ENGLISH VERSIONS

ENGLISH VERSIONS
JOHN WICKLIFFE
It is probable that the inhabitants of Britain, who were first converted to Christianity by St. Augustine, about the beginning of the seventh century, had some of the scripture in their own language. About A.D. 709, Adelm translated the Psalms into English Saxon, and other parts of scripture were translated by Eadfrid, a Saxon, about the same time. Bede, the first ecclesiastical English historian, who was born at Jarrow, on the banks of the Tyne, in 673, commonly denominated the Venenable Bede, made a translation of the Gospels, if not the whole Bible, into his native tongue. The whole Bible was translated into the Anglo-Saxon by order of King Alfred; and he himself, about A.D. 890, undertook a version of the Psalms, but died before it was completed. The next complete translation of the whole Bible, including the apocryphal books, was made by John Wickliffe into English from the Latin, and appeared between 1360 and 1380. This translation was written, but not printed; and great objections were made to it by the clergy; so that, in consequence of a decree of Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, many persons were committed to the flames for reading Wickliffe's translation of the Old and New Testament. The only portion of Wickliffe's version of the Scriptures which has ever appeared in print, is the New Testament, published in 1731, by the Rev. John Lewis, minister of Margate, in Kent. This was reprinted several years ago, with a life of this earliest of English reformers, by the Rev. H. Baber, A.M., assistant librarian at the British museum. For the gratification of our young readers, we shall transcribe the Lord's prayer in Wickliffe's language, as a curious specimen of the orthography of the times in which this great reformer lived--
“Our Fadir that art in hevenys; halewid be thi name, Thi kyngdom come to, be thi will done in erthe as in hevene. Give to us this day our breede ouir other substaunce. And forgiue to us our dettis as we forgiven to our dettouris. And lede us not into temptacioun, but delyvere us from yvel. Amen.”
WILLIAM TYNDALE
In the reign of Henry VIII, William Tyndale made one of the best English translations of the New Testament. It appeared in 1526, being the first that ever was printed in the English language. It was published at Hamburgh or Antwerp, and was dispersed at London and Oxford. Tonstal, bishop of London, and Sir Thomas More, bought up almost the whole impression, and burnt it at St. Paul's Cross. The venders were condemned by the star-chamber to ride with their faces to the horses' tails, with papers on their heads, and with the copies they had dispersed tied about them, to the standard at Cheapside, where they were compelled to throw them in the fire. The price, however, enabled Tyndale to proceed, and, undismayed, he began to translate the Old Testament; for which he was at length seized in Flanders, and, having been strangled by the common hangman, his body was consumed to ashes.
ENGLISH BIBLICAL IGNORANCE
Previous to the Reformation, in the time of Henry VIII, people were so little acquainted with the Scriptures, and so ignorant even in regard to the languages in which they were originally written, that the strangest assertions were made. Upon the appearance of the Scriptures in the Hebrew and Greek originals, some individuals exclaimed that “there was now a new language discovered called Greek of which people should beware, since it was that which produced all heresies; that in this language was come forth a book called the New Testament, which was now in every body's hands, and was full of briars and thorns. And there had also another language now started up, which they called Hebrew, and that they who learnt it were termed Hebrews!”
When the Reformation in England first took place, efforts were made to promote the reading of the Scriptures among the common people. Among other devices for the purpose, the following curious one was adopted. Bonner, bishop of London, caused six bibles to be chained to certain convenient places in St. Paul's church, for all that were so well inclined to resort thither, together with a certain admonition to the readers, fastened upon the pillars to which the bibles were chained, to this tenor: “That whosoever came there to read should prepare himself to be edified, and made the better thereby; that he should bring with him discretion, honest intent, charity, reverence, and quiet behavior; that there should no number meet together there as to make a multitude; that no such exposition be made thereupon but what is declared in the book itself; that it be not read with noise in time of divine service, or that any disputation or contention be used about it; that in case they continued their former misbehavior, and refuse to comply with these directions, the king would be forced, against his will, to remove the occasion, and take the bibles out of the church.”
