King James Bible at 400 900 Years of Getting the Bible into “English

Transcription

King James Bible at 400
900 Years of Getting the Bible into “English”:
An Illustrated Lecture
Joel F. Drinkard, Jr.
Lecture, 400th Anniversary Celebration
of the King James Bible
Campbellsville University
November 10, 2011
Introduction
The year 2011 marked the 400th anniversary of the
appearance of the King James Bible. This article looks back
briefly at 900 years of historical Bible copying and translating,
the 900 years before the King James Version, and how the Bible
came to be translated in English - into the English we have come
to know and understand. The quotation marks are around
“English” because the earliest English was the Anglo-Saxon
form of English before 1066 (the Norman conquest), which
looked very little like the English used today.
The English Bible most of my generation grew up with,
especially those of us raised in church, whether Baptist or other
Protestant churches, and those of us where the Bible was read
regularly in the home, was just one. To us “Bible” meant one
thing (and only one) - a King James Bible (usually a red letter
edition in which the words of Jesus were printed in red). It was
the Bible used from the pulpit by pastors, the Bible used by
Sunday School and Training Union teachers, and it was the only
acceptable Sword Drill Bible - always the King James Bible.
2
Campbellsville Review
Figure 1: Lower Right - The Bible given by my home church when I
was ordained for Gospel Ministry in August 1966 - 45 years ago.
Upper Right – My mother‟s Bible, which was the family Bible when I
was growing up. It was her mother‟s Bible originally, with all her
family births, marriages, and deaths recorded, first in my
grandmother‟s writing, then later in my mother‟s writing. Left – My
paternal grandparents‟ family Bible with many of the same records.
All three are King James Bibles.
This author is old enough to remember when a new
translation, the Revised Standard Version, was published in the
early 1950s. Many were incensed at this translation. In the
eastern part of my home state there were Bible burnings. A
number of copies of this new translation were burned in public to
express dissatisfaction over the new version.
And that is not the last time there was such a Bible
burning, nor the last new translation to be burned. Here is a 2009
news story:
3
North Carolina Church plans Halloween Bible Burning
Marc Grizzard, of Amazing Grace Baptist Church
in Canton, North Carolina, says that the first King James
translation of the Bible is the only true declaration of
God‟s word, and that all others are “satanic.”
Pastor Grizzard and fourteen other members of the
church plan to burn copies of the other “perversions” of
Scripture on Halloween, October 31, 2009. The New
Revised Version Bible, the American Standard Version
Bible, and even the New King James Version are all
pronounced to be works of the Devil by Pastor Grizzard
and his followers.
Pastor Grizzard said: “I believe the King James
version is God‟s preserved, inspired, inerrant, infallible
word of God… for English-speaking people. “We are
burning books that we believe to be Satanic.”
As well as inappropriate translations from the
original Hebrew and Aramaic, the pastor and his associates
will be burning books by various authors, as well as music
of every genre. “[We will be burning] books by a lot of
different authors who we consider heretics, such as Billy
Graham, Rick Warren… the list goes on and on,” Pastor
Grizzard told reporters. Mother Teresa is also on the list
of Satanic authors. The full list ia available at the
Amazing Grace Baptist Church‟s website.
Not all Canton residents are thrilled with the bonfire
of the profanities. Judy Kirby, a local, said: “I think some
of the newer versions make it easier for people to
understand.” The book-burning is hoped to be a social
event, with a barbecue laid on for attendees. It is not clear
whether the meat will be grilled over the heat of burning
Gospels.1
No doubt it would surprise Pastor Grizzard and his
congregation to know that there were similar responses to the
King James Bible when it first came out. Hugh Broughton, a
4
British Hebrew scholar contemporary with the King James
publication commented:
[the translation] bred in me a sadnes that will greeve me
while I breath. It is so ill done. Tell his Maiest. that I
would rather be rent in pieces with wilde horses then any
such translation by my consent should bee urged upon
poore Churches. . . . The new edition crosseth me, I
require it be burnt. [all spelling sic]2
It would also likely be quite a surprise for Pastor Grizzard
to learn that the King James Bible he uses is not the original
1611 translation, but a translation that has been itself updated,
revised, and, yes, even corrected numerous times. And he would
be even more surprised to learn that the King James Bible was
not an original translation, but a revision of earlier translations
that go back to the work of William Tyndale almost a century
before the King James Bible. It has been estimated that 80% of
the King James Bible follows the translation of Tyndale.3
The Bible in America
What was the first Bible brought to America? Most
probably think of the Pilgrims who arrived in 1620/21, settled
and built Plymouth colony. However, the Bible they brought
with them was not the King James Bible. It was the Geneva
Bible, and they brought three copies with them!4
But was that really the first Bible brought to America?
