The
first Bible to be written in the English language were translated to
English by John Wycliffe, who wrote them by hand in the 1380s.
Wycliffe, an Oxford theologian, used the fourth century Latin Vulgate
as a basis for his translation, since the Greek and Hebrew languages of
the Old and New Testaments were not accessible to him. Wycliffe devoted
much of his life to writing and teaching against the practices and
dogmas of the Roman Church, which he believed to be contrary to the
holy writ. Although he died nonviolently, the Pope was so infuriated by
his teachings that he ordered his body excavated, his bones crushed,
and scattered in a river.
Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 1450s. The first book to be printed
was the Bible, which was printed in Latin. During the Reformation in
the early 1500s, the Bible was illegally printed in English, and at
great risk to those involved.
William
Tyndale, an English reformer, worked to translate the Greek New
Testament into plain English. His effort was made possible through
Erasmus' publication of the Greek/Latin New Testament in 1516. Erasmus
and printer/reformer John Froben published the first non-Latin Vulgate
text of the Bible in a millennium. Latin, widely used amongst the
literate, was considered the language of scholarship for
centuries. Erasmus' Latin was not the Vulgate translation of Jerome,
but his own rendering of the Greek New Testament text. Erasmus'
translation revealed huge discrepancies in the Vulgate's integrity,
convincing rank and file scholars, many of whom were already
disenchanted with the established church.
Martin
Luther nailed his 95 Theses of Contention to the Wittenberg Door.
Luther, who would be exiled in the months after the Diet of Worms
Council in 1521, would translate the New Testament into German from
Erasmus' Greek/Latin New Testament, publishing it in 1522. William
Tyndale would translate the New Testament into English, but he was not
permitted to do this in England.
Tyndale
worked to completed his New Testament in English. inquisitors and
bounty hunters were on Tyndale's trail in an attempt to prevent the
Bible from being translated into English. Nevertheless, in 1525 Tyndale
printed the first translation of New Testament in English. The Bishop
of London took steps to confiscate and burn them as they found their
way into England, but copies continued to circulate among Christians,
this despite the fact that possession of one of Tyndale's New
Testaments carried a penalty of death by burning.
Betrayed
by a friend, Tyndale was eventually taken into custody. Imprisoned for
more than a year, he was strangled and burned at the stake in
1536. Only two copies of his first printing of the New Testament in
English are known to have survived.
Myles
Coverdale and John Rogers assisted Tyndale during the last six years of
life, carrying the project forward after his death. Coverdale finished
translating the Old Testament, and in 1535 he printed the first
complete Bible in the English language, using Luther's German text and
the Latin as sources. Thus, the first translation of the complete Bible
was printed on October 4, 1535, and is known as the Coverdale Bible.
John
Rogers later printed the second complete English Bible in 1537. He
printed it under a pseudonym - Thomas Matthew - since a significant
portion of his Bible was the translation of Tyndale, whose works were
still condemned by the English authorities. It is a composite of the
1534-1535 edition of Tyndale's Pentateuch and New Testament, the
Coverdale Bible, and Roger's own translation of the text. It is
commonly known as the Matthew's Bible.
The
climate changed. At the order of King Henry VIII, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, hired Coverdale to publish the first
English Bible authorized for public use. It was distributed to every
church and chained to the pulpit. By the decree of the king, a reader
was provided so that the illiterate could hear the Scriptures in their
own language. Cranmer's Bible, published by Coverdale, was known as the
Great Bible due to its large size - a large pulpit folio measuring over
14 inches tall. Seven editions were printed between 1539 and 1541.