How We Got the Bible: Ancient Manuscripts to the King James Version

[Music] we are so excited to share this incredible story with you this has been a topic of interest for us for so many years we promise you will be amazed at the things that you'll learn if we've done our job right and you are interested in learning more there will be a list of excellent reading and listening resources at the end of the video as well as a referenced transcript to help you with your study you'll find a link to that in the description we also will have a pdf of samples from pages of various bible editions for you to explore our presentation is set up into three main parts what you and i can't read aramaic to latin what you and i can read the english translations and how the heck do you read this the secrets to reading early english bibles i'm really excited about that there will be time codes in the description below if you want to jump to a specific section so let's jump in [Music] those who revere the bible recognize that god knows the power of words from the very beginning of its pages god uses words for the creation of the world let there be light [Music] to instruct his people arise go up to bethel and dwell there to comfort them fear not for i have redeemed thee and to give them his law thou shalt have no other gods before me he also called others to speak his word on his behalf behold i have put my words in thy mouth the words of god through his prophets were written down and protected for thousands of years the jews had been called the people of the book from time immemorial because of their veneration for the word of god preserved by their writers anciently these words were written on scrolls in the language of hebrew how is it that we can read these words today in our own language and in a myriad of convenient formats [Music] although other cultures had sacred writings one thing that made the jewish record so unique was the willingness to translate god's word into a language different from the original we may take translation today for granted but anciently it just wasn't done in relation to a sacred text for a long time it wasn't necessary the jewish bible was written in hebrew and the israelites spoke hebrew but when the people of judah were carried into exile after the babylonian conquest their spoken language began to change away from their homeland and under the rule of the babylonians jews began speaking aramaic a language commonly used by the people of many different lands and cultures as the language of public life and administration much like english today it was the official language of the persian empire which replaced the babylonians for the jews speaking aramaic caused a problem in their religious life because the common israelite could no longer understand the language of scripture when they were allowed to return to their homeland under the persian ruler cyrus this language problem may have been the challenge that nehemiah and ezra were striving to overcome in 455 bc the levites read from the book of the law of god making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people understood what was being read a new resource was developed in the synagogue to alleviate this problem translators stood by the podium of the priest while he read the word of the law in hebrew these translators or turgmen would then interpret the hebrew into aramaic for the people this was not done word for word but it was a narrative translation imagine a person translating what you were speaking from english into spanish or french in real time your translator would then need to summarize and reframe concepts and language to make sense to the listeners these oral aramaic traditions were called targums eventually they were written down hundreds of years later in the late new testament period [Music] so when we are talking about the holy scriptures what did that mean to the ancient israelites the word bible is from the greek ta biblia which refers to a divine library or collection of books this collection is defined by a canon of books that are considered to be the standard upon which believers measure truth the books of a canon are judged to be authoritative the bible declares that its first author was moses who in the book of genesis gives us a quick overview of how the israelites came to be in bondage in the egypt of his day moses starts at the creation of the world and then from adam and eve down through the great patriarchs abraham isaac and jacob ending with the coming of jacob's son joseph into the land of egypt moses then picked up the story of his day in the book of exodus and detailed how god delivered his people from bondage and then gave them his law while they were in the wilderness to prepare them for a promised land other authors record the writings of prophets and the history of the israelites as at various times they are true to their god and receive blessings and at other times they rebel against him and experience the consequences the final prophet writing in hebrew malachi wrote about 400 bc this collection of 24 books were organized by the jews into three categories the five books of moses were known as the torah or the law the books of the prophets were known as the nevi'im and the ketuvim were the other writings these 24 books were the core collection of the jewish biblical writings [Music] after the persian empire the greeks would rule the land and with them came western culture and language to succeed in this empire one needed to speak greek soon the majority of the jews spoke only greek and again there was a need to translate the holy scriptures into the language of the people this time it would be a written translation what follows is one of the most important translations in biblical history it was produced in alexandria egypt a major greek city that prized learning and scholarship ancient legend tells that 72 jewish scholars independently translated the bible into greek in the miraculous time period of 72 days this was meant to evoke an image of the 72 elders who had been with moses and aaron on the sacred mountain in the presence of the lord during the exodus after comparing their translations with one another it was found that all of them matched perfectly whether or not this story is true the intention was to show that god approved of this translation by performing this miracle this new greek translation was called the septuagint or the version of the seventy and it is the earliest written translation of the bible the septuagint included a greek translation of all the core books of genesis through malachi but it also included additional jewish religious books written in greek since malachi's era these include first and second esdras tobit judith wisdom of solomon cyric or ecclesiasticus baruch including the epistle of jeremy or jeremiah first and second maccabees prayer of manasseh the song of the three children and some additions to daniel and esther names and books vary depending on the source the septuagint was the bible of the new testament and was adopted by the christians early church fathers proposed that this was one reason it was soon afterward abandoned by the jews the septuagint was of enormous importance to the early church when the writers of the new testament quoted the old testament the septuagint was most often used such as in matthew 1 23 behold a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth