How We Got
Our Bible
By the Trinitarian Bible
Society, 217 Kingston Road London, S.W. 19,
England
Reprinted With
Permission
Introduction
We have received several requests for a
brief outline of the history of our English Bible. Many
large volumes have been written on the subject, and it
may seem presumptuous to attempt to summarize such a
vast accumulation of literature in a mere eight pages.
It is hoped that many who have neither the time nor the
inclination to read a lengthy treatise on the subject
may find the information they need in this short
article.
"The Lord Gave the Word"
The Bible is the gift of God and the
writers of the individual books testify that they
received a revelation from God. "The Spirit of the LORD
spake by me, and His Word was in my tongue" (2 Samuel
23:2); "1 have put My Words in thy mouth" (Jeremiah
1:9); "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God" (2
Timothy 3:16); "Holy men of God spake as they were moved
by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter 1:21). The Lord Jesus Christ
in Matthew 4 describes the Holy Scriptures as "every
Word which proceedeth out of the mouth of
God."
The Books of the Old Testament were
written in Hebrew on rolls prepared from the skins of
animals, and scrupulous care was taken to ensure that
copies were accurate. These books were compiled over a
period of nearly one thousand years and were completed
about 400 years before the birth of the Lord Jesus
Christ at Bethlehem. Nearly 300 years before that event
the Hebrew books appeared in a Greek translation which
became known as the Version of the Seventy (Septuagint)
because the translation was believed to be the work of
seventy learned Jews of Alexandria. This version was in
common use in the days of the Apostles and is often
quoted in the New Testament.
Inspiration and Authority
The New Testament Books were written in
Greek and were added at intervals during the hundred
years following the Saviour's birth. Like the Old
Testament Books they were recognised as "Holy Scripture"
and acknowledged to be divinely inspired. Peter includes
the epistles of Paul with "the other Scriptures" (2
Peter 3:16), and Paul declares that his teaching was
delivered I not in words which man's wisdom teacheth,
but which the Holy Ghost teacheth" (I Corinthians 2:13).
From the last quarter of the first century to the end of
the second there is a widening stream of testimony to
the unique authority of the New Testament Scriptures.
These testimonies may be gathered from the surviving
writings of early Christian teachers in the Greek and
Latin churches of Africa, Palestine, Syria, Rome and
France. Here we may allow Irenaeus of Lyons (AD 180) to
speak for them all-"The Scriptures are perfect, inasmuch
as they were uttered by the Word of God and His
Spirit--and he proceeds to use the Old and New
Testaments as "Scripture" without
distinction.
Councils of the Churches made official
pronouncements on the subject from time to time during
the following centuries, but it can be seen that there
is no ground for the claim often made by the Roman
Church that we received our Bible from her hands. All of
the Books of the Bible were in use and acknowledged
among Christian people generations before Rome ever
claimed to be "mother and mistress of all the
churches."
In the first five hundred years of the
Christian era there were several important translations
of the Holy
Scriptures in Syriac, Latin, Egyptian
(Coptic), Gothic and Armenian. These were all in
existence centuries before there was a Bible in English.
Early in the 4th century Jerome of Bethlehem completed a
Latin translation which became known as the "Vulgate"
because it was in the common or "vulgar" tongue of a
large portion of the professing Church. Early attempts
to put the Bible into the language of our own country
were based not on the Hebrew and Greek, but on this
Latin version.
The English Language
In order to trace the history of the
English versions of the Holy Scriptures it is necessary
to remember a little of the history of the English
people and their language. When the Roman forces
withdrew early in the fifth century the South Britons
obtained the help of the Saxons against the attacks of
the of the Picts and Scots. The Saxons returned from
their victory in the North and began to take possession
of the South. This struggle continued for about 150
years during which the Angl~s, Saxons and Jutes, a
heathen people, gradually gained control and divided the
country into seven kingdoms. Each of these in turn was
absorbed by its stronger neighbour and finally in AD 827
Egbert combined them under his own rule, and his kingdom
came to be known as Angle-land or England. In this
period the light of the Gospel was practically
extinguished over much of the country and then rekindled
after the conversion of Ethelbert, King of Kent, at the
end of the 6th century.
During the Saxon period the Danes
repeatedly invaded and occupied large areas of the
country. In AD 878 Alfred the Great overcame their army
at Ethandune and their king embraced the Christian faith
and submitted to Alfred. The next one hundred and fifty
years witnessed many periods of strife between the
English and the Danes, culminating in the Danish
invasion of the northern counties at the instigation of
William of Normandy. Harold defeated the Danes in the
North, but was himself defeated at Hastings by the
Normans under William, who divided up a large part of
the country among his nobles. The English Church was
reorganised under Lanfranc, Archbishop of
Canterbury.
