|
See Parts 1-4
THE ORIGIN & HISTORY OF THE BIBLE---PART FIVE
IV. THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON---HOW WAS IT DEVELOPED?
B. How did the New Testament books come to be recognized as Scripture?
1. In the beginning, the account of Jesus' life on earth and his teachings were passed on to new Christians through a body of oral tradition taught by the Apostles and their associates (Acts 2:42). They were given the Holy Spirit to help them recall all that Jesus had taught them (John 14:25-26; Luke 12:11-12). Then, for a time as the New Testament books were written, the written witness existed side by side with the oral tradition. But during the 2nd century A.D., the written Word gradually replaced the oral tradition as the primary source of Christian teaching.
2. The establishment of the New Testament canon based on our current 27 books did not really take very long when you consider the political situation of those days and the slowness of transportation and communication. The church was persecuted for almost the first 300 years of its existence and transportation was by primitive boats or by foot or horse. The church basically existed as widely separated local congregations with only occasional contacts with one another through letters or traveling evangelists.
3. Because of the limitations of communication and the fact that the New Testament books were written over a period of nearly 50 years, individual churches only gradually assembled collections of these books. It would be natural, then, for some churches to be more familiar with some books than others. Though most of the church was acquainted with the majority of New Testament books from an early date, for a time churches in some areas questioned the books of Hebrews, James, II Peter, II and III John, Jude and Revelation. Basically, churches in the western half of the empire were slow to recognize one group of books, while the churches in the eastern part of the empire delayed recognition of a different group of books. The church in Rome, for example, did not accept Hebrews until after 300 A.D. and some churches in the East did not accept Revelation for a similar period of time.
4. There is evidence in the New Testament itself that some of its books were recognized by the Apostles as Scripture at a very early date. In 1 Tim. 5:18 (written about 63 AD.), Paul clearly shows he understood Luke 10:7 to be Scripture in the same sense that Deuteronomy 25:4 is Scripture. It is also clear that Peter regarded some of Paul's letters as being Scripture (2 Peter 3:15, written about 66 A.D.).
5. There is also evidence that late 1st century and 2nd century church leaders understood our New Testament teachings to be Scripture.
a. Clement of Rome, in a letter to the Corinthian church (about 96 AD.), quotes the words of Jesus as being at least on a level of authority with those of the prophets. He writes (quoting Jeremiah 9:23-24), "The Holy Spirit says, 'Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom nor the strong man in his strength nor the rich man in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in the Lord, to seek him out and to practice judgment and righteousness . . ." Clement continues, quoting either oral tradition or loosely from Matthew 5:7: "especially remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, 'Be merciful, so that you may obtain mercy . . .’" (followed by further loose quotations from the Sermon on the Mount).
b. About 110 A.D, Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, wrote that there are some people who refuse to believe anything that is not recorded "in the archives" (the Old Testament Scriptures), even if it is affirmed "in the gospel." When Ignatius says, "It is written" or "Scripture says" (referring to the gospel), his opponents reply, "That is the question" (presumably meaning: Is the gospel Scripture?). Ignatius responds by saying that the ultimate authority is Jesus: whatever authority the "archives" have is summed up and brought to perfection in his death and resurrection (which is, of course, the primary theme of the New Testament books).
c. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, about 110 A.D., wrote to the Philippians and reminded his readers who were "well versed in the sacred letters" that "it is said in these scriptures, 'Be angry and sin not' (Psalm 4:4 & Ephesians 4:26) and 'Do not let the sun go down on your anger'" (Ephesians 4:26). Thus Polycarp places Ephesians on an equal footing with the Old Testament books.
d. The 2nd century Letter of Barnabas (probably the work of an Alexandrian Christian)uses the clause "as it is written" to introduce the quote, "Many are called, but few are chosen (Matthew 22:14).
e. The 2nd century Second Epistle of Clement quotes Isaiah 54:1 ("Rejoice, 0 barren one . . .") and then says, "And another scripture says, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners," a clear reference to Matthew 9:13.
f. Origen (185-254 A.D.) divided the new covenant books into two groups, the Gospels and the Apostles. But he joined them under the name of "the New Testament" and stated that they are "divine Scriptures," written by evangelists and apostles through the same Spirit and proceeding from the same God as the Old Testament. He also asserted that the Gospels written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John" are the only indisputable ones in the Church of God under heaven." Origen also solidly supports Acts, 1 Peter, 1 John, Jude and Paul's letters, including Hebrews, as Scripture, although he acknowledges the possibility that someone besides Paul may have written Hebrews. His position on the remaining New Testament books is unclear. [IPS NOTE: At this point I strongly suggest you refer to Footnote I For details about Origen - one of the most outstanding heretics of all time].
C. How were the New Testament books assembled into our New Testament?
1. We do not know when the first collection of Paul's letters was put together or who did it, although Luke is a good possibility. However, individual churches were sharing copies of Paul's writings at a very early date, since Galatians is addressed to several churches (Gal. 1:2) and Paul told the Colossians and Laodiceans to share their letters (Col. 4:16). We noted above that Peter regarded Paul's letters as Scripture (2 Peter 3:15) and he no doubt possessed a collection of them. Since Peter was martyred about 66 or 67 A.D., a consolidated collection of Paul's letters may have existed that early in some locations. But it is clear that from the early 2nd century onward Paul's letters circulated as a collection.
a. The oldest surviving copy of the Pauline collection is the Chester Beattv codex P46, copied about 200 A.D., discovered in Egypt. Of the original 104 folios (sheets of paper folded once), 86 survived. This codex appears not to have included the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus---the last epistles Paul wrote), but did have Hebrews. Other early copies of the Pauline collection exist which do not include the Pastoral Epistles or Hebrews or both. The evidence suggests the original edition of the Pauline letters, put together even before the Pastoral Epistles were written, had only 10 letters of today's 14. When the Pastorals and Hebrews were added is uncertain.
b. It should be pointed out that Paul did write other letters, perhaps many more. Colossians 4:16 instructs the Colossians to read his letter which is coming from Laodicea. 1 Corinthians 5:9 refers to a letter written before that one. Also, considering the many churches that he established that are recorded in Acts and that he started other churches after the account in Acts ends, it is highly likely that Paul wrote other letters that we don't have today. But it is certain that God had the power to see that those letters were included in the New Testament had He wanted them there!
