in hymn books. Celia Hughes believes that in the days of renewed biblical suppression after 1543, the most important work of Coverdale, apart from his principal Bible translation, was his “Ghostly Psalms and Spiritual Songs,” published in 1539.[3] This she calls “the first English hymn book” and “the only one until the publication of the collection by Sternhold and Hopkins.” (This was some twenty-six years later). Coverdale’s first three hymns are based on the Latin Veni Creator Spiritus, preceding its other English translations such as that of 1625 by Bishop J. Cosin by more than ninety years. [note 19] Coverdale intended his “godly songs” for “our young men … and our women spinning at the wheels.” Thus Hughes argues that he realised that for the less-privileged, his scriptural teaching could be learnt and retained more readily by song rather than by direct access to the Bible, which could often be prohibited.
Miles Coverdale was a man who was loved all his life for that ‘singular uprightness’ recorded on his tomb. He was always in demand as a preacher of the gospel. He was an assiduous bishop. He pressed forward with great work in the face of the complexities and adversities produced by official policies. His gift to posterity has been from his scholarship as a translator; from his steadily developing sense of English rhythms, spoken and sung; and from his incalculable shaping of the nation's moral and religious sense through the reading aloud in every parish from his ‘bible of the largest size’.
Coverdale is honoured, together with William Tyndale, with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on 6 October. His extensive contacts with English and Continental Reformers was integral to the development of successive versions of the bible in the English language.
(13) William Tyndale
William Tyndale (/ˈtɪndəl/; sometimes spelled Tynsdale, Tindall, Tindill, Tyndall; c. 1494–1536) was an English scholar who became a leading figure in Protestant reform in the years leading up to his execution. He is well known for his translation of the Bible into English. He was influenced by the work of Desiderius Erasmus, who made the Greek New Testament available in Europe, and by Martin Luther. While a number of partial translations had been made from the seventh century onward, the spread of Wycliffe's Bible resulted in a death sentence for any unlicensed possession of Scripture in English—even though translations in all other major European languages had been accomplished and made available. Tyndale's translation was the first English Bible to draw directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, the first English one to take advantage of the printing press, and first of the new English Bibles of the Reformation. It was taken to be a direct challenge to the hegemony of both the Church of England and the laws of England to maintain the church's position. In 1530, Tyndale also wrote The Practyse of Prelates, opposing Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon on the grounds that it contravened Scripture.
Reuchlin's Hebrew grammar was published in 1506. Tyndale worked in an age in which Greek was available to the European scholarly community for the first time in centuries. Erasmus compiled and edited Greek Scriptures into the Textus Receptus—ironically, to improve upon the Latin Vulgate—following the Renaissance-fueling Fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the dispersion of Greek-speaking intellectuals and texts into a Europe which previously had access to none. When a copy of The Obedience of a Christian Man fell into the hands of Henry VIII, the king found the rationale to break the Church in England from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534. In 1535 Tyndale was arrested and jailed in the castle of Vilvoorde (Filford) outside Brussels for over a year. In 1536 he was convicted of heresy and executed by strangulation, after which his body was burnt at the stake. His dying prayer that the King of England's eyes would be opened seemed to find its fulfillment just two years later with Henry's authorization of the Great Bible for the Church of England—which was largely Tyndale's own work. Hence, the Tyndale Bible, as it was known, continued to play a key role in spreading Reformation ideas across the English-speaking world and, eventually, to the British Empire. In 1611 the 54 scholars who produced the King James Bible drew significantly from Tyndale, as well as from translations that descended from his. One estimate suggests the New Testament in the King James Version is 83% Tyndale's and the Old Testament 76%.[7] With his translation of the Bible the first to be printed in English, and a model for subsequent English translations, in 2002, Tyndale was placed at number 26 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.
Tyndale was born at some time in the period 1484–1496 in Melksham Court, Stinchcombe, a village near Dursley, Gloucestershire. The Tyndale family also went by the name Hychyns (Hitchins), and it was as William Hychyns that Tyndale was enrolled at Magdalen Hall, Oxford. Tyndale's family had moved to Gloucestershire at some point in the 15th century, probably as a result of the Wars of the Roses. The family derived from Northumberland via East Anglia. Tyndale's brother, Edward, was receiver to the lands of Lord Berkeley as attested to in a letter by Bishop Stokesley of London.[10] Tyndale is recorded in two genealogies[11][12] as having been the brother of Sir William Tyndale, of Deane, Northumberland, and Hockwald, Norfolk, who was knighted at the marriage of Arthur, Prince of Wales to Catherine of Aragon. Tyndale's family was thus derived from Baron Adam de Tyndale, a tenant-in-chief of Henry I (see Tyndall). William Tyndale's niece, Margaret Tyndale, was married to the Protestant martyr Rowland Taylor, burnt during the Marian Persecutions.[citation needed]
Tyndale began a Bachelor of Arts degree at Magdalen Hall (later Hertford College) of Oxford University in 1506 and received his B.A. in 1512; the same year becoming a subdeacon. He was made Master of Arts in July 1515 and was held to be a man of virtuous disposition, leading an unblemished life.[13] The M.A. allowed him to start studying theology, but the official course did not include the systematic study of Scripture. As Tyndale later complained:
They have ordained that no man shall look on the Scripture, until he be noselled in heathen learning eight or nine years and armed with false principles, with which he is clean shut out of the understanding of the Scripture.
