THE LATER VERSIONS

1. Coverdale's Bible.

Tindale had not left himself without worthy successors, foremost amongst whom was one Miles Coverdale (1488-1569), who had already assisted Tindale in his translation of the Pentateuch, and who now, urged on by Thomas Cromwell, set himself so diligently to work that in 1535, probably at Zurich, the first complete Bible printed in English was issued from the press.

In his Dedication to Henry vm. Coverdale modestly disclaims the position of an independent translator, and speaks of having "purely and faythfully" followed "fyue sundry interpreters," who are generally identified with Luther, the Zurich Bible, the Vulgate, the Latin version of Pagninus, and Tindale. At the same time he was very far from being a mere "proof-reader or corrector" of the labour of his predecessors. His work possesses undoubted original value; and if Tindale in his translation "gave us the first great outline distinctly and wonderfully etched," Coverdale "added those minuter touches which soften and harmonize it." Thus, for example, to turn to his version of the Psalms, which may still be read almost unchanged in the English Book of Common Prayer, it is to Coverdale that we owe such musical renderings as, "My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever." "Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me." "For Thy lovingkindness is better than life; my lips shall praise Thee." While, as illustrations of the man and of the time, the following quaint renderings may be given — "bare it in hir nebb" (Gen. viii. n); "cast a pece of a mylstone upon Abimelech's heade, and brake his brane panne" (Judg. ix. 53); "the foolish bodyes saye in their hertes : Tush, there is no God" (Ps. xiv. i); "there is no more Triacle at Galaad" (Jer. viii. 22).

2. Other Sixteenth-Century Versions.

Other translations now followed in rapid succession, one of which is generally known as Matthew's Bible (1537). Its real editor, however, was a certain John Rogers, afterwards the proto-martyr in the Marian persecution, who perhaps adopted the alias of Thomas Matthew to hide his connexion with Tindale. For the whole of the New Testament, and about half of the Old Testament, are really Tindale's work, while the remainder is Coverdale's. Like the second edition of Coverdale's Bible, the new edition bears to be "set forth with the Kinges most gracious lycSce," and Cromwell, instigated by Cranmer, further obtained Henry vm.'s permission that "the same may be sold and read of every person, without danger of any act, proclamation, or ordinance heretofore granted to the ordinary." Hence it came about that "by Cranmer's petition, by Crumwell's influence, and by Henry's authority, without any formal ecclesiastical decision, the book was given to the English people, which is the foundation of the text of our present Bible. From Matthew's Bible — itself a combination of the labours of Tindale and Coverdale — all later revisions have been successively formed."1

Not yet satisfied with any of the existing versions, Cromwell called in the aid of Coverdale to prepare yet another version, which might rank as a National Bible. The work of printing was begun in Paris, but before it was completed the Inquisition stepped in, and it was with great difficulty that the precious sheets were saved and the presses sent over to England. There the work was soon finished, and in April 1539 the Great Bible, as being the Bible "in the largest volume," was issued from the press.

In 1540 a new edition was called for, containing a long Preface by Archbishop Cranmer, which has led to its being called Cranmer's Bible, while five other editions followed rapidly within the next eighteen months.

Every effort was made to get the people to accept the new version, Cromwell, as the king's vicegerent, issuing instructions to the clergy to provide without delay "one boke of the whole Bible of the largest volume in Englyshe," to be set up in the churches, and to "expresslye provoke, stere [stir], and exhorte every parsone [person] to rede the same, as that whyche ys the verye lively worde of God." Whatever the clergy may have thought, the opportunity thus afforded was gladly taken advantage of by the people, and in the aisle of some country church it was a common sight to see an eager crowd gathered round the chained Bible, while some one more educated than the rest read aloud.

