The Old English Versions. Until the beginning of the 16th century, all Bible versions in the languages of the masses of Western Europe were based on the Latin Vulgate. Among these, the Old English versions are of special interest. Most of these versions consisted of only parts of the Bible, and even these had limited circulation. In this period few of the people of ancient England could read. Many of the familiar stories of the Bible were turned into verse and set to music so they could be sung and memorized.
Caedmon, the unlettered poet of Whitby, is said to have turned the whole history of salvation into song in the seventh century. Bede, the monk of Jarrow, the most learned man of his day in Western Europe, devoted the last ten days of his life to turning the gospels into English so they could be read by the common people.
Alfred the Great, king of a large part of southern and western England, defeated the Danish invaders in 878. He published a code of laws that was introduced by an Old English translation of the Ten Commandments and other brief passages from the Bible.
The parts of the Bible most favored for translating during this period were those often read or recited during worship services, especially the Psalms and the gospels. An Old English version of the Psalms by Bishop Aldhelm dates from soon after 700. A manuscript called the Wessex Gospels dates from the middle of the tenth century.
Some of the earliest Old English versions of Scripture were written between the lines of Latin-language manuscripts. The manuscript known as the Lindisfarne Gospels (now in the British Museum, London) was produced originally in Latin shortly before 700. Two and a half centuries later a priest named Aldred wrote between the lines of the text a literal translation in the Northumbrian dialect of Old English. Bible texts of this type, with some letters decorated in gold and silver, are known as illustrated manuscripts.
William Tyndale, shown seated in this painting, translates the New Testament into English—one of the first versions to be published in the language of the common people.
Wycliffe’s Versions. In the early Middle Ages, parts of the Bible were translated from Latin into several of the dialects of Western Europe. These included versions in the Bohemian, Czech, and Italian languages, as well as the Provencal dialect of southeastern France. But none of these compare in importance with the work of John Wycliffe, pioneering reformer who translated the entire Bible from Latin into the English language.
Wycliffe (c. 1330–1384), master of Balliol College, Oxford, was a distinguished scholar and preacher. But he was also a social reformer who wanted to replace the feudal organization of state and church with a system that emphasized people’s direct responsibility to God. The constitution of this new order would be the law of God, which Wycliffe equated with the Bible. Before this could happen, the law of God had to be accessible to the laity as well as the clergy, the unlearned as well as the learned. This called for a Bible in English as well as Latin, so Wycliffe and his associates undertook the task of translating the entire Bible from the Latin Vulgate into contemporary English.
There were actually two Wycliffe versions of the Bible—an earlier one, produced between 1380 and 1384 during Wycliffe’s lifetime, and a later version completed in 1395, 11 years after his death.
The earlier version is a thoroughly literal translation. Wycliffe followed the Latin construction without attempting to render the meaning into good English idiom. The translators produced a literal version because it was intended to serve as the lawbook of the new order. The Latin text of the lawbook was already established, and the English text had to follow it word for word. About two thirds of this version was produced by one of Wycliffe’s supporters, Nicholas of Hereford. Wycliffe himself may have done some of the translation work on the remaining portion. By the time this first translation was completed, the movement with which this English social reformer was associated was condemned by the authorities.
The second Wycliffe version was the work of his secretary, John Purvey. It was based on the earlier version, but it rendered the text into idiomatic English. Purvey’s version became very popular, although its circulation was restricted by church officials. It was suppressed in 1408 by a document known as the “Constitutions of Oxford,” which forbade anyone to translate or even to read any part of the Bible in English without the permission of a bishop or a local church council. These constitutions remained in force for more than a century.
From Wycliffe to King James. More than 200 years passed from the time that Wycliffe’s second English version was issued (1395) until the historic King James Version was published in 1611. These were fruitful years for new versions of the Bible. The stage was set for the monumental King James Bible by five different English translations that were issued during these years.
Tyndale—The years from about 1450 onward brought exciting cultural changes in Western Europe. The revival of interest in classical and biblical learning was already under way when it received a stimulus from the migration of Greek scholars to the West after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453. With the invention of printing in Germany, the promoters of the new learning found a new technology at their disposal.
Among the first products of the printing press were editions of the Bible. The first major work to be printed was the famous Gutenberg edition of the Latin Bible, in 1456. The following decades brought printed editions of the Hebrew Bible, the Greek New Testament, and the Septuagint. The leaders of the Protestant Reformation were quick to take advantage of this new invention to help advance their efforts in church reform.
Making the Bible available in the tongue of the common people was a major strategy in the Reformers’ policy. Martin Luther, leader of the Reformation, translated the New Testament from Greek into German in 1522 and the Old Testament from Hebrew into German the following years. What Luther did for the Germans, William Tyndale did for the people of England.
After completing his studies at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, William Tyndale (c. 1495–1536) devoted his time and talents to providing his fellow Englishmen with the Scriptures in their own language. He hoped that Bishop Tunstall of London would sponsor his project of translating the Bible, but the bishop refused to do so. Tyndale then went to Germany in 1524 to undertake his project. By August of 1525 his English New Testament was complete.
Tyndale began printing his new version at Cologne, but this was interrupted by the city authorities. The printing work was then carried through by Peter Schoeffer in Worms, who produced an edition of 6,000 copies. Soon this new Bible was selling in England, although it had been officially banned by the church.
Tyndale’s translation differed in two important respects from the versions of Wycliffe. It was rendered not from the Latin language but from the Greek original, and it circulated in printed form, not as a handcopied manuscript. From the New Testament, Tyndale moved to the Old, issuing an edition of the Pentateuch, then the Book of Jonah, and a revision of Genesis. Later, in 1534, Tyndale issued a revision of his New Testament, justly described as “altogether Tyndale’s noblest monument.”
A further revision of the New Testament appeared in 1535. In May of that year Tyndale was arrested. After an imprisonment of 17 months, he was sentenced to death as a heretic; he was strangled and burned at the stake at Vilvorde, near Brussels, on October 6, 1536.
Tyndale started a tradition in the history of the English Bible that has endured to this day. What is commonly called “Bible English” is really Tyndale’s English. His wording in those portions of the Bible which he translated was retained in the King James Version to a great degree. The latest in the succession of revisions that stand in the Tyndale tradition is the New King James Version. But even those versions that did not set out to adhere to his tradition, such as the New International Version, show his influence.
Coverdale and Matthew—At the time of Tyndale’s death, a printed edition of the English Bible, bearing a dedication to King Henry VIII, had been circulating in England for nearly a year. This was the first edition of the Bible issued by Miles Coverdale (1488–1568), one of Tyndale’s friends and associates. This English version reproduced Tyndale’s translation of the Pentateuch and the New Testament; the rest of the Old Testament was translated into English from Latin and German versions.
Coverdale’s Bible of 1535 was the first complete English Bible in print. A second and third edition appeared in 1537. The title page bore the words: “Set forth with the King’s most gracious licence.” But this was not the only English Bible to appear in 1537 with these words on the title page. Another of Tyndale’s associates, John Rogers, published an edition of the Bible that year under the name, “Thomas Matthew.” “Matthew’s Bible” was similar to Coverdale’s with one exception: its translation of the historical books from Joshua to 2 Chronicles was one that Tyndale had finished without publishing before his death.
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