the son and they shall call his name emmanuel which is a septuagint rendering of isaiah chapter 7 verse 14. the septuagint profoundly influenced the formation of the early christian vocabulary including the very name of christ the greek christos which was the septuagint word for anointed one or messiah when the early christians began their missionary work they used the septuagint as the ready-made means of arguing with the more traditional jews who did not accept their teachings and also as a means of communicating their message to the gentiles who spoke and read greek it is interesting to note that like many on the more eastern part of the empire jesus and his followers still spoke aramaic but when their words and deeds were recorded they were written in greek the new testament text occasionally quotes the original aramaic such as when jesus commanded jairus daughter to arise and he took the damsel by the hand and said unto her talitha kumai or when he cried out to god while on the cross jesus cried with a loud voice saying eli eli lama sabachthani the fact that most all the words of christ were translated into greek when they were written reminds us that all christians reading the words of jesus have read them as a translation of his original words [Music] so let's look at the collection of books that make up the christian bible first christians used the jewish core collection but arrange them differently the five books of moses or the law remain the same but then christians organize the remaining books into three other categories history poetry and prophecy following the pattern of the septuagint in the process books like samuel kings and chronicles were split into two parts the book of ezra nehemiah was also divided so that each had his own book the book called the twelve was also opened up to give each prophetic author his own book so even though jews had 24 books and the christians had 39 the content of the core books was the same but since the christians were using the septuagint they also included the jewish books written in greek the christian church called these other books deuterocanonical implying that they belong to another layer of old testament canon but are still authoritative in other words christians consider there to be an old testament hebrew canon of 39 books and an old testament greek canon of 14 to 15 books depending on the tradition christians would add to those books the gospels and the letters of the followers of jesus which would be divided as the new testament although it took hundreds of years to fine-tune the new testament canon meaning the books that would be considered authoritative it eventually came to include a series of 27 books and so christians had the canon of the old testament in hebrew originally but now translated into greek and other originally greek old testament books and then the new testament books also written in greek this was the collection of books that made up the christian bible for well over a thousand [Music] years there's another important historical note about christianity and the bible christians had been tasked to take the gospel to all the world to do that they embraced a new technology books or more precisely the codex prior to this when speaking of books we were referring to scrolls long sheets of parchment or papyrus wrapped around a wooden rod papyrus had been used for thousands of years as a riding surface and involved using strips of the long stocked marsh plant laying those strips across each other and letting them dry in the sun the resultant surface held up well in the dry environment and was often used for scrolls there are many ancient papyrus scrolls still with us today parchment was developed over a battle for resources for competing libraries in the second century bc a library in pergamum modern-day bergamot in turkey became a rival to egypt's literary dominance in alexandria and began purchasing great quantities of papyrus from egypt in the spirit of commercial competition egypt cut off the supply of papyrus not to be outdone pergamum businessmen developed a new writing material from the skins of animals chiefly sheep goats and calves and it took its name parchment from the city of its origin although both of these writing surfaces worked great for scrolls by the first century ad rome had developed a new technology called a codex the codex is a compilation of pages usually papyrus folded and stitched together to form a book in the proper sense the codex was cheaper more mobile could contain more text and allowed easier access to specific passages in a composition the codex appeared for the first time in the first and second centuries a.d although innovative it was not very popular until the christians got a hold of it roman pagans and jews preferred their traditional scroll but christians wrote their new testament scriptures in a codex and the success of that endeavor can be seen in the popularity of the codex book today in the middle of the third century in caesarea a church father origin of alexandria the greatest christian biblical scholar of his age compiled the hexapla meaning six-fold so named for its format of six parallel columns a revolutionary design in a book it may in fact be the world's first parallel bible the first column contained hebrew in hebrew letters the second contained hebrew in greek letters this is known as a transcription the third column contained the greek translation of aquila the next the greek translation of semakis the fifth contained a version of the septuagint and the last column contained the greek translation of theodosian although the hexapla was originally a massive work some estimate as many as 40 volumes it seemed to have been lost or destroyed at some point between the 4th and 7th centuries a.d but thousands of quotations from this work are found throughout the writings of church fathers and early biblical scholarship only fragments remain today it is probably the case that origen assembled the hexapla to serve as a sort of scholar's manual to help him compose the tetrapla a highly annotated revised edition of the septuagint text which noted interpolations omissions and discrepancies between the septuagint the hebrew and other greek translations this was an unprecedented tool of reference and one of christianity's first works of scholarship a remarkably innovative project by any standard it also emphasized how important it was even in the earliest days of the church to try to keep the integrity of the scriptures using the best tools available to them [Music] when christianity was adopted in the roman empire as the official state religion under constantine beginning in the 4th century a.d the language of the western empire had been shifting from greek to latin constantine moved his capital city from rome to constantinople now it's istanbul this became one of the major church centers often competing for authority with rome the church in the east remained greek speaking continued to read the septuagint and retained the new testament in the original greek the bishop of rome exercised supreme ecclesiastical and increasingly political authority in the western empire a dominance that continued through the medieval period as the east remained exclusively greek so the west became increasingly latin in an attempt to have the scriptures available to the various regions of the roman empire who did not speak greek