We must not, however, imagine that this open reading of the Scriptures was everywhere viewed with favour. Thus, to confine ourselves to what took place in Scotland, on ist March 1539, through the influence of Cardinal Beaton, five persons were burnt on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, apparently for no other crime than that they "did not hesitate to study the books both of the Old and New Testament." And at the trial of one of them, the Bishop of Dunkeld actually made it a subject of boasting — "I thank God that I never knew what the Old or New Testament was." This deplorable state of matters was not, however, long allowed to continue. In 1543 it was proposed in the Parliament meeting at Edinburgh that "all the lieges in this realm may read the Scriptures in our native tongue," and proclamation to the above effect was duly made at the Market Cross. And so eagerly was the privilege taken advantage of, that twenty-five years later John Knox in describing the effects of this Act was able to write : "This was no small victory of Christ Jesus.... Then might have been seen the Bible lying almost upon every gentleman's table. The New Testament was borne about in many men's hands."

The Bible to which Knox refers in these words was one in whose production he himself in all probability had a share, though for its story we must turn from Scotland to Geneva.

In the troublous times following the accession of Queen Mary, a number of the leading Reformers had taken refuge in the city of Calvin and Beza, and there, as they themselves tell us, "We thought we could bestow our labours and study in nothing which could be more acceptable to God, and comfortable to His Church, than in the translating of the Scriptures into our native tongue."

The result was that in 1560 there appeared the famous Genevan Bible, often familiarly known as the Breeches Bible from its rendering of Gen. iii. 7, "They sewed fig-tree leaves together, and made themselves breeches."

The translation, as a whole, was due to the combined labours of William Whittingham, Thomas Sampson, and Anthony Gilby, and deserves high praise from the care that was bestowed upon it. Many of its renderings were very felicitous, and have passed through it into the Authorized Version, while its numerous notes, combined with the convenient size in which it appeared, did much to account for the popularity it long enjoyed.

It was not to be expected, however, that the successors of Cromwell and Cranmer would look with favour on a translation from the school of Calvin, and containing so many "prejudicial notes." Accordingly, in 1563-64, Archbishop Parker set on foot a scheme for the revision of Coverdale's version, and in 1568 the Bishops' Bible, so called from the number of bishops engaged on it, was completed, and a copy presented to Queen Elizabeth. An effort was made at the same time that it alone should be licensed "to draw to one uniformity." But this licence was never granted, and any authority which the new version enjoyed was due to episcopal, rather than to royal, support. As a translation, indeed, the Bishops' Bible suffered from the inequality inevitable to a work which had been produced by a number of independent workers, but it is hardly fair to characterize it as "the most unsatisfactory and useless of all the old translations."2 On the contrary, various portions of it are marked by a careful study of the Greek original, and not a few of the variations from previous translations, introduced by its editors, have found their way into the Authorized Version.

Before, however, we come to this version, there is still another translation to be noticed, which, like Tindale's and the Genevan, was produced in exile. At the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, certain English Roman Catholics had taken, refuge on the Continent, and to three of these refugees — William Allen, Gregory Martin, and Richard Bristow — the credit of the new version principally belongs.

The first part to appear was the New Testament,.** translated faithfully into English out of the authentical Latin, according to the best corrected copies of the same, diligently conferred with the Greeke and other editions in divers languages." This was published in Rheims in 1582, and was followed in 1609-10 by the publication at Douai of the Old Testament which had been previously completed, but had been kept back "for lack of good meanes." From its extreme adherence to "the old vulgar approved Latin," the Rheims and Douai Bible is often very stilted in expression and in style, while its markedly polemical notes would in themselves have prevented its gaining anything like general acceptance.

3. The Authorized Version.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century then, we meet with three versions of the Bible in more or less general use. There was the Great Bible of Henry viii., still to be seen chained to the desk in many country churches; there was the Genevan Bible, the favourite Bible of the people; and there was the Bishops' Bible, supported by ecclesiastical authority. Such a state of things could not, however, continue, and the way lay open for the advent of a new version, which was gradually to supersede all its rivals, and become for three centuries the Bible of all Englishspeaking peoples.

