We begin with a brief discussion of
the Wycliffe Bible as the ancestor of the English Bible followed by brief
discussion on the translations by John Purvey, William Tyndale, Miles
Coverdale, Matthew’s Bible, The Great Bible, Cranmer’s Bible, the Geneva
Bible, The Bishop’s Bible, The Rheims-Douai Bible, and then the King James
Version. We will spend more time with the King James Bible since it has
proven to be the most widely read English translation of history.
1.John
Wycliffe, in 1382 Wycliffe, and Oxford
scholar, translated the Latin Vulgate into English. What motivated
Wycliffe to translate the Bible into English was the faction and unrest
over Papal excesses and demands for money. Wycliffe began by writing on
the defense and independence of the English Parliament. His opposition to
the Roman Catholic dominance resulted in his seeing the need for a Bible
in the English language.
2.In
1388 John Purvey, a friend of Wycliffe corrected and revised
Wycliffe’s translation. Purvey also worked of the Latin Vulgate.
3.The
true father of the English Bible, however, was William Tyndale.
Tyndale studied Greek at Cambridge when Erasmus of Rotterdam was teaching
there in 1511. Tyndale’s efforts to translate the Bible into English
aligned him with the burgeoning Protestant Reformation. Roman Catholic
opposition to Luther soon became the enemies of Tyndale who fled England
to Cologne where he completed his translation. Tyndale’s English New
Testament was printed in Worm’s in 1526. In 1534 Tyndale was betrayed and
arrested by the Catholic Church for his opposition to Catholicism. He was
finally strangled and burned at the stake in 1536.
4.In
1535 Miles Coverdale, an associate of Tyndale’s in England
translated a Bible using Tyndale’s work, and the German and Latin
translations. Coverdale’s Bible was the first to be printed in England an
to circulate without Church opposition.
5.The
Matthew’s Bible was actually the work of John Rogers, another
associate of William Tyndale. The Matthew Bible appeared in 1537. It was
a combination of Tyndale and Coverdale’s translations.
6.In
1539 the Great Bible was printed. Edited by Miles Coverdale, The
Great Bible was the first English translation
authorized to
be read in the English Episcopal Church. King Henry VIII, as a result of
his break with the Roman Catholic Church saw the need for an English
Bible. The Great Bible was based on Tyndale’s translation, Erasmus’s
Greek text,, and the Latin Vulgate.
7.In
1540 Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, revised the
Great Bible. Cranmer was eventually executed by King Edward VI,
supposedly for treason.
8.The
Geneva Bible of 1560 was to become for many, especially those of
the Protestant Reformation persuasion, the ultimate in translations.
This Bible translated and printed in Geneva, Switzerland, was opposed by
both the English and Roman Churches for its Calvinistic persuasion. The
Plymouth Brethren and Pilgrims to America, seeking freedom form the
Anglican and Roman churches, favored the Geneva Bible. This Bible soon
became the most popular common English translation. It became known as
the Breeches Bible for a unique translation of Gen 3:7 where it read that
Adam and Eve “sewed figge tree leaves together, and made themselves
breeches.” The Geneva translation was based on the Great Bible, Beza’s
Latin text, 160 other translations, and Erasmus’ Greek text. Until the
publication of the King James Bible in 1611 the Geneva Bible was th most
popular English translation of the day. The Geneva Bible was the Bible of
William Shakespeare and other noted literary persons of the age.
9.In
opposition to the Geneva Bible, the Bishop’s Bible was translated
in 1568. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker, decided that some
translation in opposition to the Geneva Bible was necessary and
commissioned the translation to scholars, most of them bishops, hence the
name, The Bishop’s Bible. The Bishop’s Bible did not measure up to the
scholarship nor the literary beauty of the Geneva Bible, and never became
the popular Bible of the people. This became the second English
Bible to be authorized to be read in the English (Episcopal)
Church.
10.Realizing
the need for a Bible in English, the Roman Catholic Church published in
1609, 1610 the Rheims-Douai Bible. This was the first English
Bible published by the Roman Catholic Church. The translation of the
Rheims-Douai Bible was not made from the original languages, but from the
Latin Vulgate.