they were translated into indigenous languages including and most commonly latin problems emerged very soon however with the latin translations of scripture because there were so many of them and these translations differed broadly from one another in response to this pope damasus a vigorous champion of orthodoxy assigned his secretary jerome of aquilia the task of translating the bible into a standard latin version choosing one of the best latin translations available and comparing its text with the superior greek manuscripts at his disposal thank you origen jerome created a new edition of the gospels in latin by about a.d 383 eventually the entire bible was translated into latin the old testament from hebrew and the new testament from greek by about a.d 405. jerome's translation came to be known as the vulgate from the latin vulgata meaning common referring to the common language of the people this was the bible for the western church itself copied and re-copied many times over it was the book that christians read scholars studied and theologians used for centuries down to the modern period today there are nearly twice as many copies of the latin vulgate as there are greek manuscripts of the new testament but latin as the common language of the west began to die out in less than a hundred years beginning with the fall of the western roman empire in 476 and successor languages dialects of latin such as italian spanish and french emerged but unlike past efforts to translate the bible into the language of the common man the roman catholic church preserved the scriptures in latin alone and so soon only the church authorities could read the bible in the west the eastern orthodox church had no such reservations about getting the scriptures into the language of the people in the east the armenian georgian and ethiopic versions represented major streams of christian culture while other minor translations arabic nubian persian saudi and albanian testified to the influence of the bible well beyond the boundaries of the empire for some populations the translation of the bible was the start of a written language and of an ethnic literature examples include georgian albanian gothic slavonic and armenian in the case of the armenian bible it included four books not found in modern bibles joseph and azenath the testaments of the twelve patriarchs the epistle of the corinthians to paul and third corinthians in the example of the slavic language two greek monks cyril and his brother methodius developed an alphabet to create a written language so that the bible could be translated for the slavic people this alphabet the cyrillic alphabet is still used in over 50 languages today such as russian bulgarian and serbian [Music] meanwhile efforts were made to preserve the original hebrew of the old testament the final jewish revolt against rome in 8135 signaled the beginning of the end of the hebrew language most jews forgot the language and what it sounded like sometime around the year 500 a group of jewish scholars known as the masoretes of tiberius a city in galilee began to preserve the bible in the hebrew language the masoretes flourished from 500 to 1000 a.d they dedicated their lives to forming an intricate system to standardize and preserve the exact words of the biblical text since no original versions of any biblical books remain the oldest hebrew bible manuscripts available were the product of the faithful meticulous copying of the maserites we refer to these manuscripts as the masoretic text and the oldest of these were produced around ad900 this was the manuscript of the old testament that was used in the translation of many reformation era bibles including the king james version older manuscripts were only recently discovered in 1947 the dead sea scrolls that collection contained manuscripts that dated almost a thousand years earlier than the earliest masoretic manuscript [Music] by the year 1054 the division that had been developing between the western roman catholic church and the eastern greek orthodox church came to a head in a great schism dividing the main body of christianity into a latin west and a greek east it was the latin west that would dominate christianity in europe keeping all reading and study of the bible in a language that only the clergy and upper class could understand [Music] but many churches throughout europe didn't even have bibles in part it was because the main focus of church services was the mass and scriptures were not often read but it was also because the production of handwritten bibles was prohibitively expensive due to the labor involved the cost was almost a year's wages for a common worker and a single copy took about 10 months to produce but attempts were made to provide biblical learning for the common man to help those with little to no literacy pictures were used and powerfully so biblical stories and teachings were displayed in stained glass windows and on murals found in churches and cathedrals another incredible invention developed in the middle ages was the woodcut print woodcut prints along with plant-based paper were developed in china but became a great resource in europe and by the early 1300s bibles of a sort were being produced these were known as the biblia prepura often translated as poor man's bible each page was printed from a single wood block carving and designed in a most remarkable way almost like a modern comic book it used narrative text boxes scripture quotes in word bubbles in the form of ribbons or banners and visual imagery to create a sermon that used typographical imagery to connect new testament events with old testament stories that foreshadowed them each biblia papuram contained 34 to 48 scenes with a short explanation that rested at the foot of the page these could be printed very inexpensively after the pages were designed a wood block was carved and then moistened with dye and a piece of paper was pressed against it these wood blocks could be used repeatedly and transported from country to country they were easy to use and simple to repair if needed although scholars are still unsure the target audience for these books these block book picture bibles would have supplied the unlearned preacher with pictures and a short biblical text from which he could gain material for scripture-based sermons although other block books were produced during that time and most are religious in nature it was only the biblia papuram that was entirely biblical in content but still these pages were in latin not in the language of the people it would be centuries before bibles would begin to appear in the languages of europe such as spanish french and german but what about an english bible things were beginning to change in preparation for an english bible for one thing the english language began to develop into something that we would recognize today after the norman conquest in 1066 ad the english language evolved from its anglo-saxon roots because french words of latin origin began to enter into its vocabulary this new form of english is known as middle english and it is the language of poets such as chaucer in the late 13th century there were literal translations into middle english of individual books of the latin bible notably genesis exodus and the psalms but the whole bible would have to wait to be translated in english until the work of oxford scholar and theologian john