2. While collections of Paul's letters were circulating, a collection of the gospels was being put together:
a. One early church leader, Justin Martyr (died 165 A.D.), wrote his Dialogue with Trypho and two defenses of Christianity (Apologies), one to the Emperor Antoninus Pius (138-161 AD.) and another to the Roman Senate between 144 and 160 A.D. In his Dialogue, Justin speaks of the "memoirs" of Peter (possibly the Gospel of Mark) and in his First Apology, he refers to the "memoirs of the apostles." These memoirs, he says, are called gospels, and they are read in church along with the "compositions of the prophets" (Old Testament).
b. Justin's disciple, Tatian, went back to his native Assyria and produced his Diatessaron, a four-fold harmony of the gospels consisting of one continuous gospel narrative woven from the pieces of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in a more or less chronological order. (It started with John 1:1-5 and then inserted the birth of John the Baptist from the first chapter of Luke, etc.) The Diatessaron circulated at an early date in Syriac (Tatian's native language) and Greek. The oldest existing copy is from the 3rd century. In Syriac it became the accepted form of the gospels for more than 200 years and the church did not replace it with the four individual gospels until the 5th century.
c. John's gospel was the slowest of the four to attain universal acceptance. This was because the gnostic heretics used it to support their strange teachings. A fragment of John 18 in the Rylands collection (P52), dated 130 A.D., came from a codex, but it's unknown if it was bound together with the other three gospels.
d. The manuscript P75 from the Bodmer collection, dated late 2nd or early 3rd century, contains Luke and John, and probably included Matthew and Mark before it was damaged.
e. The earliest surviving codex which still contains portions of all four gospels is P45 in the Chester Beatty collection and is from the early 200s A.D. It also included the book of Acts. This is unusual since, in the early codexes, Acts was usually found bound together with the catholic (universal) epistles of James, Peter, John and Jude.
3. In the early centuries of the church, many spurious bookstarget="_blank" onClick='alert("ON-site link will open in a new window. To return here, simply close the new browser window.")' were being written by heretics who mixed Greek philosophy with Christianity, resulting in the questioning of such things as Christ's divinity, Christ's humanity, and the apostles’ teachings on salvation. Many of these writings were circulated with the name of an apostle falsely attached to them to lend them credibility. These counterfeit scriptures are called pseudepigraphic writings (false writings), and contain numerous factual errors and doctrinal heresies. Due to the spread of these fake scriptures, some of which were temporarily used among the eastern churches, the need for an officially sanctioned canon of the New Testament became increasingly urgent.
a. Some of the best known of these false writings are The Gospel of Nicodemus(written 2nd to 5th century), The Passing of Mary (4th century), The Gospel According to the Hebrews (2nd century), The Gospel of Peter (150 AD.), The Gospel of Thomas (2nd century), The Acts of Peter (190-200 A.D.), The Acts of John (190-200 AD.), The Acts of Andrew (190-200 AD.), and The Epistle to Laodicea (4th century). There are nearly 50 false Gospels, and many false Acts and Epistles.
InPlainSite.org Note: The Latest One To Surface is The Gospel of Judas
4. There were also a number of post-apostolic writings by church leaders which were circulated among the churches for legitimate purposes of encouragement. They were written at very early dates, some as early as one generation after the Apostles. None of them claim to be inspired writings and they all quote liberally from our New Testament books. It was necessary to draw a line between these useful books and the inspired New Testament books.
a. The earliest of these writings were the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians(96 AD.), Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians (110 AD.), Epistle of Barnabas (90-100 AD.), Epistles of Ignatius (100 AD.), the Didache (100 AD.), and the Shepherd of Hermas (95-140 AD.).
5. A thorough study of these reputable post-apostolic writings, which include a tremendous number of references to and specific quotations from the New Testament writings, makes it clear just which books were regarded as Scripture by the early church. An informal canon of the New Testament had already taken shape in the 2nd century A.D. and the process continued into the 3rd and 4th centuries:
a. Irenaeus (130-200 A.D.) provides more than 1,800 quotations from the New Testament books.
b. Tertullian(160-200 A.D.) provides more than 7,000 quotations from the New Testament.
c. Hippolytus (170-235 AD.) provides more than 1,300 New Testament quotations.
d. Origen(185-254 A..D.) provides more than 18,000 New Testament quotations.
e. Eusebius (264-340 A.D.) provides more than 5,000 quotations.
6. Eventually, church leaders began to provide lists of the books they regarded as inspired New Testament Scriptures. Please note that the New Testament Canon is not something which was decided 300 years after Christ's resurrection. It was rather an eventual formal recognition of an already existing common consensus.
a. The earliest such list was, surprisingly, produced by the heretic Marcion about 140 A.D. He taught a system of theology which certainly constituted blasphemy, even asserting that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament were different gods. His canon was drawn up to serve his own heretical views. He actually rejected the entire Old Testament, along with those New Testament books he felt were tainted by Jewish influence. His list included only one gospel, Luke, and 10 of Paul's epistles, excluding I and II Timothy, Titus and Hebrews, and also excluded Acts and the epistles of Peter, John, James and Jude. But his list did not represent the overwhelming consensus of Christian leaders.
b. Another early list was the Muratorian Fragment (written in the late 100s A.D.),named after an Italian church historian who publicized this Latin document in 1740. It probably was a list of the books accepted as Scripture in the Roman church in the late 100s. The list includes all the Gospels, Acts, all of Paul's epistles except Hebrews, two of John's letters and Revelation, and Jude, but not James' or Peter's letters. The author of the list is unknown, but was probably a member of the Roman church.
c. The Old Syriac Version of the Bible, which dates from the middle of the second century, included all the New Testament books except the epistles of James, Peter and John, Jude and Revelation. The Old Latin Version, also from the middle of the 2nd century, omits Hebrews, James and 2nd Peter.
d. Origen (185-254 A.D.) also provided a list, which stated that the four Gospels, Acts, the 13 Pauline epistles, I Peter, I John and Revelation were universally accepted. He added that Hebrews, II Peter, II and III John, James and Jude were disputed by some.