Regarding this version, it is certainly strange, considering its importance, how little is known regarding its origin, which is generally traced to a chance remark of Reynolds, the Puritan leader, at the Hampton Court Conference convened by King James vi. in 1604, "that there might be a new translation of the Bible because those which were allowed in the reign of King Henry VIII. and Edward vi. were corrupt and not answerable to the truth of the original." But it is interesting to notice that, so far at least as the King was concerned, the way had been prepared three years before by certain proceedings at a meeting of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland at Burntisland, at which he was present. On that occasion a similar proposal "for a new translation of the Bible, and the correcting of the Psalmes in meeter" was thrown out, and the historian Spottiswood has told us that "his majesty did urge it earnestly, and with many reasons did persuade the undertaking of the work, showing the necessity and the profit of it.... Speaking of the necessity, he did mention certain escapes in the common translation,... and when he came to speak of the Psalms, did recite whole verses of the same, showing both the faults of the metre and the discrepance from the text. It was the joy of all that were present to hear it, and bred not little admiration in the whole Assembly."3 And though nothing further came of this at the time, the idea of revision was certainly suggested to James's mind, and we can understand the eagerness with which at Hampton Court he fell in with Reynolds's suggestion, and expressed the wish that "some especial pains should be taken in that behalf for one uniform translation; professing that he could never yet see a Bible well translated in English, but the worst of all his Majesty thought the Geneva to be." Nor was this all, but James showed an active interest in the work by proposing that the new translation should be undertaken by "the best learned in both the universities, after them to be reviewed by the bishops and the chief learned of the Church; from them to be presented to the Privy Council; and lastly to be ratified by his royal authority; and so this whole Church to be bound unto it and none other."

Notwithstanding, however, the Royal favour bestowed upon it, the actual work was not commenced until 1607, and it was 1 61 1 before the new version was published. Its title ran :

"The Holy Bible, conteyning the Old Testament, and the New : Newly Translated out of the Originall tongues : & with the former Translations diligently compared and reuised by his Maiesties speciall Comandement. Appointed to be read in Churches. Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings Most Excellent Maiestie. Anno Dom. 1611."

It will be noticed that the word

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Authorized, by which the new version has come to be known, is not here applied to it, and, as a matter of fact, there is no evidence that it was ever publicly sanctioned by Convocation, or by Parliament, or by the King. Only slowly, and by the force of superior merit, did King James's version attain its commanding position. It became the "authorized" version, simply because it was the best.

Nor indeed was it, strictly speaking, a new translation, but rather a revision of the principal versions that had preceded it. And, consequently, through the Bibles of the Reformation period, through Tindale, through Wyclif, even through the early paraphrasts, it links itself step by step with some of the most stirring events in our national history, and has obtained a hold over the national mind and consciousness unparalleled in the history of any other English translation.

Of the general character of their work the Translators themselves have given a most interesting account in the striking Preface, originally attached to their work, which is understood to have been written chiefly by Dr. Miles Smith. Thus they assure us in the clearest manner that they set themselves not "to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one... but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against." And in order to secure this, they add that they were in the first instance careful to compare the renderings of the Bishops' Bible, which formed the basis of their work, with the original Hebrew and Greek — "the two golden pipes, or rather conduits, wherethrough the olive branches empty themselves into the gold. . . . If truth be to be tried by these tongues, then whence should a translation be made, but out of them?"

The result is that in the Authorized Version we find many literal and exact renderings introduced for the first time, while the appropriateness of the vocabulary and the beauty of the style have gained for it a hold over the national mind and consciousness unparalleled in the history of any previous version.

None, indeed, have shown themselves more ready to admit the commanding merits of the Authorized Version than those who in 1870 were appointed to revise it. "We," so the New Testament revisers tell us in their Preface, "have had to study this great Version carefully and minutely, line by line; and the longer we have been engaged upon it the more we have learned to admire its simplicity, its dignity, its power, its happy turns of expression, its general accuracy, and, we must not fail to add, the music of its cadences, and the felicities of its rhythm." And the testimony of Faber, after his secession to the Church of Rome, to the same effect is often quoted. Speaking of the marvellous English of the Authorized Version, he says : "It lives on the ear like a music that can never be forgotten, like the sound of church bells which the convert scarcely knows how he can forgo. Its felicities often seem to be things rather than words. It is part of the national mind, and the anchor of the national seriousness. . . . The memory of the dead passes into it. The potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. It is the representative of a man's best moments; all that there has been about him of soft and gentle and pure and penitent and good, speaks to him for ever out of his English Bible."