wickliffe [Music] a bible in english had been wycliffe's goal for years every leisure moment during his life was spent translating the scriptures into english he said see pointing to a table it is there i sit not only by day but often far into the night just a few lines only will sometimes cost me hours and days of study before i can satisfy myself as to the correct rendering if god spare my life another year i hope to put the entire bible in english into the hands of the copyists because wycliffe had extensive knowledge of latin but not of hebrew or greek he made his translation of the bible from the latin vulgate and not from the original languages of the scriptures by 1382 the bible was completed since few could afford to own a handmade bible wycliffe and his followers traveled the countryside with bible manuscript for the people to read sometimes the people would borrow or rent scriptures for a day or even for an hour because they could not afford to buy a copy it is said that a load of hay was the going price to rent a bible for one hour early copies of wycliffe's bible were written on large sheets of paper but when authorities threatened to prosecute and even burn at the stake those who possessed them wycliffe made smaller copies so they could be more easily concealed the preface to the wycliffe bible contains a prayer that shows the spirit and circumstances under which wycliffe and his associates labored god grant to us all grace to know well and keep well the holy writ and suffered joyfully some pains for it at the last often when a brave soul was burned at the stake he or she would go to the flames with a piece of the bible dangling from a cord about his or her neck although wickliffe suffered ostracism and persecution for his work he escaped martyrdom died a natural death in 1384 at the age of 64 and was buried at lutterworth england it is clear that wycliffe's bible was intended for the plain folk and not for scholars he was not content merely to have the bible translated he wanted it to be understood and he wanted multiple copies it is reported that more than 250 copies of his small-sized handwritten bible survived today when we consider that authorities burned as many copies as they could lay their hands upon the survivors are evidence of the extensive circulation of the books and the value placed upon them by their owners modern scholars debate to what extent wycliffe was involved directly in the translation process but all agree that the translation was clearly inspired by wycliffe so to whatever level he was involved in the translation it is rightly known as the wyclifite bible one of the distinctive features of the wycliffe bible that is still with us today is the use of the name james a name not actually found in the bible in hebrew the jewish name yakov was translated into iacobus in the latin wycliffe used and was properly translated as jacob in the english old testament and also when referencing the patriarch again in the new testament however and no one knows exactly why in reference to other people with the name jacob in the new testament such as the apostle who is the brother of john or the brother of jesus wickliffe translated those jacobs as james those names have never been corrected in english bibles and so we have the familiar peter james and john instead of the proper peter jacob and john we also have in our english bibles the book of james instead of the more correct book of jacob bibles published in many other languages correctly translate the jewish name yakov as jacob so if you were to read chapter one in the book we call james in spanish it would read jacobo sierra didios del signor jesus christo jacob not james wickless followers first oxford academics and then a wider circle of clergy and laypeople influenced by the first university enthusiasts were given the contemptuous name of lollards that is mumblers who talked nonsense they became mixed up with the losing side of english politics in the early 1400s a movement called lollardy or the lollards grew out of the theological ideas that wycliffe taught that authority comes from god's word and not from the church one of these john purvy was a stalwart friend and personal assistant to wycliffe it is attributed that pervy was responsible for the important revision of wycliffe's bible that occurred about a decade after it was first translated pervy began the revision shortly after wycliffe died his emphasis on english idiom and word order enabled the wycliffe bible to attain remarkable popularity but the lawlord movement's pushback against the catholic authority and the monarchy that upheld it led to an uprising in january of 1414. although it was quickly defeated parliament associated this revolt with the presence of wycliffe's bible and declared the publication of the bible in english to be an act of heresy punishable by death but doors would open in the coming decades for bible translations around europe to be available in the language of the people oxford scholar of the history of the english church daramid mcculloch describes it this way the church had decided that there should not be an english bible it was associated with lollards therefore they stopped people reading an english bible and i think we need to grasp just how odd that was in europe in most of europe in france in germany in denmark you could read a bible in your own language it wasn't a threat it was just this place this kingdom where the bible in the language of the people in english simply wasn't available [Music] but even if a bible in english could be allowed it would still have to be written by hand and that was time consuming and expensive the woodcut prints showed promise but couldn't be used on a project as vast as the entire bible however these woodcuts paved the way for the development of a technology that would change the world the movable type printing press often called the gutenberg press based on its chief developer johannes gutenberg this press would create the very first printed bible in 1455 only decades after wycliffe's work printed in latin and beautifully illuminated with decorative elements this edition of the vulgate bible proved the validity of this tool it took gutenberg and his associates about seven or eight years to print the first copy and more than 20 years from their first experimentation with movable type developing better kinds of paper and ink some reports say that gutenberg died penniless and in debt having devoted his life to developing a process that would change the course of the world forever as in times past with the codex christians jumped at the opportunity afforded by a new technology to spread the word of god as they had been commissioned to do since the time of jesus but as the decades passed and the field of printing began to mature and spread there were no attempts to print a full english bible especially considering how many copies of the wycliffe translation there were it's also strange that for more than 50 years after the invention of movable type no greek new testament had been printed but that was about to change greek learning remained in the domain of the eastern church until the fall of constantinople in 1453 when the turks took control of this center of learning scholars fled to the west and with them came the resurgence of the greek language now with a european emphasis on the interpretation of scriptures and the