Anglo Saxon Versions
There were several attempts to make the
light of God's Word available to the people in the Anglo
Saxon tongue. Early in the 8th century Eadhelm of
Glastonbury translated the Psalms and Egbert of Holy
Island translated the Gospels. A copy of this version
may be seen in the British Museum. In AD 735 Bede
laboured at Jarrow on his translation of the Gospel. A
letter written by one of his pupils describes how the
aged scholar pressed on with this work of translating
the Scriptures up to the last moment of his life. Early
in the morning of "Ascension Day" in AD 735 he summoned
his helpers to continue with the task and dictated to
them the translation of John's Gospel from the words,
"What are they among so many?" As the sun was setting
one of the scribes told him there was only one more
chapter, but it seemed hard for Bede to speak. He
replied, "Nay, it is easy, take up thy pen and write
quickly." The young scribe wrote on until hecould tell
his master that only one sentence was wanting, when Bede
dictated it the young man exclaimed, "It is finished,
master!" Bede replied, "Aye it is finished! Lift me up
and place me by the window where I have so often prayed
to God." Then with the Name of the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit upon his lips he passed into the presence of the
Lord.
Alfred the Great desired that his people
should be able to read the Word of God and he personally
engaged in a translation of the Psalms until his death
in AD 901. In the later 10th century Archbishop Aelfric
and a number of others endeavoured to provide
translations which could be read in the Churches so that
many who could not read would as least hear the Word of
Truth.
Wycliffe's Bible
The next four hundred years were an
important period in the development of the English
language. It is not possible to give precise dates but
from AD 1066 to about 1150 Saxon and Norman French were
in use side by side. From about 1150 the gradual fusion
of the two peoples caused their languages to mingle and
merge with one another, producing what has been
described as "semi-Saxon". The old Saxon and the Norman
French fell into disuse, and from about 1250 "English"
emerges to pass through a century or more of development
before being used as the vehicle of Wycliffe's English
Bible of AD 1382.
Wycliffe, knowing no Hebrew or Greek,
translated from the Latin Vulgate which was far from
perfect, but the English Version nevertheless showed
only too clearly how far the doctrines of the Roman
Church were removed from the plain teaching of God's
Word. Wycliffe was accused of heresy and excommunicated,
but continued with his task until his death in 1384.
Every copy of his translation had to be written by hand,
but so many were written that a Bill was enacted in
Parliament to forbid its circulation. Archbishop Arundel
complained to the Pope of "that pestilent wretch
Wycliffe." The convocation of Oxford under Arundel in
1408 decreed "that no man hereafter by his own authority
translate any text of the Scripture into English or any
other tongue, by way of book, pamphlet or treatise; and
that no man read any such book, pamphlet or treatise,
now lately composed in the time of John Wycliffe or
since ... publicly or privately, upon pain of greater
excommunication .... He that shall do contrary to this
shall likewise be punished as a favourer of heresy and
error." During the next hundred years many Christian
martyrs were burned to death with Wycliffe's Bible tied
around their necks, but 170 copies remain to this day to
testify to this faithfulness and the diligence of his
helpers.
Invention of Printing
About twenty years after Wycliffe's
death a boy named Gensfleisch ("Gooseflesh") was amusing
himself cutting out the letters of his name from a piece
of bark. He dropped one of these accidentally in a pot
of hot dye, snatched it out and dropped it on a piece of
white skin on a bench near the fire and was intrigued to
see the pattern of the letter was impressed on the skin.
It is possible that this experience lingered in his mind
and suggested the idea of printing. Thirty years
afterwards he set up his famous press at Menz under the
name of Gutenberg, his mothers family name. This was an
epoch-making invention and was to contribute greatly
towards the rapid reproduction of the Scriptures and the
establishment of the Reformation in
Europe.