4. The Revised Version.

In these circumstances the very idea of revision might well seem to have been presumptuous. And yet there were not a few circumstances which, towards the close of the nineteenth century, combined to render such a task not only advisable but necessary, if the English reader was to be in the best possible position for having the exact sense of the original before him.

For one thing, as we shall see more fully afterwards, many of the English words used by the Translators of 1611 had become antiquated, or in the course of three centuries had so changed in meaning as no longer to be understood in the manner that was at first intended. And what is more important, earlier and better texts of the original had become available, involving many important changes of reading. Thus, to confine ourselves to the New Testament, while the Translators of 1611 had access only to a few late Greek manuscripts, at least two manuscripts of the highest importance, belonging to the fourth century, were now available. The knowledge of the versions of the Early Church had also greatly increased, and vastly improved aids in the matter of Lexicons and Grammars had placed scholars in a far more favourable position than any of their predecessors for removing the inaccuracies that had crept into previous translations.

In consequence, numerous changes had from time to time been silently introduced into successive issues of the Authorized Version, while various private attempts at revision had done much to prepare the minds of people for some more comprehensive scheme. It was not, however, until May 1870 that that scheme matured, when, acting on a report of a Committee appointed in the preceding February to consider the matter, the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury decided to "nominate a body of its own members to undertake the work of revision, who shall be at liberty to invite the co-operation of any eminent for scholarship, to whatever nation or religious body they may belong."

For the Rules drawn up for the Revisers' guidance, and for the manner in which they carried through their work, it must be enough to refer to their own Prefaces, but pointed attention may be drawn to the importance of taking note, not only of the new renderings in the text, but of the marginal alternatives. The Revisers had been instructed "to make or retain no change in the Text on the second final revision by each Company, except two thirds of those present approve of the same," and the result was that many important emendations, that had approved themselves to what we may call the more "progressive" section of the Revisers, having failed to secure the necessary support, were relegated to the margin. The strength of the evidence for these alternative readings is, however, becoming increasingly recognized, and when accordingly the University Presses recently issued an edition of the Revised Version without these marginal notes, they did a grave wrong to one of the most valuable portions of the Revisers' work.4

To return, however, to the work itself. The first part to be completed was the New Testament, which, after more than ten years of unremitting labour, was published in 1881, to be followed four years later by the Revised Old Testament. The title of the completed work, which, though only one in a long series of revisions, has come to be known as par excellence the Revised Version, ran simply :

"The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments translated out of the original tongues : being the version set forth A.D. 1611 compared with the most ancient authorities and revised."

It might have been expected that, if only on the ground of its greater faithfulness to the original, the new version would speedily have supplanted the old in general use. But whether it be owing to a natural conservatism with regard to a version, hallowed by so long a history and by so many sacred memories, or to certain blemishes of force and style often attributed to the Revised Version itself, this has not proved to be the case. And there seems to be a growing danger that even students will not continue to avail themselves so fully as they ought of the invaluable assistance which the new version brings within their reach.

It is to try and obviate this, and show how much may be learned from a comparative study of the two versions that the remaining sections of this little book have been written.

1 Wentcott, A General View of the History of the English Bible, new edition by W. A. Wright, London, 1905, p. 71 f.

2 Lovett, The Printed English Bible, p. 120.

3 History of the Church of Scotland, Edinburgh edition, 1850, iii. p. 98.

4 The most useful edition of the Revised New Testament for students is undoubtedly the edition "with Fuller References," which was published in 1910, incorporating a body of references originally prepared for the New Testament Company by two of their number, and enabling the reader, with an accuracy and completeness unknown before, to compare Scripture with Scripture.