growing desire to make them available to all add to that the rebirth of greek language studies and you have a recipe for reformed christianity the goal to bring the greek new testament to the people of europe was competitive on one side was cardinal francisco jimenez cisneros of alcala spain under his leadership a group of scholars produced a massive six-volume multi-lingual bible that was carefully edited the first volume was ready to print by 1514 and the other volumes not too long thereafter but it was not published until 1520 while waiting for permission from the pope to print it and due to further complications it was not distributed until 1522 the work was printed in a town called alcala whose latin name is complutum for this reason it is known as the complutensian polyglot polyglot meaning multiple poly and languages glot the work included the old and new testament the old testament was represented by the original hebrew the latin vulgate and the greek septuagint side by side in columns what these catholic editors thought of the superiority of the vulgate can be seen in their comments on this arrangement in their preface they likened it to christ represented by the vulgate being crucified between two criminals the false jews represented by the hebrew and the schismatic greeks represented by the septuagint but the delays in publication of the complutensian polyglot left a gap in an anxious market desidarius erasmus was commissioned to edit a greek new testament after rumors of the cardinals project became known erasmus began searching for manuscripts of sufficient quality to be typeset but due to his haste did not take the time to find a complete manuscript in greek urgently editing the manuscripts he had he came across some parts that were indecipherable he used the known latin text and translated it back into greek meaning that several of his readings do not appear in any known greek manuscript and yet are still used in some modern translations despite being inferior to cardinal cisneros's bible it gained early dominance because it was published in 1516 four years before the complutencian polyglot when an assistant of cisneros had reviewed the erasmus edition he was deeply disappointed and brought the deficiencies to the attention of the cardinal the magnanimous old cardinal replied would god that all the lord's people were prophets produce better if thou canst condemn not the industry of another it was this greek manuscript of erasmus that was used by tyndale [Music] william tyndale is rightly known as the father of the english bible he was an excellent linguist he knew greek latin hebrew german spanish french and of course english he saw the need for and was able to make an english translation of the bible directly from hebrew and greek texts he resolved in the teeth of bitter opposition to defy the pope and all his laws referring to the translation of the bible into english tyndale was a popular teacher who often turned to his hebrew and greek texts to refute his opponents showing in some instances that the latin vulgate bible they used had been translated incorrectly but he noticed that after he had taught a group and moved on the priests would come and turn those people away from what he had taught them the people generally did not have the scriptures in their own tongue and were at the mercy of the priests for their knowledge of religion seeing that his teachings were being overturned tyndale decided to arm the common people with a bible they could read reasoning if english christians possessed the holy scriptures in their own tongue they could have themselves withstand these attacks without the bible it is impossible to establish the people in truth christians must read the new testament for themselves in their own tongue once when engaged in earnest debate with a learned clergyman over giving the common people a bible they could understand tyndale said if god spare my life i will take care that air many years the boy that driveth the plow shall know more of the scripture than thou dost with such bold expression clergy and state officials continued their persecution against tyndale seeing that he was opposed on every hand tyndale fled to various places in england to avoid arrest and possible death he appealed to the bishop of london for official permission to translate the bible into english but was denied it soon became apparent that there was no place in england to make an english translation of the bible from the original tongues so in 1524 tyndale went to germany where his lutheran sympathies made him welcome in reformation circles in 1525 he began to print the new testament in the catholic city of cologne but when the printing house was raided by the authorities tyndale fled all that remains of the historic cologne printing is a single copy of the first 22 chapters of matthew's gospel now in the british library the cologne fragment has a prologue by tyndale parts of which are translations of luther the great reformer who had already printed a bible in german it also had marginal notes many of which derive from luther it also had some illustrations this edition of tyndale's bible is the first printing of a gospel in english and its translation proved to be enormously influential some of the phrases that we associate with the king james version first appeared in this fragment such as ask and it shall be given to you seek and you shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you tyndale also incorporated the chapter system we currently use originally created by stephen langton a professor of theology in paris and later the archbishop of canterbury langton introduced his chapter numbers into the latin bible the vulgate in 1205 from which they were transferred over the ensuing centuries to hebrew and greek manuscripts tyndale sought refuge in worms germany where there was a strong lutheran presence and in 1526 published his new testament unlike the cologne fragment it had no prologue no notes and no attribution to tyndale it was a pocket-sized book and was quickly smuggled into england where it was sold cheaply by october the book had been banned as a and i quote pastiferous and most pernicious poison dispersed throughout all our diocese of london in great numbers close quote the banning order did not work and soon an antwerp printer was publishing large numbers of copies of tyndale's bible the various bishops subscribed money to buy all available copies and conducted public burnings of tyndale's bible the first edition seems to have consisted of about three thousand copies but now only three complete copies survive two are found in london st paul's cathedral and the british library and the other in stuttgart germany eventually tyndale would be put to death but the language of his new testament lives on preserved by the king james version which adopted phrases such as fight the good fight and the powers that be both phrases and many others are now embedded in english but their origins in tyndale's new testament have often been forgotten on a brighter note tyndale set the linguistic style for new testament translations for centuries to come in that the studied simplicity of his language which was designed to make the new testament accessible to plowboys has become established as the dominant idiom of subsequent translations tyndale embarked on a translation of the old testament but it was never completed