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 – 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 10^th 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.

The King James Version is a magnificent translation.  Its English and Literary Style is of the highest standard.  One can safely go to the King James Version and learn all of he major truths of the Christian faith without fear of error.  The problem with the King James Version, as we have mentioned above, is its limited text base, and the fact that its English does not reflect English as it is commonly spoken today which sometimes makes reading the KJV awkward for those accustomed with modern vernacular.

12. The English Revised Version (ERV) and the American Revised Version (ASV) were 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 20^th 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.

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