MATTHEWS BIBLE
Soon after the death of Tyndale, John Rogers, afterward martyr, finished the correction of Tyndale's translation of the Old Testament, and printed it at Hamburg under the name of Thomas Matthews. Archbishop Cranmer and Miles Coverdale further corrected it. Cranmer got it printed by public authority in England, and King Henry ordered a copy of it to be set up in every church, to be read by every one that pleased; but, by advice of the Romish bishops, he soon after revoked this order, and prohibited the Bible. When Coverdale, Knox, Samson, Goodman, Gilby, Cole, and Whittingham, were exiles during the persecution in the reign of Mary, they framed another translation, with short notes, and got it printed at Geneva. It was much valued by the Puritans, and in about thirty years had as many editions. The bishops being displeased with it, made a new one of their own, which was read in the churches, while the Geneva translation was generally read in families. About 1583 Laurence Thompson published an English version of the New Testament, from the Latin translation, and annotations of the learned Genevan divine Theodore Beza. In the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century, the English catholics at Rheims published a version of the whole Bible, crowded with barbarous terms, and accompanied with notes calculated to support the doctrines of their church.
GENEVA BIBLE
Of those who translated the Geneva bible, as it is called, in the reign of Mary, besides Coverdale, we have their own and contemporary testimony, that they well understood the grace and propriety both of the Hebrew and Greek tongue. Among the good Hebrew scholars of this period, also, must be reckoned Bishop Alley, afterward one of the translators of the Bishops' Bible, who was the author of a Hebrew grammar, and a person universally learned, especially in divinity and languages; as well as his fellow-laborer, Bishop Benthan, who, about the beginning of the reign of Edward VI, is said to have addicted his mind entirely to the study of theology and the learning of the Hebrew language. To these may be added Bishop Davies, another of the translators of the Bishops' Bible, who, in the time of Mary, fled from this country, and, after his return in the following reign, served Wales, as well as England, with his assistance in translations of the Bible from the original into the languages of both countries.
BIBLICAL EDUCATION FOR LADIES
The knowledge of Hebrew seems sometimes to have formed in those days a part even of female education for ladies of superior rank; and, accordingly, Paschali, in his translation of the Psalms from the Hebrew into Italian verse, dedicated it to Queen Elizabeth, as one who was well acquainted with the eastern tongues.
“Having entered upon the reign of Elizabeth, we soon behold,” says Todd, in his Memoirs of Bryan Walton, “with grateful admiration, the goodly company of those who made the present version of our Bible in the reign of her successor. Of these, several, if they have been equaled, have not yet been excelled by any of their countrymen in oriental learning. With men of similar studies the kingdom then abounded. Nor could it well be otherwise, attention having been paid to the cultivation of such learning in public schools (particularly Merchant-Tailors school), founded soon after the accession of Elizabeth, and the pursuit being greatly encouraged at both universities.”
KING JAMES VERSION
At the conference which was held at Hampton Court, soon after the accession of James, for the settling of an ecclesiastical uniformity between the two countries of England and Scotland, the Puritans suggested unanswerable objections to the Bishops' Bible; and the king similarly objected to the Genevan translation. He therefore appointed fifty-four learned persons to translate the Scriptures anew into English, or, at least, compose a better translation, out of many. Seven of the fifty-four either died or declined the assigned task. Forty-seven, who remained, were ranged into six divisions, every individual of each division translating the portion assigned to the division, all of which translations were collected together; and when each company had determined on the construction of their part, it was proposed to the other divisions for general approbation. When they met together, one read the new version, while all the rest held in their hands either copies of the original, or some valuable version: when they observed any objectionable passage, the reader paused till they considered and agreed on it. They met at Oxford, Cambridge, and Westminster, beginning the work in 1607, and after the expiration of three years it was finished, and published in 1611. This Bible, which is now in use, must be pronounced an excellent work, remarkable for the general fidelity of its construction, as well as for the simplicity of its language. Dr. Adam Clarke remarks, that “those who have compared most of the European translations with the original, have not scrupled to say that the English translation of the Bible, made under the direction of King James the First, is the most accurate and faithful of the whole. Nor is this its only praise; the translators have seized the very spirit and soul of the original, and have expressed this almost everywhere with pathos and energy.” It is still of public authority in the British dominions; and, next to the Dutch, is perhaps the best translation of the Bible extant.
It has been asserted by Mr. Bellamy, and some others, that the authors of our authorized translation confined themselves to the Septuagint and the Vulgate, and did not translate from the Hebrew. This assertion, however, can be at once overthrown, by bringing forward the authority of the fifty-four, or rather, as seven of them died before the translation was finished, of the forty-seven learned men, as may be seen by their no less modest than dignified preface, or address to the reader, inserted in the edition of the Bible published in the year 1630, which has this satisfactory passage among many others: “If you ask what they had before them, truly it was the Hebrew text of the Old Testament--the Greek of the New.”