11.The
King James Bible, otherwise known as the Authorized Version, was
not the first, but the third Bible authorized to be read in the English
(Episcopal) Church. In 1604 a convocation of a diverse religious groups
was held at Hampton Court to discuss religious toleration. Dr. John
Reynolds of Oxford suggested the possibility of a Bible translation that
would meet the needs of all religious groups. King James I liked the
idea. By June 30, 1604, King James had approved a list of 54 revisers,
although extant records show that 47 scholars actually participated. They
were organized into six companies, two each working separately at
Westminster, Oxford, and Cambridge on sections of the Bible assigned to
them. It was finally published in 1611. It seems that King James played a
major role in determining the shape of the translation, and conditions
under which the translation should be made. The task was not to make a
new translation, but to revise the 1602 version of the Bishop’s Bible.
Two editions were actually printed in 1611, later distinguished as the
"He" and "She" Bibles because of the variant reading "he" and "she" in the
final clause of chapter 3, verse 15 of Ruth: "and he went into the city."
Both printings contained errors. Some errors in subsequent editions have
become famous: The so-called Wicked Bible (1631) derives from the omission
of "not" in chapter 20 verse 14 of Exodus, "Thou shalt commit adultery,"
for which the printers were fined 300; the "Vinegar Bible" (1717) stems
from a misprinting of "vineyard" in the heading of Luke, chapter 20.
(Encyclopedia Britannica). The text basis of the King James Version was the
Textus Receptus
which itself was based on that textual work of Desidarius Erasmus
(1516/1535), Stephanus (1550/51), and Theodore de Beza of Geneva (1598). The strength of the King James Version was the breadth of scholarship in
the translation committee, and the magnificent and beautiful English of
the translation. The accuracy of the translation is impressive as is its
doctrinal fidelity. The fact that the King James Version was and is
accepted across a diverse range of Christian persuasion attests to its
value and doctrinal fidelity.
The weakness of the King James Version lies basically in its dependence on
the Textus Receptus, the limitation of its text base (approximately 10
manuscripts dating from the 10th century), and the fact that
the English language has changed significantly through the almost four
centuries since its original translation. This last objection has been
mitigated by the fact that the King James Version has undergone many
revision through the centuries to where the King James version of today is
vastly different in English form the 1611 version.
The remarkable and total victory of the King James Version could not
entirely obscure those inherent weaknesses that were independent of its
typographical errors. The manner of its execution had resulted in a
certain unequalness and lack of consistency. The translators'
understanding of the Hebrew tense system was often limited so that their
version contains inaccurate and infelicitous renderings. In particular,
the Greek text of the New Testament, which they used as their base, was a
poor one. The great early Greek codices (Alexandrinus, Sinaiticus,
Vaticanus) were not then known or available, and Hellenistic papyri, which
were to shed light on the common Greek dialect, had not yet been
discovered. (Encyclopedia Britannica.)
In recent years a New King James Version has been published. While this
is a valiant attempt to “resurrect” the King James Version, its weakness
lies in its adoption of a Majority Text critical approach to textual
variants. More will be said of this later in this study.
12.The
English Revised Version (ERV) and the
American Revised Versions were (ASV) published in 1881/85, and
1881/1901. Since these translations are so similar we will discuss them
together. The remarkable and total victory of the King James Version could not
entirely obscure those inherent textual limitations and weaknesses that
were independent of its typographical errors. The manner of its execution
had resulted in a certain unequalness and lack of consistency. The
translators' understanding of the Hebrew tense system was often limited so
that their version contains inaccurate and infelicitous renderings. In
particular, the Greek text of the New Testament, which they used as their
base, was a poor one. The great early Greek codices were not then known or
available, and Hellenistic papyri, which were to shed light on the common
Greek dialect, had not yet been discovered. A committee established by
the Convocation of Canterbury in February 1870 reported favorably three
months later on the idea of revising the King James Version: two companies
were formed, one each for the Old and New Testaments. A novel development
was the inclusion of scholars representative of the major Christian
denominations, except the Roman Catholics (who declined the invitation to
participate). Another innovation was the formation of parallel companies
in the United States to whom the work of the English scholars was
submitted and who, in turn, sent back their reactions. The instructions to
the committees made clear that only a revision and not a new translation
was contemplated. The New Testament was published in England on May 17,
1881, and three days later in the United States, after 11 years of labor.
