A History of the English Bible
Topic: Education is Key
I want to start by saying that I know I don’t write as much now as I used to when I first started this blog, but please know that for those who monetarily support this publication, your generosity helps fund all of my efforts, both with election integrity in Pennsylvania, and in my work as a Regional Director/Ambassador for Patriot Academy. Without your support, I could not afford to continue on this journey. So first, I want to offer a heartfelt thank you from me and my graciously supportive family. Because of you, I can stay in the fight to Save the Republic.
I have many thoughts about the current political state of affairs that we find ourselves in… everything from last week’s perplexing Presidential debate, to Steve Bannon’s impending jail sentence this week, to Donald Trump’s historic conviction and subsequent sentencing on July 11th. And I plan to put my thoughts to paper very soon on all of that, but before I do, I want to share something else that I’ve read recently that I think can add more value to your journey on this crazy roller coaster that I call “Life After COVID: Rediscovering Reality After Taking the Red Pill.” Doesn’t that sound like a novel in the making all by itself? LOL
Anyway, one of my students from the first Biblical Citizenship in Modern America class that I ever hosted in the summer of 2021 bought me a gift called The Founder’s Bible. At the time, I knew it was a tremendous treasure to have, but it wasn’t until I started following Patriot Academy’s daily devotional that I finally discovered what an incredible resource it really is.
That being said, I feel inclined to copy, word for word, an article from this brilliant masterpiece called “Our Most Sacred Treasure: A History of the English Bible” because reading it brought such context and clarity to my historical perspective on the Bible that I feel like, certainly I can’t be alone.
So here it is, straight from the Founder’s Bible, 2nd Edition. I’ll break it up into multiple articles to hopefully make it easier to digest and to increase your retention. Simply put, this historical gem must be studied and retold for generations to come.
The Bible, more than any other book, has shaped America into the unique nation that she has become - a statement that will be conclusively proven in the various commentaries and articles you will find throughout The Founder’s Bible. The story of how the English-language Bible came into existence is almost as interesting as the impact that it had upon the American people.
Numerous Bibles and manuscripts have existed for millennia in various languages, such as the Dead Sea scrolls, Septuagint, etc., but the first English-language Bible came much later. It was a handwritten copy made by British theologian John Wycliffe in 1384, when he translated a Latin Bible into English, but at that time, it was illegal to put the Bible in the language of the common man, so Wycliffe had to flee for his life after finishing that translation. His followers, however, were firmly committed to his vision of making the Scriptures available in English and thus made dozens of handwritten copies of his manuscript (each one took about one year to transcribe!), spreading them across England. For the first time, a few English speaking people received a glimpse into the Scriptures written in words they could understand. Wycliffe’s handwritten translation contained 80 books, including the New Testament, Old Testament, and Apocrypha.
(Significantly, until almost the twentieth century, it is fascinating to note that English Bibles, whether Protestant or Catholic, included 80 books, not just the more common 66 that are considered today by most to be the most authoritative canon of Scripture. In fact, King James (early 1600s) even threatened heavy fines and a year in jail for anyone who printed the Bible without the Apocrypha. Today, the Apocrypha is largely considered as a Roman Catholic part of the Bible, but that was not always the case as every major Bible by a Protestant Reformer also included it. What are we to make of that? While there is no definitive, complete explanation for why Bibles in the years leading up to the twentieth century began to drop it, we can make the observation that whether or not the Apocrypha was to be considered part of the canon of Scripture, most every serious scholar of the Bible considered those books to be of value and profitable to read for personal study. That there is something unique and weighty about the accepted 66 books of the Bible is unarguable. A more detailed discussion of the Apocrypha and the canon of Scripture will appear a bit later in this article.)
In 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented the moveable type printing press, which revolutionized printing. Instead of taking a year for just one handwritten copy, his process made it possible to print hundreds adn even thousands of Bibles at one time.
In 1525, William Tyndale of England printed the world’s first English New Testament, which was reprinted several times over subsequent years. But because Bibles in the common language were still illegal, officials gathered everyone they could find and burned them, and for any person found in possession of Tyndale’s New Testament, the penalty was death. Eventually, Tyndale himself was captured, garroted, and then burned at the stake. Only two copies of his original work are known to have survived
In 1535, Myles Coverdale, one of Tyndale’s disciples, took Tyndale’s New Testament and added to it the Old Testament and Apocrypha, thus printing the first complete Bible in English.
In 1537, John Rogers printed the second complete English Bible, but it was the first one translated from the original Biblical languages of Greek and Hebrew rather than from Latin. Because of the danger he faced, the Bible was printed under the pen name “Thomas Matthew,” so his printing is known as the Matthews Bible; it too, included 80 books.
In 1539, Thomas Cranmer, head of the Anglican Church under King Henry VIII, contracted with Myles Coverdale to publish the “Great Bible” – the first English Bible that was officially authorized for public use in the common language. A copy was given to every church, and it was chained to the pulpit (thus, it is commonly called a “pulpit Bible”). Significantly, an official reader was assigned to each church to read the Bible aloud so that the many illiterate people in England could hear God’s Word spoken in their own tongue. However, when King Henry’s daughter, Mary, came to the throne, she burned both John Rogers and Thomas Cranmer at the stake.
In the 1550’s, persecuted leaders such as Myles Coverdale and John Foxe (who had published the famous Foxe’s Book of Martyrs) went to Geneva, Switzerland, and joined with reformers John Calvin, John Knox, and others to produce a Bible that could be used by exiled Christians in any country. In 1557, they printed a New Testament, and in 1560, the full Bible; and because it was printed in Geneva, it was aptly titled the Geneva Bible. It was the first Bible to add numbered verses to each chapter, and it too contained the Apocrypha.
The Geneva became the popular Bible of those who objected to corrupt practices of both State and Church, known as Dissenters, and it went through 140 editions from 1560 to 1644. Significantly, it was not until the publication and widespread distribution of the Geneva Bible that the general population had what could be considered a personal copy of the Scriptures that they could own and actually read for themselves.
The Geneva Bible was the first Bible to be taken to America, both to Jamestown as well as Plymouth, and it would have a remarkable role in shaping much of the founding of America. In fact, the famous painting of the Embarkation of the Pilgrims that hangs in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol shows the Pilgrims gathered around a Geneva Bible.
What made the Geneva distinctive from all other Bibles at that time was its marginal commentaries on the Scriptures – commentaries penned by prominent reformers. These commentaries regularly challenged the culture, especially criticizing traditions and practices that violated God’s Word, including the primary form of governance in use at that time.
For citizens in that era, a monarchy was the standard for government. And why not? After all, kings were featured prominently throughout the Scriptures: King Saul, King David, King Solomon, King Rehoboam, King Josiah, King Jehoshaphat, etc. So it was easy for citizens to assume that God preferred monarchies, but a closer study of the Bible indicated that this was definitely not God’s preference. In fact, God even sent the prophet Samuel to dissuade His people from monarchies (1 Samuel 8:10-18), but Israel demanded kings anyway.
So what was Israel’s form of government before it degenerated into a monarchy? It was what may be termed a “republic.” In Exodus 18:21, the people were told to choose out from among themselves leaders of tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands – that is, to select officials at what we could call the local, county, state, and federal levels. Understanding this original form of governance, the early colonists who arrived in America and were students of the Geneva Bible therefore established representative governments. By 1619, Virginia had instituted an elected legislature, and when the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts in 1620, they similarly announced they would be self-governed. (For more about various forms of government mentioned in the Bible, and the Bible’s preference for the republican form, see the commentary accompanying Exodus 18:21.)
To be continued…
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