What about the Jamestown colony settled in 1607 in Virginia?
This colony also had strong religious convictions, but was
closely aligned with the established church rather than the freechurch Puritans and Pilgrims.
“In the original charter granted by King James to
the Virginia Company on April 10, 1606, the first
motivation to colonize the New World mentioned is to
spread the Christian religion … The leaders of the
Virginia Company were members of the Church of
England and brought the established religion with them to
5
Jamestown … Captain John Smith tells of the settlers
landing at Jamestown in 1607 and erecting a crude
temporary structure to use for church services. It was
made from a sail stretched among the boughs of trees,
sides of rails and benches made of unhewed tree trunks.
The altar was made by nailing a log to two neighboring
trees as a cross bar. Later that year, the settlers built the
first real church building. The settlers worshipped in it
until January 1608, when it was destroyed by fire. The
church was then rebuilt … This second version was
probably the church in which Ann Burras, one of the first
two women at Jamestown, was married later in 1608 and
where her newborn daughter, Virginia Laydon, was then
baptized. This may also have been the church in which
Pocahontas was baptized and was later married to John
Rolfe.”5
Since Jamestown was so closely tied to the Church of
England, its Bible would probably have been the Anglican Bible
of that day, either the Bishops‟ Version or the Great Bible (since
the King James Bible was not completed until 1611, four years
after Jamestown was settled). However, I am unable to find any
definitive word on which version was used.
But wait – was Jamestown the first colony? What about
Walter Raleigh‟s Roanoke Island Colony. It was first settled in
1585, abandoned in 1586, and re-settled in 1587. It clearly had
an Anglican priest. Its firstborn child, Virginia Dare, was
christened the first Sunday after her birth. They too would
probably have had the Bishops version or the Great Bible. It
took three years until 1590 before additional supplies could be
sent to Roanoke Island colony. When the ships brought the new
supplies, the colonists had disappeared – the Lost Colony.
But this writer has to ask one more time. Was the
Roanoke Island Colony the first in America? This is a little bit of
a trick question. It was the first English Colony. But what about
St. Augustine, settled in 1565 by the Spanish? Spanish colonies
in the New World regularly included Catholic priests for
converting the natives.
6
Having secured Spanish supremacy by defeating the
French and planting a permanent colony at St. Augustine
in 1565, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés tried to evangelize
the Indians. He had been accompanied by four priests.
Martin Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales
became the first parish priest of St. Augustine, the first
established parish in the United States. Pending the
arrival of regular missionaries, Menéndez appointed
soldiers he deemed qualified to give religious instructions
to the Indians.
The Jesuits were the first to arrive. Three were sent
by St. Francis Borgia in 1566 and ten in 1568.6
And their Bible was undoubtedly the Latin Vulgate. So the first
Bible brought to America would have been the Latin Vulgate the standard Bible of the Catholic Church since the 4th Century.
The Bible in England
This aside was to help us recognize that the Bible of the
Catholic Church, the Latin Vulgate was the first Bible in
America - and it was also the first Bible in England!7 And the
Vulgate and English translations of the Bible - or parts of the
Bible are intertwined for nearly 900 years before the King James
Bible was translated. Although there are a few scattered
examples of Biblical passages cited in earlier works, the first
evidence of a translation into English is in the Lindisfarne
Gospels. This elaborately illuminated manuscript was apparently
produced by Eadfrith, later Bishop of Lindisfarne in
Northumbria, around the end of the seventh century. The text of
the Lindisfarne Gospels was in the Latin of the Vulgate. In the
10th Century, Aldred, a priest, added an interlinear gloss, a
word-for-word translation of the Latin into the Anglo-Saxon (old
English) dialect of Northumbria.8 This is the oldest extant
translation of the Gospels into English. Figure 2 shows the first
words of Luke in Latin with the small interlinear words in old
English.9
Copies of the Vulgate or portions of the Vulgate were
available for those who could afford the luxury of a handwritten
7
book, and who could
read the Latin - a very
small minority in
medieval England. A
typical manuscript of
the Vulgate would
have looked like the
leaf pictured in Figure
3. It is a page from
Numbers 24 dated to
1247 and handwritten
in Paris. While not
fully illuminated, this
manuscript does show
common decorative
features of medieval
manuscripts.
