Bible Panels and Dis

By the 3rd century BC Greek had become the common language of the countries in eastern Mediterranean countries – including among those Jews who’d been exiled from their own country. King Ptolemy II of Egypt wanted a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament for his library at Alexandria. So he arranged for 72 Jewish scholars to do this for him - hence its title, because the Latin word septuaginta means "seventy". It was written on papyrus scrolls, fragments of which have been found, like the replicas on the panel. The Septuagint was in use in the days of Jesus and his followers 300 years later. The copy on the table was printed in 1665. In the centuries after Jesus Christ, Latin was the language used by the Church in its services. In the 4th century Pope Damasus was keen to have one standard edition of the Latin Bible to replace the different ones in circulation. He gave his secretary Jerome the task of producing one. First Jerome revised the text of the Gospels. He took the best existing Latin text he could find, and corrected it where necessary with the help of Greek manuscripts. Next he translated the Book of Psalms. This was followed by the rest of the New Testament. He retired to live in Bethlehem as a monk. Here he decided that the best way to translate the Old Testament was really to go back to the original Hebrew. He finished doing this in 405 AD. Actually, this Bible wasn’t given the title Vulgate until much later, in 1546. It comes from the Latin ‘vulgaris’, meaning ‘popular’. It became the one used throughout Western Europe for many centuries. The page on the panel is from a 13th century Bible published in France. The volume on the table was produced in 1609. 1 | P a g e When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, some Christians fled to Britain and Ireland and formed monasteries. Bible manuscripts were stored and copied there. Bede was a monk who lived from in the 7th and 8th centuries AD. He lived at a monastery in Northumbria. He translated the Gospel of John from Latin into old English. The 9th century King Alfred was another who translated parts of the Bible from Latin. The translators of the 10th century Wessex Gospels from Latin into Anglo-Saxon are unknown. On the table we have an 1848 reprint of Anglo-Saxon Gospels. Indeed, from the 7th - 14th centuries there were many attempts at translating parts of the Bible into early English. But it seems that these were to help the clergy, many of whom didn’t understand Latin. In the 14th century the official Bible of the Church was still the Latin Vulgate. John Wycliffe, the Rector of Lutterworth in Leicestershire. He insisted that the ultimate authority for Christians should be the Bible, not the Church. So it was essential for them to read the Bible for themselves. He, with help from other scholars, made the 1st English translation of the entire Bible in 1384. There’s an 1810 reprint of his New Testament on the table. He translated it from the Vulgate. He sent out preachers into the streets and the fields. His enemies called them Lollards, or “mutterers”, because they read from the Bible. As a result many ordinary people, who could not themselves read, learned parts of the Bible off by heart. The Church didn’t approve of Wycliffe’s work, because he acted without its authority. It persecuted Wycliffe and his followers, putting many of them to death. On the right of the panel you can see some of their names. In 1408 a new law was brought in that decreed that no-one should translate any part of the Bible its approval. 2 | P a g e In 1453 Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (or Byzantine Empire), was captured by the Turks. As a result, many Hebrew and Greek scholars fled for safety from the east to Europe. In the West they continued their studies, including the study of the Bible. They brought with them early copies of the New Testament in Greek, which proved valuable to future Bible translation. The next landmark was the invention of printing to make multiple copies of documents at the same time. Until then copies of Bibles had been made by hand. It might take a year to produce just one. And it was expensive. The invention of printing using moveable type is usually credited to the German, Johannes Gutenberg. On the panel is an illustration of one of the first mechanical printing presses. It was Gutenberg who produced the first printed Bible in Germany in 1455-6. This was a Latin Vulgate printed on vellum and done in such a way as to make it look it hand-written. One of its pages is reproduced on the panel. For many this is the most beautiful book in the world. The facsimile on the table is volume 2 of a 2-volume set printed in the 21st century. 3 | P a g e William Caxton brought printing to England in 1476. He was the 1st to print parts of the Bible in English. From now on Bibles were printed. About 100 years after John Wycliffe’s death, William Tyndale also stated that the Christian’s true authority was the Bible, not the Church. To someone who disagreed with this he said, “If God spares my life, I will cause a ploughboy to know more Scripture than you do!” But his efforts to bring the Bible in current English to the man in the street proved too difficult and dangerous in England. He was forced abroad for the rest of his life. There he translated the New Testament into English and had it printed in 1525. The example on the table was reprinted in 1862. Copies were smuggled back to England for circulation. Many people lost their lives in the process, because King Henry VIII and the Church were violently opposed to the work. He later translated and published parts of the Old Testament. Tyndale was the first to bypass the Vulgate and go directly to the Hebrew and Greek texts. But his enemies pursued him even on the Continent. King Henry had him arrested and imprisoned outside Brussels. He was tried for heresy, strangled and his body was burned at the stake. He died crying, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!”, Others followed in his footsteps. For example, Miles Coverdale produced a printed Bible in English in 1535. He used much of Tyndale's translation. This also had to be done abroad. But 2 years later the 2nd edition was the first English Bible printed in England. It even had King Henry’s blessing. “His eyes had been opened” indeed! On the table is the 1550 reprint. 4 | P a g e Miles Coverdale was commissioned to produce a standard English Bible. In 1539 the Great Bible was printed in England, so called because of its size. A copy was installed in every parish church, chained to a reading desk, like the model on the table, to prevent theft. The Great Bible on the table was printed in 1540. Queen Mary was a Roman Catholic, so Bible students were again persecuted and driven abroad. Geneva in Switzerland became a centre of learning for them. There William Whittingham and others produced another translation in 1560, the Geneva Bible. The copy on the table was produced in 1599. It’s often called the ‘Breeches Bible’, because it says that Adam and Eve ‘ made themselves breeches’. It became more popular than the Great Bible. It was portable, affordable and could therefore be read at home. It was the first to be printed in Roman type, as opposed to the 'black letter' type that looked like handwriting. It was the first to be divided into chapters and verses all the way through. It was also the first to indicate in italics words added by translators. When Elizabeth I, who was Protestant, became queen, the Church in England proposed a new translation. Sections of the work were given to suitably qualified bishops, which is why it was unofficially called the “Bishops’ Bible”. Their instructions were to revise the Great Bible. This took 7 years and was finished in 1568. It superseded the Great Bible as the authorised version of the Church of England. But unlike the Great Bible it was also an approved version for ordinary people. This version was nicknamed the “Treacle Bible”, because it translated “Is there no balm in Gilead?” in Jer. 8 as “Is there not treacle in Gilead…?” The copy on table was printed in 1574. It was now the turn of Catholics to flee to Europe to avoid persecution. At Douai in France they translated it from the Latin Vulgate an English translation to rival the Protestant Geneva Bible. They. The N.T. was printed at Rheims in 1582, the O.T. at Douai in 1609-1610. It’s therefore known as the Douai (or Douai-Rheims) Bible. 5 | P a g e All this paved the way for the next milestone, the Authorised Version, or King James Version of the Bible. King James I, himself a Bible scholar, was persuaded that there was a need for a new English translation that would be acceptable to all. Strict terms of reference were laid down and the King himself would have to personally approve it. The panel of 47 translators was chosen on the grounds of scholarship alone. It was to be a revision of the Bishops’ Bible.

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