William Tyndale
For several hundred years the Greek
language was almost unknown in Western Europe, but a
great revival of Greek learning commenced about the
middle of the 15th century and the new art of printing
was the means of placing printed copies of the Greek
Scriptures in the hands of Christian scholars. Erasmus
of Rotterdam published his first edition of the Greek
New Testament in 1516, and provided William Tyndale with
the means of giving to English readers for the first
time a New Testament translated directly from the Greek,
the language in which it was first written. Like
Wycliffe, Tyndale was accused of heresy, and was not
allowed to pursue his studies in peace. He spent several
years on the Continent and was eventually betrayed by a
false friend, arrested, imprisoned, and burned at the
stake at Vilvorde in Belgium in 1536. The place is
marked by a memorial erected by the Trinitarian Bible
Society and the Belgian Bible Society and the
inscriptions include Tyndale's dying prayer-"Lord open
the eyes of the King of England." His prayer was
answered when in 1538 King Henry VIII gave instructions
that a large Bible should be placed in every parish
church.
Tyndale published an edition of the New
Testament in a conveniently small size and arranged for
thousands of copies to be smuggled into England in
barrels, bales of cloth, and even in flour sacks. By
these means the New Testament was rapidly and widely
distributed. Many copies were seized and burned at St.
Paul's, as I I a burnt offering most pleasing to
Almighty God-- as Cardinal Campeggio wrote to Wolsey.
Tyndale said that he was not surprised and would not be
surprised if later they should burn him
also.
Opposition Providentially
Over-Ruled
The Bishop of London, who was anxious to
obstruct the progress of the Reformation, consulted with
Pakington, a merchant with connections in Antwerp, and
asked his advice about buying up all the copies that
could be obtained in Europe. He did not know that
Pakington was a friend of Tyndale. "Halle's Chronicle"
contains a quaint description of the incident. "Gentle
Master Pakington, " said the Bishop, deeming that he had
God by the toe, when in truth he had, as he after
thought, the devil by the fist, "do your diligence to
get them for me, and I will gladly give you whatever
they cost, for the books are naughty and I intend to
destroy them all, and to burn them at Paul's Cross." The
bargain was made, and the story continues, "The Bishop
had the Books, Pakington had the thanks, and Tyndale had
the money-"
Tyndale was quite pleased with the
arrangement, as the money relieved him of his debts, the
burning of some of the Testaments had effect of
encouraging many people to support the work he was
doing, and he now had resources to spend on an improved
edition. Some time afterwards a man named Constantine
was being tried before Sir Thomas Moore for heresy. He
was promised leniency if he would tell where Tyndale and
his helpers obtained the money to pay for their
editions. Constantine replied-"It is the Bishop of
London that hath holpen us, for he bestowed among us a
great deal of money upon New Testaments to burn them,
and that hath been our chief succour and
comfort."
Eidtions of the Greek Text
The remainder of the 16th century saw
the completion and fruitful use of several printed
editions of the Greek New Testament and several
translations of the entire Bible in the English
language. Robert Stephens produced editions of the Greek
in 1546, 1549, 1550 and 1551, Theodore Beza produced
five editions of the Greek between 1559 and 1598, and
the Elzevir brothers published at Leyden in 1633 an
edition described in the title page as the "Received
Text," the "Textus Receptus." Among English readers this
title has often been given to Robert Stephen's edition
of 1550.
The English Versions
The English translation of Tyndale was
followed by those of Coverdale (1536), Rogers (1537),
Traverner (1538), the Great Bible (1539), the Geneva
Bible (15571560) and the Bishops' Bible (1568). These
all owed much to Tyndale's pioneer labours and each
contributed to the progress and establishment of the
Reformation in this country. The Geneva Bible was
translated and published by Protestant scholars who
found refuge in Geneva during the persecutions of Mary's
reign, 1553-1558. This version was very popular and
remained in use for a considerable time after the first
appearance of the Authorised Version. The Geneva Version
was produced during a period when the Protestants were
suffering violent persecution, and it is not surprising
that the marginal notes very pungently exposed the
errors of the Roman church.
The most noticeable changes in the
Geneva Bible were the adoption of Roman type in place of
the old "black letter," and the division of the chapters
into verses. These changes made the Geneva version much
easier to use, and it achieved wonderful popularity.
From 1560 to 1616 one or more editions appeared every
year, and in 1599 ten separate editions were printed.
About two hundred editions of this version are known to
have been printed. It has been known as the "Breeches
Bible" because of the use of this word in Genesis 3:7,
where the A.V. has "aprons."
The Bishops' Bible
Queen Elizabeth I commissioned
Archbishop Parker to produce a Bible free from these
controversial notes and his version appeared in 1568. It
never achieved great popularity but it was later used as
the basis of the revision of 1611 which was to become
known as the "Authorised Version." Incidentally the
Bishops' Bible had this caption-" Authorised and
appointed to be read in Churches," but the version of
1611 did not have the word "authorised" on its title
page.
