ATTEMPTS AT TRANSLATING THE BIBLE

The Bible, the chief text of religion followed by Christians, is a book of 66 books, divided
into the Old and New Testaments. Some Christian traditions consider an additional set of
books, which are termed deuterocanonical or apocryphal.
The Old Testament, originally written in Hebrew, is a collection of 39 books, and has
accounts of the stories of Creation, establishment of the Jewish tribes, origin of monarchy
among them, and periods of slavery and exile. It also has a collection of wisdom literature
(eg. Psalms, Proverbs) and prophetic literature. The source texts taken into the Old Testament
form part of the Jewish sacred scriptures also. The New Testament details the story of the
birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and the foundation and early days of Christianity.
Its source language is Greek, and is a compilation of 27 books.
The Need for Translation
The story of Bible translation starts with the Jewish diaspora of the 3rd century BC. The Jews
in Alexandria (Egypt) had Greek as their first language, and the scriptures translated for them
came to be known as the Septuagint. Five centuries later the early Christians, who used
Greek for their own New Testament, needed to read both Old and New Testaments,
especially for a better involvement in religious debates with the Jews. Their need prompted
the great work of biblical scholarship undertaken by Origen in the 3rd century AD.
The spread of Christianity into the Roman Empire prompted the need for translation into
Latin. This started in the 2nd century AD. In 382 Pope Damasus commissioned St. Jerome to
prepare an authentic Latin version, which later was published as the Vulgate. This eventually
became established as the Bible of the whole western church until the Reformation.
The Bible in England/ English
For centuries the main version of the Bible used in the British Isles and throughout Europe,
was the Vulgate, Saint Jerome's Latin translation from Greek and Hebrew, dating from about
400 C.E.
The Psalms and the Gospels, which were used regularly in the mass, were translated from
Latin into many languages from the 5th century onwards. Between the 8th and 10th centuries
free translations were made into Old English (the language used by the Anglo-Saxons). Some
of these translations survive in later manuscripts.
As very few people could read, the Bible was probably best known to ordinary people
through hearing sermons.

Partial Translations:
The English Bible was first translated from the Latin Vulgate into Old English by a few
monks and scholars. These were generally in the form of prose or as interlinear
glosses (literal translations above the Latin words). Towards the end of the 7th century,
the Venerable Bede began a translation of scripture into Old English. Aldhelm (c. 639–709)
translated the complete Book of Psalms and large portions of other scriptures into Old
English.
In the 10th century an Old English translation of the Gospels was made in the Lindisfarne
Gospels1: a word-for-word gloss inserted between the lines of the Latin text by Aldred,
1
The Lindisfarne Gospels is an illuminated manuscript gospel book produced around 700 in a monastery
at Lindisfarne. The manuscript is one of the finest works in the unique style of Hiberno-Saxon or Insular art,
Web resources acknowledged
Provost of Chester-le-Street. This is the oldest extant translation of the Gospels into
the English language.
The Wessex Gospels (or the West-Saxon Gospels) was produced around 990 AD. A full
translation of the four gospels into a West Saxon dialect, this work is credited as the first
translation of all four gospels into English without the Latin text.
In the 11th century, Abbot Ælfric translated the Hexateuch (first five books and the Book of
Judges, all from the Old Testament) into Old English.
The Ormulum, a work by a monk Orm (Ormin), came out in the 12th century. It includes
very little Biblical text, and focuses more on personal commentary. This style was adopted by
many of the original English translators. For example, the story of the Wedding at Cana is
almost 800 lines long, but fewer than 40 lines are the actual translation of the text.
An English Psalter by Richard Rolle (1290–1349) is concerned with personal devotion, and
it was used by the Lollards.
Full Translations:
Wycliffe’s Bible: John Wycliffe (1320? – 1384), who is called ‘the
morning star of Reformation’, is an Oxford professor and theologian.
John Wycliffe and his followers produced the full English versions
of the Old and New Testament in the late 14th century. His
translation directly from the Vulgate into Middle English in 1382 is
now known as the Wycliffe's Bible. It is probable that he personally
translated the Gospels, and it is possible he translated the entire New
Testament, while his associates translated the Old Testament.
Wycliffe's Bible appears to have been completed by 1384, to be
followed by additional updated by Wycliffe's assistant John Purvey and others in 1388 and
1395.
Wycliffe’s translations came out in two different versions. The earlier text is characterised by
a strong adherence to the word order of Latin, and might have been difficult for the layperson
to comprehend. The later text made more concessions to the native grammar of English.
Tyndale Bible: William Tyndale (c.1494 – c.1536) was an English
scholar who became a leading figure in the English Reformation.
The Tyndale Bible generally refers to the body of biblical
translations by William Tyndale (c. 1494–1536). Tyndale's Bible is
noted as the first English translation developed directly
from Hebrew and Greek texts. Furthermore, it was the first English
biblical translation that was mass-produced as a result of new
advances in the art of printing. The term Tyndale's Bible is not
strictly correct, because Tyndale never published a complete Bible.
Prior to his execution Tyndale had only finished translating the
entire New Testament and roughly half of the Old Testament. Of
the latter, the Pentateuch, Jonah and a revised version of the book
of Genesis were published during his lifetime. His other Old
Testament works were first used in the creation of ‘the Matthew
Bible’ and also heavily influenced every major English translation
of the Bible that followed.
combining Mediterranean, Anglo-Saxon and Celtic elements. Presumed to be the work of a monk
named Eadfrith, who became Bishop of Lindisfarne in 698 and died in 721.
Web resources acknowledged
Matthew Bible: The Matthew Bible, also known as Matthew's Version, is the work of three
scholars. It was first published in 1537 by John Rogers, under the pseudonym "Thomas
Matthew". It combined the New Testament of William Tyndale, and as much of the Old
Testament as he had been able to translate before his execution. This work, with
incorporation of translations by Myles Coverdale, serves as a vital link in the main sequence
of English Bible translations.

Coverdale Bible: Bishop Myles Coverdale (1488 –1569), was an

Other early printed versions were the Geneva Bible (1560), notable for being the first Bible
divided into verses; the Bishop's Bible (1568), which was an attempt by Elizabeth I to create
a new authorised version; and the Authorized King James Version of 1611. The first
complete Roman Catholic Bible in English was the Douay–Rheims Bible, of which the New
Testament portion was published in Rheims in 1582 and the Old Testament somewhat later
in Douay in Gallicant Flanders.

Web resources acknowledged