e. The formal acceptance of the 27 books of the New Testament was finally completed in the 4th century. When Constantine became Roman emperor in 306 A.D., he made the Christian historian Eusebius (260-340 AD.) his religious advisor. About 332 B.C., Constantine ordered the writing of 50 Bibles under Eusebius' supervision. Eusebius conducted research to determine the general consensus of which books should be included in the New Testament. The New Testament he produced included exactly our 27 books, though Eusebius himself had questions about Revelation. But it is clear that the consensus of the church as a whole by 332 A:D. was that these 27 books were the New Testament. Since these Bibles were produced at the order of the emperor, this can be regarded as at least a semi-official decision on the contents of the canon. The order of the books probably followed the order preferred by Eusebius, which is exactly the order of the books in our New Testament today.
f. Though we don't have any of Eusebius' 50 Bibles with us today, we do have two early Bibles of great importance that date from that same period of time and a third Bible dating from about 400 A.D.:
(1) Codex Vaticanus (325 A.D.)---This manuscript has been in the Vatican Library since it was established in 1448. Its New Testament section contains the four gospels, Acts, the seven catholic (universal) epistles, the Pauline epistles as far as Thessalonians, and Hebrews to 9:14. The remainder of the codex has been lost through damage. It is assumed that the missing portion included at least Paul's pastoral epistles and Philemon after Hebrews, followed by Revelation.
(2) Codex Sinaiticus (350 A.D.)---This manuscript was discovered in 1844 in a monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai and is now in the British Museum. This is the oldest codex containing the entire text of all 27 New Testament books. The New Testament portion contains the four gospels, 14 Pauline epistles (Hebrews between Thessalonians and Timothy), Acts, the catholic epistles, Revelation, the non-canonical Epistle of Barnabus and a fragment of the non-canonical Shepherd of Hermas.
(3) Codex Alexandrinus (400 A.D.)---This manuscript was given to England's King Charles I in 1628 by the Patriarch of Constantinople who had obtained it from Alexandria, Egypt. It is now in the British Museum. It contains all or part of the four gospels, Acts, the catholic epistles, the Pauline epistles (with Hebrews between Thessalonians and Timothy), Revelation, and the non-canonical 1 & 2 Clement. The first 25 leaves of the New Testament are missing, so Matthew begins with 25:6.
g. The content of the New Testament was further confirmed by a list produced by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, in 367 AD. He lists exactly our 27 books and makes no distinction between them (as to those books accepted by everyone and those some question).
h. Jerome (346-420 A.D.)---Damasus, Bishop of Rome, asked Jerome to revise the Latin translation of the Bible. Jerome completed the New Testament in 384 A.D. Jerome's translation, the Latin Vulgate, included exactly our 27 books, with Acts placed after Paul's epistles.
i. Augustine (354-430 A.D.)---Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, was the most honored theologian of the early church. He accepted the 27 books of our New Testament without question.
j. At the Council of Hippo Regius (393 A.D.), the church as a whole formally accepted all 27 New Testament books. They directed, "Besides the canonical Scriptures, nothing. shall be read in church under the name of the divine Scriptures." The Councils of Carthage in 397 and 419 A.D. reconfirmed this decision.
THE ORIGIN & HISTORY OF THE BIBLE---PART SIX
IV. THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON---HOW WAS IT DEVELOPED?
D. What was the Impact of the Middle Ages & Reformation on the New Testament Canon?
1. In the Middle Ages, the Western Church continued to accept Jerome’s Latin Vulgate New Testament with exactly the 27 books contained in our English New Testaments.
a. However, a minority opinion supported a forged Epistle to the Laodiceans as a 15th Pauline epistle. There exist more than 100 Latin Vulgate manuscripts containing this bogus letter, one dating as far back as 546 A.D., even though it was rejected by Jerome. The letter is believed to have been written in the late 3rd century A.D. The Epistle to the Laodiceans was put in all 18 German Bibles printed prior to Martin Luther's translation, as well as in Bohemian, Albigensian, English and Flemish versions. However, the Council of Florence (1439-1443 A.D.) confirmed that the New Testament consisted of only 27 books, apparently settling the Laodicean problem once and for all. Support for that false book faded away after that time.
2. The Protestant Reformation occurred partially as a result of a return to the study of the New Testament in the original Greek. As scholarship slowly reawakened in the 1400s and early 1500s, aided significantly by the invention of the printing press in 1450, Christian scholars began to compare the Greek New Testament to the Latin Vulgate version and the growing number of national language versions being translated, primarily from Latin. It wasn't long before some of them realized that the only good way to translate the New Testament was directly from Greek.
a. The Dutch theologian Erasmus (1466-1536 A.D.) discovered some notes on the New Testament prepared by the scholar Laurentius Valla just before his death in 1457. Erasmus published these notes in 1505. Valla contended that all commentaries on the New Testament books should be based on a study of the original Greek, not Latin. This led Erasmus to publish a printed edition of the Greek New Testament based on about six manuscripts in 1516, just one year before Martin Luther tacked his 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg church and launched the Protestant Reformation.
b. This greatly increased study of the New Testament in Greek reopened some of the old questions about some of the books. Erasmus denied Paul's authorship of Hebrews, denied that Revelation was written by John the Apostle on the grounds of writing style, and questioned the authorship of James, 2 and 3 John, and Jude.
c. Luther published his German New Testament in 1522 based on Erasmus' Greek New Testament. The Table of Contents had a blank line between what he regarded as acceptable books and four books that he had doubts about---Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation. Luther didn't exclude them from the canon, but regarded them as having a lower level of quality than the others. He didn't like the theology those four books taught. For example, he felt that James' emphasis on works (James 2:14-26) contradicted Paul's emphasis on salvation by faith (Romans 1:17: 4:18-24; Ephesians 2:4-10). (But Paul also emphasized works: Ephesians 2:10: 1 Timothy 6:17-19). Luther was so blinded by hatred of the Catholic Church's penance system, which emphasized works, that he failed to see how perfectly the theology of James and Paul fit together!
d. John Calvin accepted the New Testament canon without question. He felt the 27 books had a self-authenticating quality about them that was obvious---only the Holy Spirit could have caused men to write those words. But he felt that Luke or Clement of Rome may have written Hebrews instead of Paul; the author of James could have been James, the Lord's brother, or James, son of Alpheus, one of the 12; and Jude was probably the brother of James, son of Aipheus, not James, the Lord's brother.
e. The Catholic Church's Council of Trent dealt with the subject of the canon in April 1546, apparently because of the questions that had been raised by Erasmus and other Protestants earlier in the century. The council reaffirmed that the canon consisted of the 27 "received" books. The Catholic Church and the majority of the Protestants agreed on these 27 books as being in the canon. The difference between them was that the Catholics granted equal authority with Scripture to the "unwritten traditions" of the church, which they said were received "from the mouth of Christ himself by the apostles, or from the apostles themselves at the dictation of the Holy Spirit" and that the Catholic Church insisted that the "ancient and vulgate edition" of the Latin Bible was the only authentic text of Scripture.
V. THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE
A. Christianity reached the British Isles at a very early date---Celtic tribes spread from Central Europe after 500 B.C. into much of Western Europe and the British Isles. Celtic Christianity can be identified in southern Gaul (France) by the end of the 1st century A.D. and it reached Britain by at least the late 2nd century.
1. When the Roman Emperor Constantine called the Council of Arles in 314 A.D.,three bishops from Britain were present, indicating a sizable growth of Christianity there by that date. The Scriptures they would have used in those days in Britain would likely have been either a Greek Bible or an early Old Latin version.
2. Ninian (360-432 A.D.) was the first missionary to the Scots in north Britain. In 394 A.D. he established a monastery in Whithorn in southwestern Scotland. Patrick (389-461 A.D.) was a native Briton who went to Ireland as a missionary in 432.
3. The Roman army left Britain in 406 A.D., leaving the island open to the invasion of the heathen Germanic tribes called the Angles and Saxons from northwest Germany. They wiped out most of the Christian Celts and pushed the remainder of them into western England and Wales, and the French peninsula of Brittany. For the next 190 years, Celtic Christianity developed independently of Roman Christianity.
B. Christianity from Rome reappeared at the end of the sixth century
1. Gregory I (540-604 A.D.) became Bishop of Rome in 590 and became the first Roman bishop to have the power that we associate with the Pope today. He asserted his authority over all the bishops in the West, claimed authority over those in the East (which was ignored), and began an intense missionary effort throughout the West.
2. In 596 A.D. Gregory sent a missionary team to England, headed by a man who became known as Augustine of Canterbury, with instructions to convert the Anglo-Saxons. His Bible would have been the Latin Vulgate. Within months he converted Ethelbert, King of Kent, and the conversion of southern England followed quickly.
C. Development of an English translation of the Bible took many centuries.
1. The earliest efforts at translation of the Bible into the language of England were actually paraphrases, rather than true translations. The earliest we know about was produced about 670 A.D. by Caedmon, who was a laborer at an abbey in Yorkshire, England. He turned Scriptures from Genesis, Exodus and the Gospels into songs and poems in Old English (Anglo-Saxon) which could be memorized.
2. The earliest true translation of a portion of the Bible in a form of English was produced by Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, who died in 709 A.D. He translated the Psalms in Old English, some of them in prose and some in verse.
3. Bede, Monk of Jarrow (673-735 AD.), was the greatest scholar in the early English church. He wrote a history of the church in England and many commentaries, and translated the Gospels into old English. The story is told that he completed the translation of John the day he died. All copies of his translations were later destroyed when the Danes invaded the region.
4. The Lindisfarne Gospels (950 A.D.) were an Old English translation made by a priest named Aldred, who wrote between the lines of a Latin manuscript of the Gospels which had been made about 700 A.D. by Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne.
5. After the French-speaking Normans conquered England in 1066, rapid changes took place in the English language. By the 1300s the French of the ruling Normans had blended sufficiently with the old Anglo-Saxon to form what we today call Middle English. This was the language of Chaucer which, though greatly different from modern English, can clearly be recognized as English. But amazingly, as of the mid 1300s, no complete translation of the Bible in English had yet been made!
6. In the 1300s the Roman Catholic Church was opposed to the translation of theBible into the languages of the people, preferring to keep the Scriptures in the Latin that only the clergy could read. The Catholic Church insisted that the common man would not be able to understand the Bible without a priest to explain its meaning to him.
7. John Wycliffe (l329-l385 A.D.) was a man who opposed the power of the Pope over the English Church. He preached against the immorality of the church and sought to have its property, which he saw as the source of its corruption, confiscated.
a. Wycliffe said that the Bible was the supreme authority for Christians, not church councils or traditions. He rejected practices of the church not found in Scripture, such as praying to saints, revering holy relics, indulgences for forgiveness of sins, pilgrimages, and masses for the dead. Pope Gregory XI demanded his imprisonment in 1377, but the English government failed to obey.
b. Wycliffe came to believe that the only way that the church could be reformed was for the people to have the word of God in their own language. He completed his English translation of the New Testament in 1380 and the Old Testament, primarily the work of Nicholas Hereford, was finished in 1382. Wycliffe's Bible, published in 1384, was a translation from Latin, not the original Greek, and was extremely literal, following the word order of the Latin.
c. Wycliffe's Bible included the apocryphal books, since it was based on the Latin Vulgate. The second edition of his bible (1395), published after his death, included a prologue which acknowledged Jerome's warning that these books should not be used for confirmation of doctrine, but which went on to praise the book of Tobit: "Though the book of Tobias is not of belief, it is a full devout story, and profitable to the simple people." (NOTE: This is a modernized version of this statement. The original would have been very difficult to understand and the spelling would have been much different.)
d. A great controversy over the translation resulted and in 1382 Hereford was summoned to London and excommunicated by the church. Wycliffe was also denounced as a heretic and forced into retirement from preaching. He died in 1384. But in 1428, at the order of Pope Martin V, his remains were dug up and burned and his ashes scattered.
e. In 1408 the English church, in the Constitutions of Oxford, forbid" anyone to translate or even read a vernacular (English) version of the Bible in whole or in part without the approval of his diocesan bishop or of a provincial council." But a second edition of Wycliffe's Bible was published by his former secretary, John Purvey, and both versions continued to enjoy great popularity in spite of church opposition.
