Monthly Archives: January 2010
The History of The English Bible Part 7: The Coverdale Bible 1535
Coverdale Bible 1535
Much was going on by 1535 as it relates to bible translation. The printing press with movable type had been perfected
King Henry VIII (1491-1547)
by Johann Gutenberg in 1454. Erasmus had printed his Greek New Testament in 1516. Stephanus and Beza had printed several editions of each of their Greek New testaments, and Tyndale had printed an English New Testament and much of the Old Testament. Then in 1534 King Henry the VIII became upset because his wife Katherine of Aragon had not given him a male heir to the throne. He asked the pope for a divorce and the pope refused to grant him one. So Henry left the Roman Catholic Church and made himself head of the Church of England. Then he granted himself a divorce from Katherine and married Ann Boleyn. Coincidentally Ann was not able to give him a male heir either.
All this made it a good time to be protestant and a good time for English bible translations. Myles Coverdale became a very important name in bible translation as he translated the Coverdale bible, The Great Bible, and helped prepare the Geneva bible. Coverdale went to Cambridge and studied under Robert Barnes. In 1528 he fled England due to persecution from Henry the VIII who was still part of the Roman Catholic Church. He met Tyndale and began working with him on the Pentateuch.
Coverdale himself admits that he was insufficient in Hebrew and Greek, but his passion for getting God’s word into
Myles Coverdale (1488-1569)
English led him to find other ways. After Tyndale’s death Coverdale used Latin and German bibles to complete what had not been completed by Tyndale. It was published as the Coverdale Bible in 1535. Myles included a dedication to Henry the VIII calling him a “better defender of the faith than the Pope himself”. So Henry had his advisors check the Coverdale Bible for errors and while they felt it was “saturated with problems” they could not point out any heresy so it was approved by Henry.
Coverdale separated the Apocrypha from the Old Testament and stated that it did not have divine authority as the rest of the bible did. The Coverdale Bible was reprinted twice in 1537 and once in 1550 and 1553.
John 3:16 The Coverdale Bible
For God so loued the worlde, that he gaue his onely sonne, that who so euer beleueth in hi, shulde not perishe, but haue euerlastinge life.
The Lord’s Prayer from The Coverdale bible Matthew 6:9-13
O oure father which art in heauen, halowed be thy name. Thy kyngdome come. Thy wyll be fulfilled vpon earth as it is in heauen. Geue vs this daye oure dayly bred. And forgeue vs oure dettes, as we also forgeue oure detters. And lede vs not in to teptacion: but delyuer vs from euell. For thyne is the kyngdome, and the power, and the glorye for euer. Amen. For yf ye forgeue other men their treaspases, youre heauenly father shall also forgeue you. But and ye wyll not forgeue me their trespases, nomore shall youre father forgeue you youre trespases.
page from Coverdale Bible 1535 (click to enlarge)
The Life You’ve Always Wanted Part 4
We will be doing session 4 this Sunday. It is about meditating on scripture and seeking God’s guidance. The Key points this week will be:
- God calls us to one thing in life- to pursue God’s kingdom and righteousness above all else.
- We need the holy spirit’s guidance in order to discover how to live as Jesus would live if He were in our place.
- Seeking God’s guidance is an intentional choice. It is not a passive avoidance of responsibility, a shortcut to making decisions or a way to escape risk.
John mentions some people who wrote about the prompting of the spirit. George Fox called it the Lord opening a truth to him. John Calvin referred to it as the “inner testimony” of the spirit and Saint Ignatius talked of movements of the soul. These still small voice moments can come in a sense of conviction of sin, assurance of God’s love or a call to action.
The reason we have such a hard time hearing God’s voice is that we have a “spiritual mindlessness”. We are not really listening, or are prepared to listen to God’s prompting. God may be speaking to you and guiding you without you even realizing it’s God’s guidance. God talked to Samuel and until Eli pointed it out he did not realize it was God(). Most people rarely seek God’s guidance until it’s big decision time. Then we are not really seeking God’s guidance as much as we want “insider information”. We want to know what choice will lead to our happiness.
To know if we are truly seeking God’s guidance we must ask the question, How often do I seek God’s guidance? Then start seeking guidance for the growth of our soul by asking:
The History of the English Bible Part 6: William Tyndale 1534
William Tyndale (1494-1536)
In May of 1524 William Tyndale fled England to spend the last twelve years of his life as a fugitive due to the fact that he felt everyman should be able to read the bible in their native tongue.In Hamburg, Germany he was able to start work translating Erasmus’ Greek New Testament into English. He carried it to be printed in 1525, but the church heard about it and forbade the printing. Tyndale headed to Worms, Germany to have his New Testament printed and in 1526 it was being smuggled back into England in cotton bales.