A gifted linguist, over the years he became fluent in French, Greek, Hebrew, German, Italian, Latin, and Spanish, in addition to English.[14] Between 1517 and 1521, he went to the University of Cambridge. Erasmus had been the leading teacher of Greek there from August 1511 to January 1512, but not during Tyndale's time at the university.[15]
Tyndale became chaplain at the home of Sir John Walsh at Little Sodbury and tutor to his children around 1521. His opinions proved controversial to fellow clergymen, and the next year he was summoned before John Bell, the Chancellor of the Diocese of Worcester, although no formal charges were laid at the time.[16] After the harsh meeting with Bell and other church leaders, and near the end of Tyndale's time at Little Sodbury, John Foxe describes an argument with a "learned" but "blasphemous" clergyman, who had asserted to Tyndale that, "We had better be without God's laws than the Pope's." Tyndale responded: "I defy the Pope, and all his laws; and if God spares my life, ere many years, I will cause the boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost!"[17][18]
Tyndale left for London in 1523 to seek permission to translate the Bible into English. He requested help from Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall, a well-known classicist who had praised Erasmus after working together with him on a Greek New Testament. The bishop, however, declined to extend his patronage, telling Tyndale he had no room for him in his household.[19] Tyndale preached and studied "at his book" in London for some time, relying on the help of a cloth merchant, Humphrey Monmouth. During this time he lectured widely, including at St Dunstan-in-the-West.
Tyndale left England and landed on continental Europe, perhaps at Hamburg, in the spring of 1524, possibly traveling on to Wittenberg. The entry of the name "Guillelmus Daltici ex Anglia" in the matriculation registers of the University of Wittenberg has been taken to be a Latinization of "William Tyndale from England".[20] At this time, possibly in Wittenberg, he began translating the New Testament, completing it in 1525 with assistance from Observant friar William Roy.
In 1525 publication of the work by Peter Quentell, in Cologne, was interrupted by the impact of anti-Lutheranism. A full edition of the New Testament was produced in 1526 by the printer Peter Schoeffer in Worms, a free imperial city then in the process of adopting Lutheranism.[21] More copies were soon printed in Antwerp. The book was smuggled into England and Scotland; it was condemned in October 1526 by Bishop Tunstall, who issued warnings to booksellers and had copies burned in public.[22] Marius notes that the "spectacle of the scriptures being put to the torch. . .provoked controversy even amongst the faithful."[22] Cardinal Wolsey condemned Tyndale as a heretic, first stated in open court in January 1529. From an entry in George Spalatin's Diary, for 11 August 1526, Tyndale apparently remained at Worms for about a year. It is not clear exactly when he moved to Antwerp. The colophon to Tyndale's translation of Genesis and the title pages of several pamphlets from this time purported to have been printed by Hans Luft at Marburg, but this is a false address: Hans Luft, the printer of Luther's books, never had a printing press at Marburg.[24]
It is possible that Tyndale intended to carry on his work from Hamburg in about 1529. He revised his New Testament and began translating the Old Testament and writing various treatises.
In 1530 he wrote The Practyse of Prelates, opposing Henry VIII's planned divorce from Catherine of Aragon in favour of Anne Boleyn on the grounds that it was unscriptural, and was a plot by Cardinal Wolsey to get Henry entangled in the papal courts of Pope Clement VII.[25] The king's wrath was aimed at Tyndale: Henry asked the Emperor Charles V to have the writer apprehended and returned to England under the terms of the Treaty of Cambrai; however, the Emperor responded that formal evidence was required before extradition.[26] Tyndale developed his case in An Answer unto Sir Thomas More's Dialogue.[27]
Eventually, Tyndale was betrayed by Henry Phillips [28] to the imperial authorities,[29] seized in Antwerp in 1535, and held in the castle of Vilvoorde (Filford) near Brussels.[30] He was tried on a charge of heresy in 1536 and condemned to be burned to death, despite Thomas Cromwell's intercession on his behalf. Tyndale "was strangled to death while tied at the stake, and then his dead body was burned".[31] His final words, spoken "at the stake with a fervent zeal, and a loud voice", were reported as "Lord! Open the King of England's eyes."[32] The traditional date of commemoration is 6 October, but records of Tyndale's imprisonment suggest the actual date of his execution might have been some weeks earlier.[33] Foxe gives 6 October as the date of commemoration (left-hand date column), but gives no date of death (right-hand date column).[30]
Within four years four English translations of the Bible were published in England at the King's behest,[a] including Henry's official Great Bible. All were based on Tyndale's work.
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