Over 30,000 changes were made, of which more than 5,000 represent
differences in the Greek text from that used as the basis of the King
James Version. Most of the others were made in the interests of
consistency or modernization. The publication of the Old Testament in
1885 stirred far less excitement, partly because it was less well known
than the New Testament and partly because fewer changes were involved. The
poetical and prophetical books, especially Job, Ecclesiastes, and Isaiah,
benefited greatly. The revision of the Apocrypha, not originally
contemplated, came to be included only because of copyright arrangements
made with the university presses of Oxford and Cambridge and was first
published in 1895. (Adapted from the Encyclopedia Britannica) Notable scholars on the translation committees were B. F. Westcott, F. J.
A. Hort, J. B. Lightfoot, R. C. Trench, A. B. Davidson (ERV), and Philip
Schaff, J. H. Thayer, and William Henry Green (ASV).
According to the original agreement, the preferred readings and renderings
of the American revisers, which their British counterparts had declined to
accept, were published in an appendix to the Revised Version. In 1900 the
American edition of the New Testament, which incorporated the American
scholars' preferences into the body of the text, was produced. A year
later the Old Testament was added, but not the Apocrypha. The alterations
covered a large number of obsolete words and expressions and replaced
Anglicisms by the diction then in vogue in the United States.
(Encyclopedia Britannica.)
Strengths of the ERV and ASV were the vastly improved text base for the
translation. Although the ERV and ASV were not based on the Westcott-Hort
text, the committee had the advantage of both these great scholars working
with them. By the time of the ERV and ASV translations the great three
manuscripts, Alexandrinus, Sinaiticus, and Vaticanus were available to the
translators. The translation into English over the KJV was greatly
improved in that by the 1800’s the philological skill (language skill) of
the translators working from the Hebrew and Greek was greatly improved.
A major weakness of the ERV and ASV was the extreme literal method adopted
in translation in which the idiom of many expressions was lost. Much of
the unique Semitic and Hellenistic expressions were weakened by the
literal word for word translation method. The comment by Charles Haddon
Spurgeon was typical of many concerns with the ERV and ASV, “strong in
Greek, weak in English”!
13.The
Revised Standard Version of the New Testament was first published
in 1946 with the full Bile in 1952. The New Testament was revised later
in 1971. The RSV was not intended to be a new translation, but a revision
of the ASV.
The American Standard Version had been an expression of sensitivity to the
needs of the American public. At the same time, several individual and
unofficial translations into modern speech made from 1885 on had gained
popularity, their appeal reinforced by the discovery that the Greek of the
New Testament used the common nonliterary variety of the language spoken
throughout the Roman Empire when Christianity was in its formative stage.
The notion that a nonliterary modern rendering of the New Testament best
expressed the form and spirit of the original was hard to refute. This,
plus a new maturity of classical, Hebraic, and theological scholarship in
the United States, led to a desire to produce a native American version of
the English Bible. In 1928 the copyright of the American Standard Version
was acquired by the International Council of Religious Education and
thereby passed into the ownership of churches representing 40 major
denominations in the United States and Canada. A two-year study by a
special committee recommended a thorough revision, and in 1937 the council
gave its authorization to the proposal. Not until 1946, however, did the
revision of the New Testament appear in print, and another six years
elapsed before the complete Revised Standard Version (RSV) was published,
the work of 32 scholars, one of them Jewish, drawn from the faculties of
20 universities and theological seminaries. A decision to translate the
Apocrypha was not made until 1952 and the revision appeared in 1957.