The Roman Catholic Church was very upset because it did not want the bible in English. The reasons being that (1)English is a rude and unworthy language to have God’s word translated into, (2)during the translation process errors can creep in, (3) with a translation that every man can read there will be personal interpretation which will lead to heresy, and (4)only priest have the divine grace of understanding the scriptures. The real reason though is that (5)certain doctrines will not hold up if people could read the bible for themselves. These doctrines like the priesthood, purgatory and penance were very important to the church, but they lacked biblical evidence. Several word choices in Tyndale’s translation, while more accurate, they challenged the RCC’s teaching. They did not like how he had translated the Greek word presbuteros as elder instead of priest. The word ekklesia as congregation instead of church. The word metanoeo as repent instead of do penance. The word exomologeo as admit instead of confess and agape as love instead of charity.
Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of London was enraged with the translation and publicly burned every copy he could get his hands on. He approached a London merchant by the name of Augustine Packard about purchasing copies from him.
Martyrdom of Tyndale 1536
Augustine then went to Tyndale and said that he had a buyer for all his remaining bibles. When Tyndale asked who Packard told him and the story goes that Tyndale said, “That’s because he wants to burn them.” Never the less Tyndale allowed them to be sold in order to finance his second edition.
The second edition came out in 1534 and contained the New Testament, the Pentateuch, Joshua through 2 Chronicles and Jonah. 9/10 of the New Testament in the King James of 1611came from the Tyndale translation as did 83% of the entire KJV. In 1535 Tyndale was betrayed by Henry Phillips. Phillips helped to have Tyndale kidnapped and sent to England for trial and to spend the last year of his life in prison. In October of 1536 Tyndale was led to the stake strangled and burnt. His last word were, “Lord, open the King of England’s Eyes.”
John 3:16 Tyndale Bible
For God so loveth the worlde yt he hath geven his only sonne that none that beleve in him shuld perisshe: but shuld have everlastinge lyfe.
The Lord’s Prayer from the Tyndale bible Matthew 6:9-13
Let thy kyngdome come. Thy wyll be fulfilled as well in erth as it ys in heven. Geve vs this daye oure dayly breede. And forgeve vs oure treaspases eve as we forgeve oure trespacers. And leade vs not into teptacion: but delyver vs fro evell. For thyne is ye kyngedome and ye power and ye glorye for ever. Amen. For and yf ye shall forgeve other men their treaspases youre hevenly father shall also forgeve you.
Page from Tyndale New Testament (click to enlarge)
The History of the English Bible Part 5: Textus Receptus
Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)
Today we are going to study the men who had a part in the formation of the Greek New
Robertus Stephanus (1503-1559)
Testament known as the “Textus Receptus” or “Received Text” In the early sixteenth century a Dutch man named Desiderius Erasmus decided to publish the first printed Greek New Testament. Using 5 Greek manuscripts and the Latin Vulgate he set to work. Erasmus transcribed from the Greek using the different manuscripts to compare and figure out what was the correct verse. Were he did not have manuscripts he translated back from the Vulgate. One such instance of this is the last six verses of Revelation. The single manuscript of Revelation he had was missing those verses. He printed his first edition in 1514 dedicating it to Pope Leo X in hopes that he would be forgiven for not getting the proper approval.
Theodore Beza (1519-1605)
It was called “Novum Instrumentum” or “the New Instrument” and contained parallel to the Greek a new Latin translation. Erasmus’ version quickly was attacked for what many felt were errors. One such error was the “Comma Johanneum” or Johannine Comma (1 John5:7-8 NIV, 1 John 5:7-8 KJV)(out of 5000 manuscripts with these verses only 5 contain the whole verse). He had left out a section of these verses and many asked why. He explained none of the Greek manuscripts contained these verses, so he felt they were added to the bible later. He also offered if anyone could come up with a manuscript that contained it he would add it. By his third revision, Codex Montfortianus showed up in Ireland. This was a suspected forgery since it came from an enemy of his but as he promised he included the verses in his third edition. Erasmus put out revision in 1516, 1519, and1522. Each of these contained annotations explaining why he chose certain words, added things or took away things that were not in the Vulgate.
After Erasmus Death Robertus Stephanus (1503-1559),also known as Robert Estienne took Erasmus’ work and further revised it in 1546, 1549, 1550,1551.
Theodore Beza (1519-1605) came next and created nine revisions. These works are what became the “Textus Receptus” and formed the basis for the KJV of 1611.
The Life You’ve Always Wanted Part 3
I’m behind on my writing about this small group session because I have had the flu and now I’m trying to avoid pneumonia as I get over bronchitis. It’s been a fun couple of weeks. I did not get to teach the last lesson as I felt my church didn’t want me to share the flu with them and this session also was taught by another deacon. Hopefully I’ll be up to full strength by the weekend though.
This third session focuses on the disciplines of prayer and confession. John starts off pointing out that most people save prayer for when they are desperate. When things get bad then we want to ask God for help.
John starts off by pointing us to Revelation 8:1-5. There is silence in heaven for half an hour as God and the angels listen to the prayers of the saints rising up in the incense. Then there is action taken based on the prayers. Our prayers are so important that they interrupt heaven.
Prayers change things and causes things to happen in Genesis 18:33 Abraham pleads with God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah. God relents and spares Lot and his daughters (Genesis 19:15) because of the prayers of Abraham. There is no way of knowing this side of heaven how many people you have helped with your prayers.