D. An explosion of English translations appeared in the 1500s as a result of the demand for the Scriptures in the language of the people, the invention of the printing press, and the excitement accompanying the Protestant Reformation.
1. The Dutch scholar Erasmus published the first printed edition of a Greek New Testament in 1516, making the Greek text widely available for the first time. Bibles in Dutch, Italian, and French were printed between 1471 and 1478. Martin Luther issued the 95 Theses, which challenged the doctrines of the Catholic Church, in 1517 and his German New Testament appeared in 1522, resulting in great excitement. But an English translation was prohibited by the Constitutions of Oxford.
2. William Tyndale (1494-1536), an Oxford and Cambridge-trained scholar, became excited about Luther's teaching and decided to produce a New Testament in English for the masses. When the Bishop of London refused to permit it, Tyndale went to the continent, published his New Testament in 1526 and smuggled it into England. Here is a sample of that New Testament from Matthew 11:28-30:
a. "Come vnto me all ye that labour and are laden and I wyll ease you. Take my yooke on you and lerne of me for y am meke and lowly in herte: and ye shall fynde ease vnto youre soules for my yooke ys easy and my burthen ys lyght."
b. The Bishop of London seized as many copies of the Tyndale Bible as he could find and burned them at St. Paul's Cross in October 1526. The Bishop also bought all the remaining copies possessed by the printer. Tyndale secretly approved the purchase in order to finance the publishing of a second edition and translation of the Old Testament.
c. But the Bishop had Tyndale kidnapped from his home in the free city of Antwerp. Tyndale was tried as a heretic, found guilty, and was strangled and burned at the stake in October 1536. Just before he died, he cried out, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.”
3. Only a year after Tyndale’s death (1537), King Henry VIII, who had separated the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church in 1533, authorized the translation of an English Bible and in 1541 every parish in England was ordered to have one for the people to read. A flood of English translations followed:
a. Coverdale’s Bible (1535)---King Henry’s Secretary of State, Thomas Cromwell, had Miles Coverdale publish a complete English Bible translation. Coverdale followed Tyndale’s New Testament closely and used his partially completed Old Testament translation of Genesis to Chronicles. Coverdale translated the remainder of the Old Testament. This Bible separated the apocryphal books, including additions to books, from the rest of the Old Testament and placed them after Malachi, with a separate title page which said: “Apocripha; the bokes and treatises which amonge the fathers of old are not rekened to be of like authorite with the other books of the byble, nether are they founde in the Canon of Hebrue.”
b. Matthew’s Bible (1537)---Matthew’s Bible was produced by JohnRogers, a disciple of Tyndale, under the pen name Thomas Matthew. This Bible was a revision of Tyndale’s New Testament and a partial translation of Tyndale’s Old Testament and Coverdale’s translation of the rest of the Old Testament.
c. The Great Bible (1539)---Cromwell asked Coverdale to make a newrevision of the Bible based on Matthew’s Bible for use in churches. It was bound in a large volume and an order was given that it be put in an accessible place in each church in the country so the people could come to the churches to read the Word of God themselves. This Bible had Coverdale’s introduction to the Apocrypha, but called the books Hagiogripha, meaning “Holy Writings.” The fifth edition (1541) omitted Coverdale’s introduction and added a new title page in which the list of apocryphal books was preced by the words: “The fourth part of the Bible, containg these bokes." This was clearlv intended to minimize the distinction between the Apocrypha and the Old Testament books.
d. The Geneva Bible (1560)---When Mary I became queen in 1553, thereligious climate changed because she was a Catholic. Reformers, especially Bible translators, became targets. John Rogers and Thomas Cranmer, Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, were burned at the stake. Copies of the Bible were removed from the churches and public reading of the English Bible was banned. Many English church leaders fled to Geneva, Switzerland where translation work continued, led by William Whittingham.
(1) In 1560 this group published the Geneva Bible based on the Great Bible's Old Testament and Tyndale's New Testament. Since Elizabeth I had become queen in 1558, they were able to introduce it successfully into England. During Elizabeth's reign (1558-1603), the Geneva Bible was the translation most used in homes, while the Great Bible was used in church services.
(2) The Geneva Bible continued the practice of placing the Apocrypha in a separate section after the Old Testament and stated the books "are called Apocrypha, that is bokes, which are not receiued by a commune consent to be red and expounded publikely in the Church, nether yet serued to proue any point of Christian religion, saue in asmuche as they had the consent of the other Scriptures called Canonical to confirme the same . . ." Some users of the Geneva Bible did not approve of the Apocrypha and, to cater to them, a 1599 edition of it was printed without the Apocrypha. This practice was repeated in the 1640 edition.
e. The Bishops' Bible (1568)---Deficiencies in the Great Bible used in pulpits became evident when compared to the carefully prepared Geneva Bible. But the Geneva Bible was unacceptable to church leaders since it had sectarian marginal notes and some questionable passages. Matthew Parker, Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, and eight bishops revised the Great Bible, issuing the Bishop's Bible in 1568 for use in churches.
f. Rheims-Douay Bible (1582-1609)---A Bible in English was finally produced for Catholics. Gregory Martin translated the New Testament at a college in Rheims, France which was published in 1582. The college was later moved to Douay, France, where the Old Testament was printed in 1609. It was translated from the Latin Vulgate, not the original Greek and Hebrew. A later revision by Bishop Richard Challoner was authorized for use by American Roman Catholics in 1810.
