The work of making a better translation and distributing it effectively was accomplished later by William Tyndale. It was translated from poor manuscripts, however, and was never widely available. His version, known as the Wycliffe Bible, was the first complete Bible in English. But Wycliffe’s movement to make the Bible available to everyone could not be stopped. In fact, his remains were exhumed after his death and burned along with his books. However, the official church rejected his work, and him with it. He began this work and his followers completed it. It was his heartfelt belief that the people should have a Bible they could read for themselves. Then John Wycliffe (died 1384) and his followers made the first effort to translate the entire Bible into the people’s language. Versions of other parts of the Bible were made up to the fourteenth century. The first British Christians made rough translations of the Bible into the Anglo-Saxon language, completing the gospels and some of the Old Testament by the ninth century. The story of the English Bible begins with the introduction of Christianity into Great Britain, probably around the third century AD. Later, the first attempts to give the Bible in “common” English were based on Jerome’s “common” Bible. It is ironic that long after Latin passed from the scene as a common language, the church still insisted that this “common” Bible be used. “Vulgate” stands for the “vulgar” or “common” Latin he used. In the fourth century, a scholar in the Catholic Church named Jerome wanted to give the people a Bible in Latin since this had become the common language of the day. One other early translation deserves our attention: the Latin Vulgate. Most versions today still mainly follow its order of the Old Testament books. When the New Testament writers quoted the Old Testament, they usually quoted the Septuagint. It is important to know that this Greek Old Testament was the popular Bible of Jesus’ day. It is sometimes abbreviated “LXX,” the Roman numeral for seventy. This translation of the Old Testament is called the Septuagint, for the “seventy” who did its work. The first effort of this kind was made by seventy-two Jewish scholars who translated the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek, the common language of their day. Long before Tyndale published his English Bible, scholars were working to give their people a Bible they could read. Where did our English versions of the Bible come from? In fact, the Bible is the most translated book in the world. For this reason, a good Bible translation is your most essential tool for understanding God’s word.įortunately, there are scores of such translations available today. Since most people are unfamiliar with these languages, we must rely on a Bible that has been translated into English. The Bible was originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. These are important questions for all who want to unlock God’s word for themselves.
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