P029 Coverdale's Bible.

P029 Coverdale’s Bible.

Mr. Stevens, however, makes out a clear case in favor of Antwerp as the place, and Jacob Van Meteren as the printer.(1) The sheets, type, etc., were afterward sold to Nicholson, of Southwark, England. In 1538 Coverdale aided in bringing out the "Great Bible," of which an account will be given in a succeeding chapter. In 1540 he went to Germany, where he remained for eight years teaching and preaching. On his return to England, in 1548, he was made one of the chaplains to Edward VI. In 1551 he was appointed Bishop of Exeter, but on the accession of Mary, in 1553, he was deprived of his see, and probably would have suffered martyrdom but for the persistent intercession of the King of Denmark, Christian III., who asked his release as a personal favor.

Coverdale, on his release, in 1555, went to the Continent, where he remained until the accession of Elizabeth, when he returned to England. He died in 1569, at the age of eighty-one years.

It is an interesting fact that this long lifetime covered the period of greatest activity in translating the Bible into English.

Coverdale lived long enough to see all of the versions, from Tyndale’s New Testament to the Bishops’ Bible; in all of them his influence is more or less manifest, and his name deserves to be honorably mentioned for his labors. In 1530, after Tyndale’s New Testament had been proscribed, King Henry VIII., to soothe the people, had promised that he would have the New Testament faithfully translated. In December of the same year Latimer boldly reminded Henry of his promise. In 1534 a Convocation, over which Cranmer presided, petitioned the king to have the Bible translated into English.

While these acts did not originate Coverdale’s Bible, they doubtless helped prepare the way for its favorable reception. The idea of an English translation also found favor, because of the rupture between the king and the Pope.

Thus Coverdale felt free to dedicate his translation to the king,(2) and in the quarto edition of 1537 he had the privilege of placing on the title-page, "Set forth with the kynges moost gracious licence." In his preface "Vnto the Christen reader," Coverdale gives the reason for his work: "It greued me yᵗ other nacyōs shulde be more plenteously prouyded for with yᵉ Scripture in theyr mother tongue than we." Thus, moved by patriotism and religion, he began his labors.

------------ (FN1)See his interesting statement in his Bibles, etc., pp.36-42, and 68-72.

(FN2)Stevens, however, thinks this dedication was added after Nicholson purchased the edition.— Bibles, etc., p.69.

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