and the only parts that were published in his lifetime were the pentateuch or the five books of moses and the book of jonah many phrases from these published translations survive into the king james version such as let there be light and there was light this translation also brought into the english language terms such as passover scapegoat and atonement perhaps the most significant is the term jehovah let's take just a moment to talk about that name the four consonants that make up the name of god in hebrew known technically as the tetragrammaton a greek term meaning four letters are usually transliterated as j h v h or y yhwh the ancient vocalization of the four consonants of this name is not known but scholars hypothesize that it was pronounced yahweh because of the sanctity of this name within judaism a tradition developed to call god not by his name but by the designation lord or adonai in hebrew at the end of the fifth century after christ the masoretes who first put the vowels in the hebrew text reflected this tradition by adding the vowels for the hebrew word adonai to the consonants of the tetragrammaton thereby directing the reader to read adonai rather than the name of god the early greek and latin translators followed the jewish tradition and simply rendered the tetragrammaton as curios greek or dominos latin in his middle english translation wycliffe rendered yhwh as adonai and luther translated the word into the german hair or lord using capital letters presumably to distinguish it from the translation of the common hebrew noun for lord as her the name of god as jehovah was formed by using the vowels of adonai a o a with the continents of yhwh producing yahuwah or jehovah since the hebrew letter w can be pronounced as a w or a v the name jehovah first appeared in english in tyndale's pentateuch of 15 30 in exodus chapter 6 verse 3 and god spake unto moses saying unto him i am the lord and i appeared unto abraham isaac and jacob an almighty god but in my name jehovah was i not known unto them tyndale revisited his new testament translation and published a revision in 1534 it is this revised version that had the greatest impact on subsequent translations indeed it has been estimated that 83 percent of the king james version published in 1611 derives from tyndale either directly or indirectly through other bibles in 1536 tyndale was tried for heresy as a lutheran in what is now belgium according to the protestant martyrologist john fox tyndale was tied to a stake and as a chain encircled his neck cried lord open the king of england's eyes he was then strangled with the chain and his body was burnt [Music] tyndale was an outstanding scholar of greek he was also a master of english a language that had a poor reputation at the time tyndale newly recognized the capacity of english for simple statements in a few words using anglo-saxon vocabulary and syntax rather than the ponderous impenetrability characteristic in latin phraseology in tyndale's translation of mark 2 jesus did not say consider the elevation of the recliner in subsequent perambulation imperative but simply take up thy bed and walk he understood further how a whole story must be kept moving greek narrative flows partly thanks to two elements greek's love of particles little extra words not present in latin and its preference for verbs rather than as in latin nouns one of tyndale's skills was in his understanding of that preference his first chapter of mark's gospel to take a simple example is full of verbs exact to the greek from the entry of jesus in verse 9 we find jesus came rather than the arrival of jesus he was baptized rather than his baptism he was come out rather than his elevation and so on a total of 22 verbs in six verses this is jesus beginning his own ministry among people who also speak and do before the end of the first chapter a leper comes to him beseeching kneeled said in response jesus had compassion instead of in compassion he put forth his hand instead of by the extension of his hand and touched said departed charged sent said jesus is described in the active force of the verbs thanks to tyndale [Music] miles coverdale an assistant of tyndale became his most important successor he was a former augustinian friar who eventually became the protestant bishop of exeter it was coverdale who in october 1535 living in exile in antwerp belgium published the first edition of the entire bible in english old testament apocrypha and new testament he was not a linguist to rank with tyndale lacking sufficient hebrew and greek to work from the primary texts as he explains in his dedication to king henry viii coverdale had with a clear conscience purely and faithfully translated this out of five sundry interpreters the most important of the interpreters was tyndale whose new testament is printed in revised form because tyndale had not translated a complete old testament coverdale had to assemble one from other sources on the title page he or the printer explains that the book has been faithfully and truly translated out of german and latin into english here he was acknowledging a debt to martin luther's german bible his latin source was jerome's vulgate limited as he was as a scholar coverdale had great strengths he was a very able writer of english moreover he had worked as tyndale's assistant in preparing the pentateuch so he was thoroughly familiar with both his style and practice as a translator and could carry on the work in a way that did not jar with what had already been done many of his fine phrases have resonated down the centuries transmitted by the king james version his magnificent rendering of psalms 25 6 for example call to remembrance o lord thy tender mercies and the loving kindnesses which have been ever of old here he brought the word loving-kindness and the phrase tender mercies into english and into the mainstream of biblical translation the coverdale bible is a handsome volume including one of the most beautiful fold out maps of biblical lands but its finest feature may be the title page the illustration is the work of hans holbein the younger who was the greatest northern renaissance artist to have worked in england at the bottom of the magnificent woodcut king henry viii sits enthroned distributing the bible to his bishops while the laity kneel in attendance the fact that henry sits directly beneath the tetragrammaton the hebrew name of god makes a protestant point in that there is no catholic pope figure between them the theme of the scenes in holbein's design is the propagation of the gospel the most resolutely protestant of the scenes shows jesus sending the apostles away to preach the gospel each apostle has been issued with a large key which reflects the protestant rejection of the primacy of the apostle peter through which the popes claim a lineage of authority in other words each apostle had authority as do each believer to share the gospel and if that was not clear enough to establish a protestant position coverdale following the example of martin luther removed the books known as deuterocanonical those jewish old testament books written in greek but not hebrew from their long placement in the christian old testament and placed them in their own section with the heading apocrypha the word literally means hidden but is used here to identify books whose authorship is unknown and whose authenticity has inspired