Lesson 1 Study Notes

Hello again friends, Bishop Andy Luther here with another one of my online courses that I believe will inspire and inform you. Not too long ago, I created a blog post for my Church History in 5 Minute Series that celebrated the life and work of William Tyndale and the Geneva Bible of 1560. In this online course, I want to expand upon that blog posting concerning the Geneva Bible. In this course, I'm going to trace the history of the English Bible from John Wycliffe in the 14th century to the ever-popular King James version of

1611 However, I want to begin this mini course with a discussion of those efforts and documents that Preceded the English Bibles that we have come to know and appreciate The truth of the matter is that prior to Wyclef's handwritten English version of the Bible, there were several efforts to translate great portions of the Bible into English. So join me as I reflect upon those early efforts that reached back 700 years before the brilliant work of John Wycliffe.

Then we're going to go to look at the major English Bibles of the late Middle Ages, including the Wycliffe Bible, the Coverdale Bible, the Geneva Bible, the Matthews Bible, the Great Bishop's Bible and then the King James Bible. Now I begin by reminding you my students that for hundreds of years it was the church's official position that the Bible should remain in the mysterious language of Latin even though the time was still speaking Latin.

The only place where Latin was still prominent was in the Roman Catholic Mass and the reading of the Bible. However, the problem was that most people could not read or understand Latin. The Roman Catholic Church believed that the fact that the Bible was only in Latin contributed to what they called the Mysterium Tremendum, or the tremendous mystery of the Roman Catholic faith. translated into Latin with the Edicio del Vulcato, more commonly known as the Vulgate, translated by Jerome in the year 382 AD at the insistence of Pope Damasus.

For the next 600 years, the Vulgate remained the most popular and used version of the Bible by Christians worldwide. So revered was the Vulgate that it was literally considered a sin or a crime to translate the Bible out of Latin and into the common parlance of local people. people were persecuted and even lost their lives for doing so, that is to translate the Bible out of Latin. However, refusing to be deterred, efforts to produce an English Bible not only survived, but eventually gave the English speaking world their own version of the Bible.

In the centuries preceding the more well-known English Bible translations, several scholars and monks undertook significant efforts to translate large portions of the Bible into English. These early translations were typically derived from the Latin Vulgate and often took the form of prose or interlinear glosses where a literal translation was placed above the original Latin text. During this period, complete translations of the Bible were rather rare. Instead, individual books of the Bible are translated and read separately,

often accompanied by the translator's own commentary alongside the literal and original text. Notable figures in this early translation work include Aldam, Bishop of Cherbonne and Abbot of Malmaberry 639-709 who is believed to have translated the Psalms into Old English shortly before his death, as noted by his contemporary, Cuthbert of Jarrow. Unfortunately, friends, the translation of Beattie has been lost to history. The 10th century saw the creation of the first complete translation of the Gospels into English with the Lindisfarne Gospels.

Aldred, provost of Chester-le-Strait, provided a word-for-word gloss of the Latin text, making this the oldest surviving English translation of the Gospels. Around 990 AD, the Wessex Gospels, also known as the West Saxon Gospels into a West Saxon dialect marked the first time the Gospels were translated into English without the inclusion of the Latin version. In the 11th century, Abbot Alvick contributed to Old English Bible translation efforts by translating significant portions of the Old Testament.

This historical overview highlights the dedication of early English translators whose work laid translations of the Bible.

[tqb_quiz id='15430']

Lesson 1, Early Efforts

You must be logged in to access this course