History of the Translation of the Bible fb lecture 28 July

1.The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (from the Latin: septuāgintā, lit. 'seventy'; often abbreviated 70; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Koine Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible, various biblical apocrypha, and deuterocanonical books.The first five books of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Torah or the Pentateuch, were translated in the mid-3rd century BCE; they did not survive as original translation texts, however, except as rare fragments. The remaining books of the Greek Old Testament are presumably translations of the 2nd century BCE.

2.Early Modern English Bible translations are of between about 1500 and 1800, the period of Early Modern English. This, the first major period of Bible translation into the English language, began with the introduction of the Tyndale Bible.The first complete edition of his New Testament was in 1526. William Tyndale used the Greek and Hebrew texts of the New Testament (NT) and Old Testament (OT) in addition to Jerome's Latin translation. He was the first translator to use the printing press – this enabled the distribution of several thousand copies of his New Testament translation throughout England. Tyndale did not complete his Old Testament translation.

3.The first printed English translation of the whole Bible was produced by Miles Coverdale in 1535, using Tyndale's work together with his own translations from the Latin Vulgate or German text. After much scholarly debate it is concluded that this was printed in Antwerp and the colophon gives the date as 4 October 1535. This first edition was adapted by Coverdale for his first "authorised version", known as the Great Bible, of 1539. Other early printed versions were the Geneva Bible (1560), notable for being the first Bible divided into verses and which negated the Divine Right of Kings; 

The Geneva Bible is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into English, preceding the King James Version by 51 years.It was the primary Bible of 16th-century English Protestantism and was used by William Shakespeare,Oliver Cromwell, John Knox, John Donne, and John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim's Progress (1678). It was one of the Bibles taken to America on the Mayflower (Pilgrim Hall Museum has collected several Bibles of Mayflower passengers). The Geneva Bible was used by many English Dissenters, and it was still respected by Oliver Cromwell's soldiers at the time of the English Civil War, in the booklet "Cromwell's Soldiers' Pocket Bible".

4.the Bishop's Bible (1568), which was an attempt by Elizabeth I to create a new authorised version; and the Authorized King James Version of 1611.

5..The first complete Roman Catholic Bible in English was the Douay–Rheims Bible, of which the New Testament portion was published in Rheims in 1582 and the Old Testament somewhat later in Douay in Gallicant Flanders.

Astrophil and Stella 63: O Grammar rules, O now your virtues show

O Grammar rules, O now your virtues show;

    So children still read you with awful eyes,

    As my young Dove may in your precepts wise

Her grant to me, by her own virtue know.

For late with heart most high, with eyes most low,

    I crav’d the thing which ever she denies:

    She lightning Love, displaying Venus’ skies,

Least once should not be heard, twice said, No, No.

    Sing then my Muse, now Io Pæan sing,

    Heav’ns envy not at my high triumphing:

But Grammar’s force with sweet success confirm,

    For Grammar says (O this dear Stella weigh,)

    For Grammar says (to Grammar who says nay)

That in one speech two Negatives affirm.