Jesus’ own life showed us a constant hunger for prayer and this led the disciples to asks him to teach them to pray(Luke 11:1). John recommends starting small with five minutes a day set aside at the same time in a quiet place of beauty. Jesus prayed early in quiet solitary places that were free of distractions. (Matthew 14:23, Matthew 26:36, Luke 5:16) Next he recommends preparing yourself with deep breathes and possibly repeating something like heavenly Father. Then we start with simple prayers. This is where you pray what is on your heart and he gives some examples of biblical people who prayed about what was on their hearts. Jesus prayed for daily bread (Matthew 6:11), Gideon prayed for proof that he could trust God (Judges 6:36-40), Moses complained about his job (Numbers 11:12), and Elisha complained about being called bald(2 Kings 2:23-24).
Next we need to be fully present to what the spirit says if your mind is wandering to wanting revenge on someone maybe God is trying to help you see something. Pray what your mind and heart wanders to. Then we move on to intercessory prayers. This is where we ask God to help someone. Just as Abraham had asked God to spare Lot. Prayer is talking with God. Just as a father loves to hear his children tell him what they are thinking God wants us to tell Him.
The second part of the third session is confession which should be a regular part of prayer. We have all sinned and we have to realize the stain of sin on our lives if we are to ever move past it. We must also confess to help relieve us of regret and guilt. Confession is not what God needs, it is what we need. It is a special gift where God can bestow His grace on us. Afterwards we will be liberated from guilt and less likely to sin in the same way.
We should let the spirit guide us in preparing to confess. As we think about thoughts, words and deeds we need to acknowledge our sin and take responsibility for it. That means not making excuses! Sin involves denial so we must ask the spirit for an honest perception of our sin so we can see the log that is in our eye. This involves asking two questions. Why did I do that and what happened as a result?
Confession should look not only at naming our sin but our intentions in the future. In David’s confessions he asked for a pure heart be given him. We need to use confession to see our sin as sin and decide what we are going to do about it. The burden of guilt is a type of Grace. The release of that burden is an even grater grace and that is what confession is for.
The History of the English Bible Part 4: John Wycliffe
John Wycliffe (1329-1384)
John Wycliffe was born in 1329 in Hipswell, Yorkshire. He eventually became a teacher at Oxford College, but made his livelihood as head of the church he served. The first being Fillingham and second being Lutterworth. Wycliffe was very concerned with growing corruption in the Roman Catholic Church, and often spoke out against it. He pushed for a more biblical Christianity opposing Catholic doctrines such as priest being intermediaries between God and man and transubstantiation (wine actually changing into the blood of Christ and bread actually changing into flesh during sacraments).
He believed that for a revival to happen people needed a bible in common language they could understand. At the time the Latin Vulgate was what was available. Wycliffe and what is believed to be a team of five translators begin translating the Vulgate into English. In 1380 the New Testament was put out in hand printed copies. In 1382 the entire bible was put out in hand printed copies. The lollards are “poor priests” as they were called hand copied and distributed these bibles. These led to an increase in literacy as now the bible could be read in peoples native tongue.
The Roman Catholic Church did not like the fact that people could now read the bible and interpret scriptures on their own. Persecution increased and in 1414 it became a capital offense to read the scriptures in English. Many Christians were burned with bibles hung around their necks. In 1428 Wycliffe’s body was exhumed and burnt for good measure.
I’m going to include bible verses from these next few translations I talk about. Keep in mind that the English language and spelling was not as it is today.
John 3:16 Wycliffe Bible
For God louede so the world, that he yaf his `oon bigetun sone, that ech man that bileueth in him perische not, but haue euerlastynge lijf.
If you would like to see the rest of this series click on the bible category and it will take you to a page where you can see them all.
The History of the English Bible Part 3: Jerome and the Vulgate
Saint Jerome 347-420 A.D.
Saint Jerome was baptized as a Christian about 360 A.D. In 373 he went to Asia and set aside secular studies to go into a deep study of the scriptures. Upon his return to Antioch he became the personal secretary of Pope Damasus I. In 382 the Pope commissioned him to do a revision of the Latin bible that was in use. It originally started out based on the Greek New Testament and Septuagint Old Testament. In 390 Jerome started using Hebrew manuscripts. He completed this sense-for-sense translation in 405 and spent the next 15 years writing commentaries on the bible. An interesting note on this translation is that while many were eagerly anticipating it some were bothered by his choice of some words. Not because they were inaccurate but that the priest were worried about offending the ears of the flocks because of the translation they were used to using. For example Augustine Bishop of Hippo was afraid that using the term Castor Oil Plant for Gourd in the book of Jonah would bother his congregation.
This translation was used for over a thousand years by the Roman Catholic Church. and we currently have over 8,000 manuscripts dating to the 5th and 6th centuries.
John 3:16 Latin Vulgate
sic enim dilexit Deus mundum ut Filium suum unigenitum daret ut omnis qui credit in eum non pereat sed habeat vitam aeternam