Each
chapter is indicated
by Roman numerals
in the text; the first
word of each
Figure 2: Luke - Lindisfarne Gospels
chapter is capitalized.
Figure 4 is a leaf of an
illuminated manuscript of the Book of Psalms, dated to about
1450. It shows Psalm 7:4-9 from a Book of Hours. (Books of
Hours were common devotional works in the Medieval period
containing biblical texts, Psalms, and prayers recited by the
faithful.)
Few attempts were made to translate portions of the Bible
into English during the Medieval period. The Catholic Church
discouraged all vernacular translations. One significant factor
that brought lasting changes to the English language and culture
was the Norman Conquest in 1066.
8
Figure 3: Numbers 24 - Latin Vulgate (A.D. 1247)
The next major force in the translation of the Bible into
English was John Wycliffe. Wycliffe was an Oxford Scholar
who became Master of Balliol College and Warden of
Canterbury Hall. Wycliffe, aided by Nicholas of Hereford and
others, undertook a translation of the Bible into English from the
Latin Vulgate. The translation was the first complete English
9
Figure 4: Psalm 7 - Book of Hours (ca. 1450)
translation of the Bible. Wycliffe continued revising his
translation to make the English less literal to the Latin and more
readable until his death. The Church forbade one to possess or
read the English Bible and other vernacular translations. The
Church tried to locate and destroy every copy of Wycliffe‟s
translation. In 1428, 44 years after his death, on orders of the
Pope, Wycliffe‟s remains were exhumed and burned. Despite
this, Wycliffe‟s work was continued by John Purvey and others.
Remembering that every copy had to be handwritten, it is
remarkable that even today nearly 200 copies of the whole Bible
or some smaller portion of Wycliffe Bibles remain.10 (Currently
a website offers to try to locate for serious buyers a genuine
Wycliffe New Testament for $2,000,000 or more.11) Figure 5
shows a replica of the beginning of the Book of Acts from
Wycliffe‟s New Testament.
The invention of the printing press in 1440 by Johannes
Gutenberg revolutionized the availability of written material for
the populace. One of the first books printed (some pamphlets
were printed earlier) was the Bible - the Latin Vulgate. It was
completed in 1454. Figure 6 shows a replica page of the
introduction to the Gospel of John and the beginning of John
from the first edition, the 42-line printing.
10
Figure 5: Acts - Wycliffe New Testament (Replica)
Further to the east, another event occurred during this time
that influenced Western Bible translations almost as much as the
printing press. In 1453, the capital of the Byzantine Empire and
of the Orthodox Church, Constantinople, fell to the Turks. Many
scholars fled Constantinople before it fell and settled across
Western Europe. They brought with them the traditions of the
Eastern Church, and its reliance on the Greek Bible rather than
11
Latin. Greek was now re-introduced in the academy in Europe
and England. This new ingredient added significantly to the
Reformation movement already in process.
Erasmus of Rotterdam was one of the early Western
scholars to embrace the study of Greek. By 1516 Erasmus had
produced a New Testament containing the Greek and Latin in
parallel columns. Erasmus remained committed to Catholicism
though he lived through the early period of the Reformation. His
parallel New Testament was intended to be a critical edition,
based on the manuscripts available to him in both Latin and
Greek. His Latin version was not just a copy of the Vulgate, but
was his own translation and compilation from the manuscripts.
Figure 6: John - Gutenberg Bible (Replica)
12
Although not a true critical edition, his publication made the
Greek available to scholars producing vernacular translations.
