P034 A Short History of the English Bible.
P034 A Short History of the English Bible.
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VIII.
TAVERNER’S BIBLE.
Richard Taverner, BORN 1505, DIED 1575. For principal contemporaries see under Coverdale, p. 28.
Taverner was born in Brisley, Norfolk, in 1505, and was educated at Cambridge and Oxford. He was one of the young men who were imprisoned in the cellar of one of the college buildings in Oxford for reading Tyndale’s New Testament.
He studied law, and was admitted to the Inner Temple. In 1534 he obtained, through the influence of Cromwell, an official position in the service of the Government. In 1539 he published his edition of the Bible. After the fall of Cromwell, in 1540, he was imprisoned for a short time because of his labors on the Scriptures.
Taverner was really a learned man, though very pedantic.
He was fond of quoting Greek, even in his legal pleadings. In 1552 Edward VI. licensed him to preach, though a layman; the reason of the license being the scarcity of preachers.(1)
He was peculiar in dress as in every thing else, sometimes appearing in the pulpit dressed in a damask gown, velvet bonnet, and gold chain, with a sword by his side! In 1569 he was made high-sheriff of the county of Oxford, and still continued his preaching. It is said that on one occasion, while preaching to students, this high-sheriff began his discourse by saying: "I have brought you some fine biscuits, baked in the oven of charity, carefully conserved for the chickens of the Church, the sparrows of the Spirit, and the sweet swallows of salvation!" This learned and eccentric lay preacher died July 14, 1575 at the age of seventy. In spite of his oddities his Bible gives evidence of sound scholarship, though it bears marks of his mental peculiarities. He aimed at vigorous and idiomatic language. His Old Testament is that of Matthew, with some variations; his New Testament is Tyndale’s, with numerous changes in the translation.
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(FN1)The license begins: "Whereas yᵉ people are ignorant through the slackness of pastors."—Bagster’s Hexapla,p. 95.
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