writings may be questioned [Music] the 1535 coverdale bible was no more than a first complete draft and it was quickly revised in 1537 john rogers using the pseudonym thomas matthew published the matthew bible rogers was a publisher who produced the first authorized english bible the pentateuch and the new testament were tyndales and rogers also used tyndale's unpublished translations of the old testament books from joshua to second chronicles the rest of the old testament and the apocrypha were taken from coverdale's versions tyndale was a heretic so he could not be named but the ornamental initials wt appear at the end of malachi immediately before the apocrypha similarly rogers has acknowledged only through his initials the matthew bible like the coverdale bible was dedicated to king henry viii but there was a difference whereas the title page of coverdale's bible was adorned with a picture of king henry viii distributing bibles the title page of the matthew bible went a step further declaring it to have been printed by the king's most gracious license in fact the very king who had attempted to destroy tyndale and his bible had now given approval for its printing truly tyndale's prayerful words before his execution had been fulfilled open the king of england's eyes but a debate was already underway about the desirability of authorizing an english translation of the bible as recently as 1530 archbishop wore him had declared on behalf of the church the translation of the bible into english could do no good but could cause much harm and english translations of the bible continued to be burned the importation of 1500 copies of the matthew bible in 1537 signaled a shift in ecclesiastical opinion when thomas cranmer archbishop of canterbury wrote to thomas cromwell chief minister of king henry viii sending by the same messenger a copy of the matthew bible his comment on the translation was wholly positive quote as for the translation so far as i have read thereof i like it better than any other translation heretofore made close quote he was as it were speaking to the converted cromwell had the previous year embarked on a campaign to place an english bible in every parish church but there were more than eight thousand parishes and only fifteen hundred bibles in any case the matthew bibles were too small to have the dignity requisite for a church bible so it was decided to commission a new version that was suitable for churches [Music] for the next draft miles coverdale returned and was entrusted to print a bible suitable for churches this would be nicknamed the great bible of 1539 also known as cranmer's bible because of the preface by the archbishop included from the second edition onwards it was the first major revision done under the auspices of the english church as such it was the official ancestor of the upcoming bishops bible which in its turn was the official ancestor of the church's third revision the king james bible but rather than revising coverdale's own bible from 1535 he chose a version of the matthew bible as the finest presses were in paris rather than london coverdale moved to paris to prepare the edition for the press printing began in may 1538 and in expectation of rapid publication thomas cromwell ordered that a bible of the largest volume in english be distributed to every parish in england by christmas 1538. he spoke too soon because the enterprise began to unravel there was opposition from the english ambassador in france stephen gardner bishop of winchester and by mid-december most of the bound copies had been seized by the inquisition and unbound pages had been sold to a haberdasher for the use in making of hats the english publishers rescued their staff the type the unused paper and some printed sheets of the old testament genesis to job and the new testament matthew to first peter and returned to london where printing resumed by april 1539 the print run of 3000 copies was ready but they were kept in storage because thomas cromwell was negotiating for the release of the 2500 copies confiscated by the inquisition in november of 1539 the great bible was published the term great bible reflects its size roughly 15 inches by 9 inches but the addition is also remarkable for its editorial precision the old testament was revised in the light of the publication of a new edition of the hebrew bible and the new testament in greek in 1535 the sole exception to this process was the psalms which remained in coverdale's own version the title page demonstrates that the argument about priests and laity had moved on remember that on the coverdale bible a small henry viii distributed bibles to the clergy in the great bible a large henry viii distributed bibles to clergy and laity alike in 1526 smuggled copies of the tyndale new testament had made it available in english to anyone who could secure a copy 13 years later the english king was portrayed distributing english bibles to his subjects the reformation had been accompanied by a revolution one in which a book that had been imprisoned in latin had become accessible to the everyday language of the english people and how did the common person react to an authorized bible available to all bishop edmund bonner set about to place the great bible in every church in england in the famous saint paul's cathedral in london bonner at his own expense chained six beautiful great bibles on six pulpits the bibles were to be read in orderly fashion without disputations instead however people gathered around the bible and began to act not orderly reading with irreverence and arguing about its meaning in order to prevent parishioners from reading the bible during the services and to maintain order bonner placed on the front of each pulpit the infamous admonitions the admonitions set certain rules for the use of the bible for instance the bible was to be read quietly humbly and charitably without disturbance to others during services and not drawing crowds to listen to the exposition of the text the people who had been deprived the freedom to read the scriptures in their own language finally had a bible to read and they had difficulty doing so in an orderly fashion the bible in the english vernacular now approved to be read created a lasting thirst for englishman of all classes everyone was caught up in this new delight they either read it themselves or had it read to them many began the process of learning to read just for the enjoyment of reading the bible it is impossible to imagine the first reading of the scriptures and the impression it made upon their hearts some supported the old school that argued if the common folks started reading the bible on their own it would lead inevitably to religious anarchy the younger ones no doubt were burning with a zeal for spiritual freedom [Music] up until now you may have noticed that none of our bible editions had verses these editions had chapters and there were paragraphs within them but verses as we know them today had not been printed how they were developed is an interesting story since the first publication of the greek manuscript by erasmus in 1516 other revisions and additions had been published a parisian book printer robert atiena latinized as stephanus was in the process of printing his fourth and final edition of the greek new testament in 1551 it was then that he added his complete system of numbered verses for the first time for the