Martin Luther used Erasmus‟ Greek as the basis for his German
translation and Tyndale used it for his English translation.
Figure 7 of Erasmus‟ text is from a compact disc of a facsimile
edition of his 1516 Greek-Latin New Testament.
Figure 7: New Testament - Erasmus' Greek-Latin 1516 (Photo of
facsimile edition)
13
Figure 8: Stephanus' Greek New Testament (1569)
One of the significant editions of the Greek New
Testament after Erasmus was that published by Robert
Stephanus in Paris in 1551. This edition became the basis of the
so-called “textus receptus.” The pages depicted in Figure 8 are
from the 1569 edition printed by his son Robert Stephanus, Jr.
Matthew 4-5 is shown including the Beatitudes. The “textus
receptus” was the primary Greek text used by the translators of
the Geneva Bible and the King James Bible.
Among the Hebrew materials available to 16th Century
translators would have been Jewish Torah Scrolls such as the
fragment of Genesis shown in Figure 9. (This scroll is only 300400 years old; too recent to have been used by 16th-Century
translators.) Figure 10 is a page of a Hebrew Bible also printed
by Robert Stephanus. This page shows Deuteronomy 4 from a
1544 edition printed by Robert Stephanus, Sr.
14
Figure 9: Jewish Torah Scroll - Genesis
Figure 10: Stephanus‟ Hebrew Bible – Deuteronomy 4 (1544)
Figure 11: Tyndale's New Testament, 1st edition (1526)
15
16
While Wycliffe did not work from original language texts
(Greek and Hebrew), Tyndale did. His translation of the New
Testament was the first English translation from the Greek rather
than the Latin. But in England, it was still a crime to translate
the Bible into English without Church or royal permission.
Tyndale fled to Europe and translated the New Testament by
1526 in Germany. He continued revising the New Testament
and completed the Old Testament Pentateuch in 1530. He was
betrayed and imprisoned in 1535 and martyred in 1536 before
completing the Old Testament. In a letter written from prison,
he asks that he be allowed to have his Hebrew Bible, grammar
and lexicon, clearly showing he used Hebrew materials in
translating the Old Testament.12 Figure 11 shows a photo of
Tyndale‟s first edition New Testament of 1526.
Tyndale‟s work was carried on and completed by several
followers, including Myles Coverdale and John Rogers.
Coverdale completed a translation of the complete Bible in 1535.
Because he was not proficient in Greek or Hebrew, Coverdale
relied primarily on Tyndale‟s version for the materials Tyndale
had completed. For the rest he used the Latin Vulgate and
Luther‟s German translation. In 1538, Coverdale published a
Latin-English diglot. His purpose was to show that his English
New Testament did not differ theologically from the Latin
Vulgate. However, this leaf from Colossians 1 has one of the
significant variants in Coverdale that incensed many Church
authorities (Figure 12). Coverdale translated the Greek ekklesia
in Colossians 1:18 as “congregation” rather than “Church.”
“Congregation” was a word favored by many of the free church
tradition; “church” was the traditional translation and the word
favored by Catholic and Anglican translators.
Rogers produced a complete translation of the Bible in
1537 under the pseudonym of Thomas Matthews.
The
translation was largely that of Tyndale and Coverdale with
numerous revisions of his own. The Matthews version shown in
Figure 13 was published in 1549. It was the first English
translation to receive royal license from Henry VIII. This
version could legally be printed and sold in England. However,
when the Catholic Mary I succeeded Edward VI as Queen in
1553, persecution of Protestants once again followed. Rogers
Figure 12: Coverdale Latin-English - Colossians 1 (1538)
17
18
Figure 13: Matthews Version – Psalm 90-92 (1549)
was the first martyr in 1555; a total of 280 were burned at stake
during her five-year reign.
Coverdale was also the leading figure in the production of
the “Great Bible” in 1539, a translation that also received Henry
19
VIII‟s license and the 1540 edition that contained Thomas
Cranmer‟s preface. The name “Great Bible” refers to its large
size, each page is 14 by 9 inches. Figure 14 of the Great Bible
shows 2 Kings 9-10 describing the death of Jezebel and the 70
sons of Ahab.