The Bishops' Bible took the place of the
Great Bible in the public services of the Church, but
for private use it never displaced the Geneva Version.
The Puritans who held livings in the Church of England
disregarded the ruling of Convocation and continued to
take their texts from the Geneva Version. The last
edition of the Bishops' Bible was printed in 1619, eight
years after the appearance of the " Authorised Version."
This 1619 edition contained at the end of the New
Testament a number of readings from the Old Testament to
be used in the Communion service on certain days.
Strangely enough, these readings were taken from
Matthew's Bible of 1537.
The Authorized Version
At the Hampton Court Conference of 1604
the Puritan leader Reynolds made the suggestion-which
was first opposed and then adopted by the conference
with the enthusiastic approval of James I-that there
should be a new translation of the Holy Scriptures in
English to replace the different versions in common use.
Fifty-four men, including "High Churchmen" and Puritans,
the greatest Hebrew and Greek scholars of the age,
formed six companies to undertake the task. Using their
Greek sources and the best commentaries of European
scholars and referring to existing versions in several
other languages, they produced a version which
accurately expresses the sense of the Hebrew and Greek
in clear, vigorous idiomatic English. This Bible won its
battles against the prejudice and criticism which
greeted its first appearance, and became the Bible of
the English-speaking world.
The Authorised Version has been well
described as "the purest well of our native English, in
its grand simplicity standing out in contrast to the
ornate and affected diction of the language of that
time." In the language of a competent judge, "If
accuracy and strictest attention to the letter of the
text be supposed to constitute an excellent version this
is of all versions the most excellent." The spelling and
punctuation were extensively revised in 1762 and 1769 by
Dr. Paris and Dr. Blayney, and at various times there
have been considerable additions to the marginal
references, which in the first edition were not more
than about nine thousand in number.
The Modern Versions
Advocates of the modern versions often
argue that the discovery of many ancient manuscripts
unknown to the earlier translators has made it necessary
to "correct" the Authorised Version in many places. Many
people have been very sadly misled in this matter and
have accepted the allegation that the manuscript
evidence is unfavourable to our old Bible. This is very
far from being the case. It is true that Erasmus,
Stephens and Beza had comparatively few Greek
manuscripts at their disposal, but these few were
representative of the Greek text preserved in the great
majority of the documents which have since come to
light. These now number several thousand, and they give
a very full measure of support to the Greek text
underlying the Authorised Version. Surviving copies of
very ancient translations originating in the second,
third and forth centuries, also testify to the integrity
of our English Bible. The quotations from the ancient
Scriptures preserved in the writings of the earliest
Christian writers after the Apostles, also make it quite
clear that those "fathers" had in their hands copies of
the Greek Scriptures similar to those underlying our
English Bible.
During the last 150 years it has
unfortunately become increasingly the fashion among
Biblical scholars and translators to adopt as their
guides to the original text a small group of ancient but
unreliable manuscripts, including the Vatican and Sinai
copies of the 4th century, and a few others which
exhibit the same kind of abbreviated and altered text.
One result of this tendency of modern scholarship is
that modern critical editions of the Greek, and modern
English versions based upon them, present in a weaker
form many of the plainest declarations of the deity of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Trustworthiness of the Authorized
Version
The English reader is on safe ground in
regarding the Authorised Version as a faithful
translation made from trustworthy sources. God has
exercised His wisdom, power and grace in sending forth
His Word by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and He
has exercised His providence in the preservation of the
written revelation and its propagation throughout the
world.
There have been many attempts to replace
the Authorised Version by a translation in more modern
English, but as yet none of these excels the version
which has held its place in the English speaking world
for more than 350 years. It was very significant that
while the American astronauts were encircling the moon
they read and broadcast to the world the story of the
creation - not from a modern version, not from an
American version, not from the R.S.V. or N.E.B., but
from the Bible of the English-speaking world - the
Authorised Version-an acknowledgement that this still
has its preeminent place even in this age of modern
science.
At the present time there are about one
hundred modern English translations, most of which are
based on less reliable manuscript sources, were
translated by scholars with less respect for the
authority of the inspired Word and the eternal deity of
the Lord Jesus Christ-"The Chief Subject of the Sacred
Book,-and display less command of the wealth and
resources of our English tongue.
As we recall the long history of our
English Bible we remember the words of the Lord Jesus
Himself-"Other men laboured and ye are entered into
their labours. "