Among these translators, two of the most noted for Hebrew erudition were Dr. Adrian Saravia, and Dr. Richard Clarke. Dr. Saravia, well known as a Hebrew critic, “was educated,” says Mr. Todd in his life of Bryan Walton, “in all kinds of literature in his younger days, especially in several languages. He was the master of the celebrated oriental scholar, Nicholas Fuller, who gratefully mentions him in the preface to his Miscellanea Theologica; and he was one of those who had successfully answered an objection of the Puritans, which they revived in the conference at Hampton Court, in regard to a verse in the old English version of the Psalms. Next to him in rank is Dr. Richard Clarke, who thoroughly understood three languages, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Christ college, in Cambridge, of which he was a fellow, 'had a testimony of his learning in his Hebrew lectures; so had the university, in his disputations and sermons; so had the church, when his majesty (James the First) called many to the work of the last translation of the English bible; in which number he was, like one of the chief of David's worthies, not among the thirty, but among the first three.' To him and to Dr. Saravia, it appears that the portion assigned was from the Pentateuch to the book of Chronicles.”
One of the best Hebrew scholars of that time was the celebrated English divine and theological writer, Hugh Broughton, who corresponded with a learned rabbi at Constantinople, and used great exertions for the conversion of the Jews there to Christianity. Mr. Broughton was in continual and most bitter controversy with the bishops, and was not employed, as he thought he should have been, in the translation of the Bible. At the time when our present version was made, he communicated many interpretations to the translators, which, as he afterward complains, they “thrust into the margent;” and whoever compares the text of our version with the marginal readings, will be led to regret that our translators did not associate him with them; though, it must be confessed, he would not have proved a very agreeable fellow-laborer.
It must be observed, that in rendering the original text into English, there are certain words necessarily supplied by the translators, in order to make out the meaning. These supplementary words are printed in our Bible in italic letters, to show that they are not in the original. The greatest of these supplements occurs in 1 John 2:23, where the translators have supplied no fewer than ten words, in order to make out what they thought to be the proper meaning.
MODERN VERSIONS
“From the mutability of language,” says Evans, “the variation of customs, and the progress of knowledge, several passages in the Bible require to be newly translated, or materially corrected. Hence, in the present age, when biblical literature has been assiduously cultivated, different parts of the sacred volume have been translated by able hands. The substituting a new translation of the Bible in the room of the one now in common use, has been much debated. Dr. Knox, in his ingenious essays, together with others, argues against it; while Dr. Newcome, the late Lord Primate of Ireland, the late Dr. Geddes, of the Catholic persuasion, and the late Rev. Gilbert Wakefield, contended strenuously for it. Bishop Lowth and Professor Marsh have pointedly shown the necessity of bringing the text of the Scriptures, by the aid of ancient manuscripts and versions, as near as may be to perfection.”
Ainsworth, Doddridge, Macknight, Lowth, Blaney, and others, have published new translations of parts of the sacred books in English; and there is no doubt that many improvements might be made upon the present authorized version, particularly in the Old Testament. Dr. Alexander Geddes, above mentioned, at his decease, had proceeded as far as the Psalms in the Translation of the Old Testament; but many of his variations from the common version are extremely injudicious. Archbishop Newcome and Mr. Wakefield published entire translations of the New Testament; and an improved version of the New Testament, founded on Newcome, has been published by the Unitarians, accompanied with notes and an excellent introduction.
With the professed object of defeating the attacks on Christianity, a new translation of the Bible was given to the world, some years ago, by Mr. J. Bellamy, of Gray's-Inn lane, London. This version is in many places so very literal in its translation as to be unintelligible, and, therefore, unfit for any good purpose. The writer's forced and erroneous interpretations, as well as his unjustifiable attacks upon other versions and translators, were so far from tending to the accomplishment of his professed object, that they seemed rather calculated to produce the opposite effect; and, consequently, his new translation, which made some noise in its day, was soon judiciously consigned to oblivion. And, upon the whole, it may be observed, that, although it is generally acknowledged that after the lapse of two hundred and twenty years, the improvements in critical learning, and the discoveries in the pursuits of knowledge, together with hundreds of manuscripts that have since emerged into light, call for a revision of the present authorized version; yet such an attempt should not be rashly ventured upon, and it should not take place until the necessity of it becomes much more apparent to common apprehension than it is at present.