Figure 14: "Great Bible" - 2 Kings 9-10 (1540)
20
Figure 15: Geneva Bible - Genesis 3 (1599)
During the reign of Mary I, many Protestants fled to
Europe. A significant number settled in Geneva and came under
the influence of John Calvin. There they produced an English
translation that became extremely popular, the Geneva Bible,
also called the “Breeches Bible: from its translation of Genesis
3:7: “Then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew
they were naked; and they sewed figge tree leaves together, and
made themselves breeches.” The Geneva Bible became so
21
Figure 16: Geneva Bible – 1 Corinthians 13 (1581)
popular in part due to its compact size and its use of the very
readable roman type. Both features made it the first Bible
affordable to many lay people in England, rather than just the
wealthy. In addition, the marginal notes expressing Calvin‟s
theology was very popular among many Protestants. Figure 15
22
shows Genesis 3 from a 1599 edition and Figure 16 shows 1
Corinthians 13 from an earlier 1581 edition. Notable in 1
Corinthians 13 is the repeated translation of the Greek agape as
“love” as had been used also by Tyndale and Coverdale in the
Great Bible. The Geneva Bible was the Bible used by
Shakespeare, John Bunyan, John Milton, and John Donne, and
was the one brought to America by the Pilgrims.
The popularity of the Geneva Bible in England led
Anglican Church leaders to produce a new translation to be used
in churches which would be free from its Reformed doctrine,
especially evident in the notes. The result was the Bishops‟
Version, a large pulpit Bible that was to be placed in every
parish Church and Chapel. The Bishops‟ Version was largely a
revision of the Great Bible, but in a number of ways it followed
the Latin Vulgate rather than the Greek that Tyndale and
Coverdale had used for the New Testament. One clear example
of this is found in 1 Corinthians 13. The first edition of the
Bishops‟ Version printed in 1568 followed the Great Bible by
translating agape as “love.” But all subsequent editions
beginning in 1572 follow the Latin Vulgate, which uses caritas
consistently in 1 Corinthians 13. The later Bishops‟ Versions,
including the one pictured in Figure 17, a 1591 printing, translate
the Greek agape as “charitie,” a pattern also followed by the
King James Bible.
The Catholic community in England finally produced an
English translation of the New Testament in 1582, translated at
Rheims, France. This was followed by the Old Testament
translation at Douay, France in 1609. The Rheims New
Testament also translates the Greek agape of 1 Corinthians 13 as
“charitie.” Pictured in Figure 18 is the Rheims New Testament
from a Rheims-Bishops parallel New Testament published in
1601. The text shown has the account of the Last Supper from
Mark 14:22-26. The Rheims version is in the left column, the
Bishops version is on the right.
Figure 17: Bishop‟s Version – 1 Corinthians 13 (1591)
23
24
Figure 18: Rheims-Bishops Page - Mark 14:22-26 (1601)
25
This brings us to the King James Bible. In 1604, King
James I commissioned a team of nearly fifty scholars to produce
a new translation of the Bible. One significant factor in his
decision was the popularity of the Geneva Bible with its
Reformed-Calvinistic marginal notes. James I wanted a
translation free from such notes. The work was completed in
1611. Although about 80% of the new translation derived from
Tyndale, the King James Bible had a much more readable and
poetic quality. It was clearly intended to be read aloud and to be
preached. In many respects it is that poetic quality, a rhythmic
cadence of the spoken words that even today sets the King James
Bible apart from other more modern translations. Figure 19
shows a leaf from a 1611 edition of Zechariah 9. In this passage
we find the verse quoted in Matthew 21 on Palm Sunday from
Zechariah 9:9: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O
daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he
[is] just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and
upon a colt the foal of an ass.”
The King James Bible, even in the first edition, was not a
perfect translation. There were variant readings and even errors
in that first edition. Apparently multiple presses were used to
meet the demand to print sufficient copies for every church in
England, and sheets for each Bible came from many sources.
One notable variant in the 1611 printings is found in Ruth 3:15
giving the name to two Bibles as “He Bible” and “She Bible.”
The question becomes, which did the original translators intend
to say?:
14
And she lay at his feet until the morning: and she
rose up before one could know another. And he said, Let it
not be known that a woman came into the floor. 15Also he
said, Bring the vail that [thou hast] upon thee, and hold it.