THE ORIGIN & HISTORY OF THE BIBLE - PART SEVEN
THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE
4. The King James Bible (KJV)---The confusion resulting from the use of several different English translations at the same time led finally in 1611 to the publishing of the King James Bible to replace all of them.
a. When James became king in 1603, he convened a meeting of Anglican bishops and Puritan clergy to settle differences among them over the various translations. When it was suggested a new translation be made from the Greek and Hebrew with marginal notes restricted to matters of language and parallel passages, the king approved it.
b. King James appointed 54 scholars to do the work, with 47 of them actually participating. They were divided into six groups to work on different portions of the Bible. Each group's completed work was reviewed by a committee of 12, consisting of two men from each of the six groups. Final differences were settled by a general meeting.
c. The Authorized (King James) Version of 1611 was technically a revision of the 1602 edition of the Bishops' Bible, which included the Apocrypha. So the first edition of the King James Version included the Apocrypha! In 1615 the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury forbid the binding or selling of Bibles without the Apocrypha on penalty of a year in prison, in response to the opposition of the Puritans to use of the Apocrypha. Nevertheless, copies of the King James Version without the Apocrypha were produced beginning in 1626.
d. It is worth noting that the British and Foreign Bible Society, formed in Great Britain in 1804, chose to end the practice of distributing editions of the Bible containing the Apocrypha in 1826. When no protests came from the public, other Bible publishers adopted the same practice. For a century and a half now, it has been practically impossible to buy over the counter in any ordinary bookshop in Britain or America a copy of the King James Version containing the Apocrypha.
e. The King James Bible didn't receive immediate acceptance by church members. It took almost 50 years for it to gain a higher place than the Geneva Bible. But once it was fully accepted, the King James Bible became the Bible of choice of English-speaking people for the next 300 years. Its beauty of language comes from the period of Shakespeare and Milton, and its heartfelt message breathes from a century when translators had given their lives through fire and sword to deliver the Bible to the people.
f. The King James translators, like the English Bible translators before them, were not without their theological biases. They were primarily Church of England theologians who had inherited much of their theology and church practices from more than 1500 years of church tradition. For example, since the Church of England practiced infant baptism and sprinkling, the translators followed the decision of earlier English translators to transliterate the Greek word "baptizo" into English as "baptize" rather than translate it correctly as "immerse."
5. The popularity of the King James Bible put an end to major church efforts to publish English translations, but private individuals continued to produce new translations. Some of these were:
a. John Wesley, founder of Methodism, made a private revision of the King James New Testament in 1745 under the title, "The New Testament with Notes for Plain Unlettered Men Who Know Only Their Mother Tongue."
b. Anthony Purver brought out a literal translation in 1764, which became known as the Quaker Bible.
c. In America, the earliest translation of the New Testament was issued by Alexander Campbell in 1826 under the title, "The Living Oracles."
(1) In the preface Campbell stated, "A living language is continually changing. Like the fashions and customs in apparel, words and phrases at one time current and fashionable, in the lapse of time become awkward and obsolete. But this is not all; many of them, in a century or two come to have a signification very different from that which was once attached to them: nay, some are known to convey the ideas not only different from, but contrary to, their first signification. This constant mutation in a living language will probably render new translations, or corrections of old translations, necessary every two or three hundred years. For, although the English tongue may have changed less during the last two hundred years, than it ever did in the same lapse of time before; yet the changes which have taken place since the reign of James I, do now render a new translation necessary."
(2) Campbell also pointed out that scholars in the 1800s had access to many more ancient manuscripts than did the King James translators, and possessed a greater amount of knowledge about the history and geography in Bible times, making them more qualified to do a translation. Campbell also felt that, in some passages, the King James Bible reflected the theological biases of the translators, in particular the passages that were rendered more favorable to Calvinist doctrines such as predestination.
(3) Campbell also objected to the transliteration of the Greek word. "baptizo" into "baptize," which avoided translating it correctly as "immerse." As a result, Campbell's New Testament replaced "baptize" with "immerse" throughout (Matt. 3:1-16, 28:19-20, Acts 2:38-41, etc.). (It should be noted that Campbell was not the first English translator to do this, since Nathaniel Scarlett had used "immerse" in his New Testament, published in England in 1798). Campbell also avoided using ecclesiastical terms he felt were misleading. For example, he used "assembly" or "congregation" instead of "church" (Acts 5:11, Matt. 16:18, Eph. 1:22) and "favor" instead of "grace" (Rom. 6:14).
(4) Campbell's New Testament is literal and dependable, but it is a little difficult to read today, since the English used commonly in 1826 is different than the English we use today. It is also printed in paragraphs, with only the verse number of the first verse in each paragraph printed, like the 20th century Phillips translation.
d. In 1872 Joseph Rotherham published a literal New Testament. He published the complete Bible in 1902 as The Emphasized Bible. Rotherham was a minister who was first a Methodist, then a Baptist, and finally Disciples of Christ. In an effort to be as literal as possible, he also used "immerse" instead of baptize.
6. In 1870 a major effort was launched in Britain and the United States to make a major revision of the King James Version. The goal was to update the King James Bible, while retaining its style which was so beloved by English-speaking Christians.
a. A group of 27 Hebrew scholars from many of Britain's denominations worked on the Old Testament, while 27 Greek scholars worked on the New Testament. Two similar groups of American scholars also participated. It was agreed that any suggestions made by the Americans, but not preferred by the British, would be noted in an appendix. Then after 14 years the Americans could issue their own Bible.
b. The textual basis for the New Testament revision was the Greek New Testament prepared by B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, which was in turn based on a much greater number of ancient manuscripts than were available to the King James translators. This text differed from the so-called Received Text, which was used for the King James translation in 5,788 places, most of the differences being extremely minor (i.e., spelling of names).
c. The British completed their New Testament in 1881 and the complete English Revised Version was published in 1885. This version included 36,000 changes from the King James. The largest number of changes was the result of changes in the English language since 1611. Other changes were because of the changes in the Greek text used (Westcott and Hort) and changes in interpretation (mostly Old Testament) of what the original Hebrew and Greek writers meant.
d. In 1901 the Americans published their revision, the American Standard Version (ASV). It is generally accepted that this revision was a more accurate rendering of the Greek than the King James Version in a careful literal translation. It became the favorite study Bible of Restoration Movement preachers because of this. But neither the ASV or the English Revised Version achieved the King James Version's popularity with American and British Christians.