Insofar as the RSV was the first to make use of the Dead Sea Scroll of
Isaiah, it was revolutionary. The Revised Standard Version was
essentially not a new translation into modern speech, but a revision. It
did engage in a good deal of modernization, however. It dispensed with
archaic pronouns, retaining "thou" only for the Deity. But its basic
conservatism was displayed in the retention of forms or expressions in
passages that have special devotional or literary associations even where
this practice makes for inconsistency. The primary aim was to produce a
version for use in private and public worship. (Encyclopedia Britannica.)
The strength of the RSV lay in the vastly improved textual base available,
including the Westcott-Hort text and the new manuscript and papyri
discoveries. Dr. Neil Lightfoot, who did his doctoral dissertation at
Duke University on the RSV, has observed that “Perhaps the greatest gain
of the Revised Standard Version over its predecessors is its
readability…The RSV seeks to recapture the beauty of the King James
Version style in a way that is pleasing to the reader.” In addition, the
RSV was more sensitive to the Hebraisms and Hellenisms of the original
languages than was its predecessor, the ASV, and tended to combine a more
dynamic equivalence approach with accuracy for direct translation.
Most of the occasions where the RSV differs with the ASV it is on the
basis of the Vaticanus and Sinaitic manuscripts and the Chester Beatty
Papyri which were not available to the ASV translators.
In regard to the Old Testament, the RSV translators had the advantage of
the dead sea Scroll discoveries of 1948, especially the discovery of the
Isaiah A and B scrolls.
Objections to the RSV were raised by some fundamentalist groups in
response to translations in the Old Testament that seemed to challenge the
virgin birth of Jesus (Isa 7:14 and matt 1:23).
One contemporary problem with the RSV Bible is that it is no longer widely
published, its role having been taken over by the New Revised Standard
Bible, which we will discuss below.
14.The
New American Standard Version (NASV) in 1971. the translators
claim that the NASV is the most literal translation to date! In fact the
NASV was an attempt to smooth out some of the literal translations of the
ASV and where possible to be sensitive to Hebraisms and Hellenistic
idiom. The NASV did smooth out some of the archaic use of pronouns (thou
and thee) and to make the English more readable. The NASV was exactly
what it claimed to be, a revision of the ASV. In some measure the NASV
translation was undertaken in opposition to some of the fundamentalist
objections that surfaced with the publications of the RSV.
The strengths of the NASV are the great text base available to scholars in
the 20th century, and its direct translation. The weaknesses
of the NASV are that it manifests many of the over literal characteristics
of the ASV. In spite of its literal claims the NASV precision in
translation is often lacking.
Much of the supposed gains of the NASV over the ASV had already appeared
in the RSV with the result that the NASV never gained the wide spread
acceptability of the RSV or the KJV.
15.The
New International Version of 1973, 1978, and 1984 was not intended
to be a revision of any previous Bible such as the KJV, the ASV, or the
RSV. The NIV is in fact a new translation of the latest Greek texts
available, The Old Testament is primarily the Masoretic text as read in
the Biblia Hebraica version. The New Testament adopts an eclectic
method of textual recension working with the latest Greek texts available
(the Nestle Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, and the Kurt Aland
United Bible Society text.)
The NIV translation was in part a reaction of fundamentalist scholars to
the modernizing “liberal” scholarly tendencies perceived in the RSV. The
result of the translation in fact had just the opposite result intended by
the original committee responsible for the translation, for the NIV has
been branded by conservatives as even more liberal than the RSV!
2002 saw the introduction of a Revised NIV New Testament whose strength is
the elimination of gender sensitive words such as “sons of God” in favor
of “children of God.” Gender sensitive translation s are the common
concern of readers and preachers in today’s gender sensitive world!
16.The
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) was published in 1989 including
the Apocrypha. The strength of this translation was that it was a
revision of the RSV and included all of the textual, manuscript, papyri
and philological advantages of that translation. The advantage of the
NRSV is its gender sensitive translation of such words as “son”, which
should rendered as “child,” and “man” which is better rendered to mean
“person”. The NRSV is the English translation preferred by most teaching
scholars who work off the English Bible.
