Lesson 3 Study Notes

Welcome back to my online course on the early English Bibles. In my last lesson, I explored with you several of the early efforts to move the Bible into the English language as far back as the 6th century AD. Admittedly, most of these efforts only included certain sections of the Bible rather than the Bible as a whole. Secondly, just about all of these efforts relied upon the Vulgate, which was the Latin translation of the Bible, rather than how the Bible had been originally written. For the most part, during this time frame, any version of the Bible in any language, based upon anything but the Latin, was not pursued. We must also remember that up to the 16th century primarily the Roman

Catholic Church had convinced most Christians that it was either a sin or illegal for the Bible to be translated into any language but the Latin. This This caused most scholars to refrain from using their talents and scholarship to produce anything but copies of the Bibles to be complete with both the Old and New Testament. It should also be noted that virtually all of these early English Bibles would include the Apocrypha which would not be removed until the late 19th century. The other Bibles we are going to examine in this lesson will be the Coverdale

Bible, the Tyndale Bible, and the Matthews Bible. However, before we tackle the task of exploring these early English Bibles, I want to go back and include a brief discussion discussion on Erasmus and the production of the first Greek New Testament That was not dependent on the Latin Vulgate Now you will remember that most English efforts up until this time Was reliant on the Latin text

The work of Erasmus would be a critical bridge that would help later English translators to produce an English Bible that was independent of the many errors found in the Vulgate. Erasmus was a Dutch Reformer who began as a devout Roman Catholic priest with an undying love for Latin and commitment to the Vulgate. However, by the mid-16th century and because of a real-life relationship with the early

printer Johann Froben, they produced a Greek New Testament that was called the Novum Instrumentum Omni. This Novum Instrumentum Omni, later called Novum Testamentum Omni, was a bilingual Latin-Greek New Testament with substantial scholarly annotations. Five editions were published in 1516, 1519, 1522, 1527, and 1536. Though written for theologians, not the masses, an estimate of up to 300,000 copies of Erasmus' New Testament were printed during his lifetime. The first edition brought a fresh approach to the Greek translation informed by the Latin language that was not part of the Bible in the German

tongue. It would be the third edition of Erasmus' work that would be used by William Tyndale's Geneva Bible. This would also be the same edition that the scholars of King James would use for the King James Version of the Bible. So it becomes abundantly clear that the Erasmus' Greek New Testament is critical to understanding

these early English Bibles were produced. While William Tyndale worked on an English Bible, he would not complete but the Old Testament before he died. The fulfillment of his dream that there be an English Bible would come to fruition with the Bible produced and printed by Miles Coverdale, known as the Coverdale Bible. The Coverdale Bible, compiled by Miles Coverdale and published in 1535, was the first complete modern English translation of the Bible, not just the Old or New Testament, and the first complete printed translation

into English, notwithstanding Wycliffe's Bible in manuscript. The later editions, Folio and Quarto, published in 1537, were the first complete Bibles printed in England. The 1537 folio edition carried the royal license and was therefore the first officially approved Bible translation in English. The Psalter from the Coverdale Bible was included in the Great Bible of 1540 and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer beginning in 1662 and in all editions of the U.S. Episcopal Church Book of Common Prayer until 1979.

The printer was assumed to be either Frosch Karlshofer in Zurich or Sir Vikkanus and Soller in Cologne or Marburg. Although Coverdale was also involved in the preparation of the Great Bible of 1539, the Coverdale Bible continued to be reprinted. The last of over 20 editions of the whole Bible, or its New Testament, appeared in 1553. is the Matthews Bible. The Matthews Bible also known as Matthews Version was first published in 1537 by John Rogers under the pseudonym Thomas Matthew. It combined

Testament of William Tyndale and as much of the Old Testament as he had been able to translate before being captured and put to death.

Tindale consulted Luther's German Bible, Erasmus' Latin version, and the Vulgate for the biblical text, prefaces, and marginal notes, and worked directly with the Hebrew and Greek. The remaining books of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha were the work of John Rogers and Miles Coverdale. Historians often tend to treat Coverdale and Tyndale like competitors in a race to complete the monumental and arduous task of translating the biblical text.

In reality, they knew each other and occasionally worked together. Contemporary historian John Fox states that they were in Hamburg translating the Pentateuch together as early as 1529. Coverdale was strangled to death and his body burned on the 6th of October 1536 in Vilvoorde, Belgium. Miles Coverdale was employed by Cromwell to work on the Great Bible of 1539, the first officially authorized English translation of the Bible.

Time and extensive scholastic scrutiny have judged Tyndale the most gifted of the three translators. translators. The Matthew Bible, though largely unrecognized, significantly shaped and influenced English Bible versions in the centuries that followed its first appearance.

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Lesson 3, Coverdale and Matthew Bible

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