7. In the 20th century there developed a craving for the Bible in the everyday language of today's common man, rather than in an eloquent and timeless form that the King James Bible represents. The argument was made that the New Testament was not written in a special Greek of its own, but in the common language of the people, and should therefore be translated in the same way in English today to ensure its closeness to the individual reader. Whereas former days had required translators to be faithful to the meaning of the original text and provide a dignified, understandable rendering in English, now there was a demand for a contemporary style of speech.
a. Moffatt's Bible---In 1913 James Moffat issued the "New Testament: A. New Translation," followed by the Old Testament in 1924 and the complete Bible in 1935. He wrote in the preface, "I have attempted to translate the New Testament exactly as one would render any piece of contemporary Hellenistic prose. . . ." Moffat added, But once the translation of the New Testament is freed from the influence of the theory of verbal inspiration, these difficulties (the choice of different meanings for the same word) cease to be so formidable." Moffatt's liberalism shows through in his translation. For example, he translated Matthew 1:16 to say, "Jacob the father of Joseph, and Joseph (to whom the virgin Mary was betrothed) the father of Jesus, who is called 'Christ.'" Here he chose to follow an unusual Greek text found in only one or two manuscripts, ignoring hundreds of other manuscripts.
.b. Goodspeed's Bible---Edgar J. Goodspeed was a well-known liberal scholar who taught at the University of Chicago. In 1923 he published "The New Testament, An American Translation.” In 1927 "The Old Testament, An American Translation" was issued by four translators under the editorship of J. M. Powis Smith. The complete Goodspeed Bible appeared in 1931. In the preface Goodspeed described the need for a new translation "based upon the assured results of modern study, and put in the familiar language of today." Conservative scholars feel he placed too much emphasis on the "modern study," but it was a very readable translation in contrast to the King James Bible and met a real need for a modern language Bible.
c. The Modern Language (Berkeley) Bible---Gerrit Verkuyl of Berkeley, Calif. published a New Testament in 1945. He headed a group of 20 scholars who worked on the Old Testament for the next 14 years. The complete Bible was published in 1959 and a revised edition was issued in 1969 with the title, "The Modern Language Bible: The New Berkeley Version in Modern English.” The translators attempted to maintain a balance between "freedom" which makes a passage live and "literalness" which remains close to the original wording. It was regarded as a helpful translation at a time when modern language translations were not very available
d. Revised Standard Version (RSV)---The liberal National Council of Churches published a New Testament in 1946 and the complete Revised Standard Version Bible in 1952. In 1957 they finished the translation of the Apocrypha and in 1965 the RSV Catholic Edition was published. The original translation was accomplished by a committee of nine men for the New Testament and 13 men for the Old Testament. All of the translators were liberal in their theology and would share with Moffat his denial of verbal inspiration. The RSV claims to be a simultaneous revision of the King James Version and the American Standard Version of 1901. It is very readable but the liberalism of the translators shows through in places:
(1) Psalm 51:18---RSV used "rebuild the walls of Jerusalem" instead of" build the walls of Jerusalem" in this psalm of David, thus supporting the liberal theory that this psalm was actually written hundreds of years after David's death and the building of Solomon's temple. But the Hebrew word "banah" here means "build," not "rebuild."
(2) Isaiah 7:14---RSV used "young woman" instead of "virgin" in this prophecy of Jesus' birth, leaving open the possibility of a human father.
(3) Luke 1:3---RSV used "having followed all things closely for some timepast," instead of "from the beginning." The RSV wording better fits the liberal theory that Luke and Matthew borrowed much of their information from Mark's gospel.
(4) Hebrews l:2---RSV used "a son" instead of "his son" in reference to God's son, Jesus, leaving open the possibility he was not God's actual son.
(5) Hebrews 13:24---RSV used "Those who come from Italy" instead of" Those from Italy," supporting a theory that Hebrews was sent to the Roman church. But the Hebrew here leaves open the possibility that the letter was sent from Rome.
e. Phillips' New Testament---In 1947 J. B. Phillips began translating the New Testament books into plain English to meet the needs of young people. He had been responsible for a youth group in England during World War II, but found that these kids didn't understand the King James Bible. His completed work, "The New Testament in Modern English," was published in 1958. This was for several years the most popular modern translation of the New Testament and is still widely used. It was a very free translation: the KJV's "Salute one another with a holy kiss (Romans 16:16)," becomes, "Give one another a hearty handshake all round for my sake," in Phillips' translation.
f. The Amplified Bible---The Lockman Foundation and Zondervan Publishing House issued the Amplified New Testament in 1958 and the complete Amplified Bible in 1965. This study Bible indicates the various shades of meaning included in each important Hebrew and Greek word translated in each passage by adding words in parentheses and brackets. It is an outstanding study Bible but is too complicated for easy reading or public worship purposes.
g. The Jerusalem Bible---Marie-Joseph Lagrange, a French Catholic Dominican priest, founded a school of Biblical studies in Jerusalem about 1900. Eventually, the school made a French translation of the Bible, published in 1956. Alexander Jones. a Catholic scholar, then led in making an English translation along the lines of the French translation. This English version of The Jerusalem Bible was published in 1966. The notes included with this Bible are liberal, denying that Moses wrote the Pentateuch and that Peter wrote 2 Peter. This Bible renders 1 Timothy 3:1 as "presiding elder" rather than "overseer," or "bishop," or "elder." A footnote is added to Matthew 12:46, which mentions Jesus' "mother and brothers." The footnote says, in order to protect the Catholic doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity, "Not Mary's children but near relations, cousins perhaps, which both Hebrew and Aramaic style 'brothers.'" This version also translates "fruit of the vine" as "wine" (Mark 14:25), even though the Greek word for wine is used nowhere in Scripture when referring to the Lord's Supper. The notes also support the idea of Peter being the first Pope.
h. Today's English Version---Also published under the title, "Good News for Modern Man," the American Bible Society published the New Testament part of this translation in 1966 and the entire Bible in 1976. The purpose was to publish a Bible using contemporary language and that would produce "dynamic equivalence"---that is, language that would produce the same effect on the modern reader as was felt by the original readers. It is easy to read and usually preserves the true meaning of the text. But in places the TEV makes the real meaning of a passage harder to understand and less accurate. In John 1:1, "and the Word was God," becomes "and he was the same as God."
i. The New English Bible (NEB)---In 1946 a plan to publish a completely new English translation in contemporary language was agreed on by the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, and the Methodist, Baptist and Congregational Churches. The New Testament was completed in 1961 and the whole Bible, including the Apocrypha, was published in 1970. This free translation is sometimes close to a paraphrase. It also contains a number of renderings which display a liberal bias. For example, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive (KJV)" in Isaiah 7:14 becomes "A young woman is with child" in the NEB. Also, "his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace (KJV)" in Isaiah 9:6 becomes "in purpose wonderful, in battle God-like, Father for all time, Prince of peace" in the NEB. And, "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" in Genesis 1:2 becomes "A mighty wind that swept over" in the NEB.