And when she held it, he measured six [measures] of
barley, and laid [it] on her: and he/she went into the city.
16
And when she came to her mother in law, she said, Who
[art] thou, my daughter? And she told her all that the man
had done to her.
26
Figure 19: King James Bible - Zechariah 9 (1611)
The one edition reads “he went into the city,” the other
reads “she went into the city.” There is no consensus concerning
which translation the original translators adopted. On one hand
the context seems to favor “she” because “she” is the subject in
what follows. In addition, the Latin Vulgate reads “she.”
27
However, the primary Hebrew evidence supports “he.” Among
earlier English translations, one finds that the Matthews version,
Geneva Bible, and Bishops version all follow the Vulgate and
read “she went into the city.” Figure 20 is from a reprint of the
1611 “He” Bible published by Hendrickson Publishers. It shows
the passage from Ruth 3. Also, the 1630 Cambridge printing of
King James Bible reads “she went into the city” (Figure 21).
A couple of significant printing errors in the 1611 editions
of the King James Bible may be mentioned. The “She” Bible
reads at Matthew 26:36: “Then cometh Judas with them unto a
place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye
here, while I go and pray yonder.” The text should read “then
cometh Jesus.” Judas had already committed suicide by this
time. Another error is found in Exodus 14:10 in the 1611 edition
(Figure 22), which repeats 3 lines:
“And when Pharaoh drew nigh,
the children of Israel lift up their eyes,
and behold, the Egyptians marched after them, and they
were sore afraid: and
the children of Israel lift up their eyes,
and behold, the Egyptians marched after them, and they
were sore afraid: and
the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord.”
One other printing error of the 1611 “He” Bible is found at
Jeremiah 49:1 which reads:
“Concerning the Ammonites, thus sayth the Lord; Hath
Israel no sonnes? hath he no heire? Why then doth their
king inherit God, and his people dwell in his cities?”
The correct reading is: “Why then doth their king inherit
Gad...?” These two readings are seen in photos from the reprint
of the 1611 “He” Bible and the 1630 Cambridge edition.
28
Figure 20: "He" Bible - Ruth 3-4 (1611) (Photographic reprint)
Figure 21: Cambridge Edition - Ruth 3-4, Samuel 1 (1630)
29
Figure 22: "He" Bible - Exodus 13-14 (1611) (Photographic reprint)
The King James Bible did not receive full acceptance with
the general populace at first. For several decades the Geneva
Bible was still preferred by many, especially free church
Protestants. However with every passing decade, the King
James Bible became the dominant translation for the Englishspeaking world. And it has held that place for 400 years. For
over 250 years, few new English translations appeared. During
this same period, the King James Bible itself underwent many
revisions.
Seventeenth-century spelling was modernized;
grammar was updated. But the beauty of the language, the
poetic quality, the readability has remained and kept the King
James Bible a best-seller.
The last century witnessed an exponential growth of new
translations, paraphrases, and special editions of Bibles and
Bible portions. Today, there are literally hundreds of options for
English Bible editions in print, digital, and audio formats. If you
have a smart phone, or a tablet, there‟s an „app‟ for your favorite
Bible. With all these choices, the monopoly of the King James
Bible is in serious jeopardy. Many of the new translations offer
30
improved readings based on better Hebrew and Greek texts now
available. Others offer a more readable English prose that
focuses less on literal translation than on capturing the intention
of the original languages. Still others paraphrase the original
languages in colloquial English. They are simply new ways of
packaging “the old, old story.” So long as the new versions
communicate effectively the Gospel, “the old, old story,” “the
faith which was once delivered unto the saints,” we need not fear
these new Bibles. On a personal note, I find more and more in
my ministry, I am called upon to use the King James Bible
primarily at the funerals of those of my generation and older,
those for whom the King James Bible was the only Bible. Its
familiar words provide a source of strength and comfort to us. If
in the future the King James Bible is replaced as “the Bible” for
the English-speaking world, may its epitaph include its own
words:
“Well done thou good and faithful servant” (Matthew
25:21).
