Metaphrasis

The Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum in West Jerusalem.

“The most influential version of the most influential book in the world, in what is now its most influential language” – 400 Years of the King James Bible, The Times Literary Supplement 9 February 2011

Long before the Protestant Reformation in the Middle Ages, back in Egypt under the rule of Ptolomy II, one of the four Generals of Alexander the Great; the Jews of Alexandria translate (metaphrasis) the Torah (OT) into Greek. This translation became known as the Septuagint meaning “seventy” and was translated into Koine Greek. In the 1st century AD, the Vetus Latina was created, the earliest collection of Biblical writings in Latin, from which was later derived in 382 AD, the Vulgate Latin Bible produced by Jerome. According to Theodore Beza the Waldensians, who live in the Vaudois Valley of Norhern Italy, started following Christ in 120 AD, they used the Vetus Latina. During the 3rd century AD, the Early church created what is called the Byzantine text-type, which consist of the largest collection of Bible manuscripts that survive, out of which comes the Textus Recepticus. The Gothic Bible and the Gothic Alphabet was written and translated by Wulfila or Ulfilas, a Greek from Cappadocia, into Gothic for the Goths in the 3rd century. Widely circulated in the East during the 5th century, The Peshitta was translated from Hebrew into Syriac. Around the same time of the Peshitta, came the translations of what is now the Ethiopian Bible, which was derived from Garima Gospels in the Ge’ez language which came from Greek manuscripts. In the 6th century, the Irish missionary St. Columba, born of a line of High Irish kings, translated 300 copies of the New Testament into Gaelic. Another of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland was St. Brendan of Birr, who studied at the Clonard Abbey. Brendan later established a monastery at Birr where the The Gospel Book of Macregol was created in 800 AD. From 1382 – 1395, John Wycliffe, Nicholas of Hereford, John Trevisa and John Purvey; translated the Latin Vulgate into Middle English, for the British people. In 1430, the Spanish Alba Bible, the Old Testament was translated and illustrated from Hebrew into Mediaeval Castilian. In 1455, the Gutenberg Bible was published, a Vulgate version, and the first book to be printed with movable type on a printing press. In 1514 and 1522, the first New Testament was published in Greek by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, as part of the Complutensian Polyglot. Erasmus printed his Greek New Testament in 1516. Going into the Protestant Reformation, a explosion of translations take off! While hiding out at Wartberg Castle, Martin Luther began his translation of the New Testament from Koine Greek into Early New High German and later finished the Luther Bible with the help of other scholars by 1534. From 1526-1535, William Tyndale and Miles Cloverdale’s Bible, is the first to be published into English from Hebrew and Greek. In France, Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples translated the New Testament in 1523. In 1524, King Christian of Denmark-Norway had the New Testament published into the Danish language. In Sweden, the Gustav Vasa Bible was published in Swedish in 1526. The Matthew Bible, was published by John Rogers, under the pseudonym “Thomas Matthew” in 1537. In England, the first Bible version to be officially authorized by King Henry VIII was the Great Bible by Myles Coverdale and Thomas, Lord of Cromwell. The first New Testament translation into Finnish was published in 1548 by Mikael Agricola. In 1557, the Geneva Bible was published which was based primarily on the work of Tyndale and Coverdale. This book inspired the literary works of: William Shakespeare, (or as some believe to be Sir Francis Bacon), John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and the poet John Donne. The Geneva Bible was the Bible the Pilgrims took with them on the Mayflower. In Basel, Switzerland another Spanish version of the Bible was translated by Casiodoro de Reina in 1569. Later in London, the Spaniard Cipriano de Valera published another Bible version in 1596. In 1502, the New Testament of the Douy-Rheims Bible was published followed by the Old Testament in 1609. Before this, in 1604, King James VI & I of Scotland, England and Ireland, brought together a conference at Hampton Court to produce a new authorized version of the Bible that would unite his kingdom, this version is the King James Version which was printed in 1611 by Robert Barker. The New King James Version was published in 1982. Jão Ferreira de Almeida printed his translation of the New Testament from Spanish into Portuguese in 1633. The Dutch pastor Jacobus op den Akker finished Almeida’s Old Testament version in 1694. The Statenvertaling was the first Dutch translation of the Bible from Greek and Hebrew in 1637. In 1833, Noah Webster published a revised translation of the King James Bible. The first woman and American to translate the Bible was Julie E. Smith Parker, completed in 1855 and published in 1876. The Scotsman Robert Young published his translation of the Bible in English from the Textus Recepticus from the Byzantine text-type, in 1862. There are more Bible translations which come from other manuscripts such as the:

• Alexandrian text-type (Coptic Christian Bibles & Eastern Orthodox Bibles)
• Caesarean text-type ( Codex Koridethi, Minuscule 1, & Origen)
• Western text-type (NT translations of Old Latin and Peshitta from Greek, writers  Cyprian, Tertullian and Irenaeus)

The explosion of Biblical translations that took place during the Reformation, and the progress of society, science, medicine and industry owe much to the light the Bible shed on society!

Resources:

Watch: KJV – The Book That Changed The World, presented by John Rhys-Davies.

A Lamp in the Dark: The Untold History of the Bible, Adullam Films

The Dead Sea Scrolls, BBC

‘The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (7th Edition),’ by Geza Vermes