j. New American Bible---In 1750 the Douay-Rheims (Catholic) Bible was revisedby Richard Challoner and Francis Blyth. This Douay-Rheims-Challoner Bible became the most-used Bible by English-speaking Catholics. It was authorized in 1810 for use by American Roman Catholics and its use continued into the 20th century. But in 1941 a major revision of the Rheims-Challoner New Testament was published. Then work began on a totally new translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew. The complete New American Bible, including a newly translated New Testament, was finally published in 1970. It was the work of 59 Catholic scholars and a few Protestant consultants and is a thoroughly modern language translation.
k. The Living Bible---Kenneth Taylor published this Bible paraphrase in 1971. His intent was "to say as exactly as possible what the writers of the Scriptures meant." It is certainly readable but, as with any paraphrase, its accuracy is poor. All too often the idea in the paraphrased passage is not the idea of the original Scripture (Luke 1:1-4; Acts 2:4; 1 Peter 3:21). This paraphrase should never be used as a primary Bible, but only in conjunction with a very reliable Bible such as the New American Standard, New International Version, or King James Bible. (See more on The Living Bible)
l. New American Standard Bible (NASB)---The Lockman Foundation had 58 outstanding conservative scholars work for more than a decade to produce this new translation, which was published in 1971. Their primary purpose was to make this translation true to the original Hebrew and Greek by producing a literal, word-by-word translation. Dr. Lewis Foster of Cincinnati Bible Seminary states, "Upon examination, this version shows less departure from the original languages than any of the other modern Bibles tested." The second purpose of the translators was to do the translation in a fluent and readable style according to current English usage. The result is an extremely accurate translation, which is also very readable. The NASB is an outstanding study Bible and is more accurate overall than the King James Bible or the New International Version. It is not as beautiful a translation as the King James or as easy to understand as the NIV.
m. The New International Version (NIV)---Like the NASB, the NIV was translated by men who held a high view of Biblical inspiration. Begun in 1967, the New Testament was completed in 1973 and the complete Bible in 1978. Five-man translation teams were assigned to each book. Their work was reviewed word by word and fine-tuned by three committees. Dr. Lewis Foster of Cincinnati Bible Seminary (Christian Churches and Churches of Christ) was one of more than 100 scholars from the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand who participated. Their goal was to put the truths of Scripture into expressions used and understood today. But their leading principal was: "At every point the translation shall be faithful to the Word of God as represented by the most accurate text of the original languages of scripture.” The NIV is not a word-for-word translation, but is instead a free translation which attempts to acknowledge each Hebrew or Greek word in some way. Its clarity and readability are excellent. Its accuracy is very good (though Less accurate than the New American Standard Bible), and its beauty of language is good (though not equal to the King James Bible.)
n. The New King James Version (NKJV)---This revision of the classic King JamesVersion was published in 1982, the work of a committee of 130 scholars. They included Dr. Lewis Foster of the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ. Since its textual basis is the same Textus Receptus (Received Text) used to translate the original KJV, not a single change was made based on manuscript discoveries made since 1611. This prevents it from being as accurate a Bible as the NIV or NASB, although its accuracy should still be considered good. However, it retains much of the cadence and majesty of the 1611 King James, while improving in clarity over the KJV. Examples of positive changes are the use of "Holy Spirit" instead of "Holy Ghost" throughout, the replacement of "Easter" with "Passover" in Acts 12:4; and replacement of "unknown tongue" with "tongue" in 1 Corinthians 14:2 & 4. But much more could have been done to improve the clarity of the translation if they had not been hampered by their intention to make the NKJV retain the classic style of the original KJV.
Footnote I
As said by John R. Franke on the Christian History Institute website
Few figures in church history have stimulated the level of debate and controversy that surrounds Origen of Alexandria (ca. 185 – ca. 254). To some, he was a brilliant intellectual as well as a passionately committed disciple of Christ, the most influential and seminal thinker in the early church. Others regard him as a dangerous heretic whose interest in philosophical speculation unleashed a string of teachings that stand in stark opposition to orthodox Christian faith (p. 2). Still others affirm the truth of both positions. [01]
There is little question of Origen's commitment to the Bible as the word of God. However, he maintained that the Bible contained three levels of meaning, corresponding to the three parts of humans, i.e. the tangible body, and the intangible soul, and spirit. Thus he held that it was profitable for Christians to study Greek philosophy and make use of its spiritual/allegorical approach in interpreting the Bible.
Relating Christian teaching to Greek philosophy blurred the lines between the two.
Origen believed that Genesis was made up of fictitious stories of things that never actually happened. He asked, for example, whether anyone could be so unintelligent as to think that God made a paradise somewhere in the east and planted it with trees, like a farmer. He taught that the stories were not meant to be taken literally since they never actually happened. Instead they figuratively referred to certain mysteries. In fact, so much of Origen's theology was so far removed from what the Bible teaches, that there is little doubt that, more than the Scriptures, Greek philosophy played a major part in determining his views on life, God, and religion in general.
What is even worse is that the doctrine of the trinity, which has remained virtually unchanged to this day, was given explicit shape at the Second Ecumenical Council largely due to the part played by three ancient theologians from Cappadocia, jointly known as the Cappadocian Fathers. All three were Greek philosophers and mystics who claimed that Origen was the stone on which they were all sharpened
In fact, Gregory of Nyssa based his conception of the Trinity on Origen's ideas saying that "we would have no content for our thoughts about Father, Son, and Spirit, if we did not find an outline of their nature within ourselves". In other words, Gregory found the key to the trinity in the triple nature of our soul stating that you learn "the secret of God" from the things within yourself... a "testimony above and more sure than that of the Law and the Gospel".
None of his ideas are to be found in Scripture. See Is God a Trinity? [PLACE IN TEXT]
[01] John R. Franke. Origen: Friend or Foe? Christian History Institute
https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/origen-friend-or-foe/
|
|