__________________________________
Bible Exhibit (Editor’s Note)
An exhibit of Bibles from Dr. Drinkard‟s personal
collection was displayed in Montgomery Library from
September 22 to December 1, 2011. Items exhibited were:
Leaf, Latin Bible, Paris, 1247
Leaf, Latin Bible, Venice, 1483
Leaf, Coverdale Latin-English, 1538
Matthew‟s Version, 1549
Beza, Greek, and Latin, 1565, Henricus Stephanus
Leaf, Bishop‟s Bible, first edition, 1568
Geneva Bible, 1599
Jewish Scroll, part of the book of Esther, between 200-300
years old
Bishop‟s Bible, 1591
Leaf, Great Bible, 1540
Leaf, Greek-German-Latin Bible, 1596
31
Bishops-Rheims Parallel Bible, 1601
Leaf, King James Psalter, 1612
Leaf, King James Bible, 1611, first edition
Endnotes
1
Tom Chives, “North Carolina Church Plans Halloween Bible
Burning,” The Telegraph, October 16, 2009
(www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/6346662/North-Carolina-churchplans-Halloween-Bible-burning.html; accessed January 18, 2012).
2
Hugh Broughton, “A Censure of the Late Translation for our
Churches, 1611,” found in Folger Shakespeare Library
(http://luna.folger.edu/luna/servlet/view/search;jsessionid=
84F594CF091BD5F13FF294139E9A4C3?
QuickSearchA=QuickSearch A&q=Broughton%2C+
Censure&sort=Call_Number%2C
Author%2CCD_Title%2CImprint&search=Search; accessed January
18, 2012).
3
Donald Brake, A Visual History of the English Bible (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker, 2008), 106, suggests “that 80 to 90 percent of the
King James Version is the direct expression of Tyndale.”
4
Philip C. Stine, “The King James Version Then and Now,”
Review & Expositor 103 n2 (Spring 2011), 204.
5
Archibald Andrews Marks, “Religion at Jamestown,” in
“Jamestown and Yorktown Settlement Victory Center” [Williamsburg,
Virgina] (http://historyisfun.org/pdf/backgroundessays/religionatjamestown.pdf; accessed January 18, 2012).
6
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Diocese_of_St._Augus
tine. Accessed 1/18/2012.
7
F. F. Bruce, History of the Bible in English, 3rd ed. (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 1.
8
Ibid., 7-8.
9
The manuscript is currently located in the British Library.
10
Henry Hargreaves, “IX. The Vernacular Scriptures 3. The
Wyciffite Versions,” in The Cambridge History of the Bible, Volume 2,
The West from the Fathers to the Reformation, ed. G. W. H. Lampe
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 388.
11
“Greatsite.com: World‟s Largest Dealer of Rare and Antique
Bibles” (www.greatsite.com/ancient-rare-bibles-books/platinum.html;
accessed January 18, 2012).
32
12
Herbert Gordon May, Our English Bible in the Making
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1952), 25. A photo-engraving of the
actual letter may be found as the frontispiece of William Tyndale’s Five
Books of Moses Called the Pentateuch Being a Verbatim Reprint of the
Edition of M.CCCCC.XXX (Fontwell, Sussex: Centaur Press, 1967).
_________________________
Photographic Credits:
All the Bibles and Bible pages displayed in this article were
photographed by the author from his own collection except for those
listed below:
Lindisfarne Gospels, Luke.
Located in the British Library. Public domain photo located
online at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lindisfarne_Gospels_folio
_139r.jpg [and]
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/illmanus/cottmanuc
oll/t/zoomify75396.html. (accessed January 18, 2012).
Erasmus‟ 1516 Latin-Greek New Testament.
Photo of page from a compact disc published by Reformed
Church Publications. Available at
www.reformedchurchpublications.org.
Tyndale 1526 New Testament
Located in the British Library. Public domain photo located
online at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tyndale_Bible__Gospel_of_John.jpg (accessed January 18, 2012).
King James Bible 1611
Ruth 3-4, Exodus 13-14 and Jeremiah 49 from the Hendrickson
Publishers reprint published in 2003. (I photographed these
pages from my copy of the Hendrickson edition.)

King James Bible at 400 900 Years of Getting the Bible into “English

Transcription

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