old testament stephanus adopted the section divisions already present in the mesoretic text of the hebrew bible and within stephen langton's chapters we talked about him earlier to them he assigned numbers creating verses following his own logic as to the sense of the text stephanus took it upon himself again within the framework of langton's chapters to divide and number the verses in the new testament his son reported that he did his work as he regularly traveled between paris and lyon undoubtedly he meant that his father was working on the road that is that he entered verse numbers in the evenings at inns in which he was staying but since his son literally says that stephanus made these changes quote while on horseback close quote some rye observers have suggested that he actually did his work in transit so that whenever his horse hit an unexpected bump stephanus's pen would jump and that would be the next verse accounting for some of the rather odd verse placements that we still find in our english translations of the new testament critics of stephanus's verse divisions describe them as seemingly arbitrary citing the fact that while they often coincide with a single sentence in english sometimes they include several sentences sometimes they divide a single sentence and sometimes they separate direct quotations from the situation of the speaker they almost always divide paragraphs into fragments and cut up complete thoughts but clearly the advantages of organizing the text for reading and finding passages far outweigh any disadvantages in 1555 stephen has published the latin vulgate the first whole bible divided into numbered chapters and verses soon those divisions became standard in the printed editions of the scriptures in hebrew greek latin and eventually in all the modern languages another innovation of stephanus was abandoning the heavy black letter font in favor of the more easily read latin letters also called roman letters the first english bible to have the numbered chapters and verses of langton and stephanus was the geneva bible in 1560 which also adopted the use of latin letters instead of the gothic font [Music] king henry viii had broken ties with the catholic church in rome in 1534 and formed the anglican church of england as we've mentioned the king and his church eventually warmed to the idea of a bible in english with the official authorization of the great bible after henry's death his son edward vi ruled england in 1547 and maintained the anglican church as the religion of the realm but at his death a half-sister of edward mary became queen in 1553 and returned england to its former catholic loyalties putting an end to the printing of english bibles and to their use in churches it was in the first year of her reign that mary burned john rogers who was responsible for the matthew bible alive at the stake as the first martyr in a line of deaths that would earn her the nickname of bloody mary miles coverdale and other protestant scholars and theologians fled england for switzerland and germany one of the exiles was william winningham who became a senior in the english church in geneva when elizabeth replaced mary as queen of england in 1559 most of the congregation returned to england as william's pastoral responsibilities eased with the reduction of the congregation he was able to devote himself to scholarship whittingham was the powerhouse behind the geneva bible which he dedicated to queen elizabeth on the title page a small woodcut of the crossing of the red sea was surrounded by the words of psalm 34 19. great are the troubles of the righteous but the lord delivers them out of all below the woodcut was exodus 14 14 the lord shall fight for you therefore hold your peace perhaps the title page was a fitting message to remind the english exiles of their struggle under the deliverance from mary's persecution the dedication was to queen elizabeth whom the reformers saw as their moses the geneva bible 1557 for the new testament and 1560 for the whole bible was produced in a small quarto format as a side note sizes of books were measured in folio a full sheet folded once making two pages per sheet quarto folded twice four pages octavo you get the idea the average book today is in octave or smaller the geneva bible was the first english edition to have verse divisions printing each as a separate paragraph and the first to be printed in roman letters words not in the greek manuscript were printed in italics it was their desire to produce an affordable and readable book to suit the needs of the common person the english bibles previously published were large cumbersome and expensive the awkward black letters often called old english or gothic and the lack of verse divisions made imperative a new translation that would accommodate a growing reading public private study was supported by a system of chapter headings five large wood cup maps memory devices on the top of each page tables of theological material and marginal notes many of which are helpfully explanatory the notes provided theological commentary gave geographical explanations recorded textual variants and offered clarification of difficult words and passages many passages had notes that attempted to explain the literal sense of a passage but there were places in which the influence of the protestant reformers john calvin in particular were very noticeable but a mere fraction of the notes are calvinistic of the 250 explanatory notes of the 1560 edition not more than 10 of them are unmistakable calvinistic utterances one example of unique wording and a helpful note can be found in genesis 3 7 where the verse tells us that adam and eve were ashamed after partaking of the fruit of the tree and so quote they sowed fig leaves together and made themselves breeches close quote the marginal notes read that the hebrew word meant things to gird about them to hide their privates it is this common man translation that has earned the geneva bible the nickname the breaches bible but even though there are only a few controversial notes one can see how certain clergy might be put off by this particular marginal note on revelation 7 4 speaking of the woman arrayed in scarlet the note says this woman is the antichrist that is the pope with the whole body of his filthy creatures and then goes on to relate him to a trumpet the calvinistic flavor of the notes irritated the anglican authorities and the demeaning of the power of the monarchy upset king james the first the notes on the 1576 and 1599 edition were greatly expanded and became increasingly divisive the decision to ban any marginal notes in the king james version was a direct reaction to the notes in the geneva version bibles were thereafter reprinted without notes for centuries until the scofield bibles reintroduced a similar system in the early 20th century the geneva bible became enormously popular and had published more than 70 editions between 1560 and 1640 it began to be printed in england from 1575 where about half a million copies were sold some of the greatest theologians in christian history took part in the geneva bible project modern scholars have no problem admitting that it was one of the finest translations ever made for 50 years it was the household bible of the english people it was the bible of shakespeare and the bible of the puritans coming to america even some of the translators of the 1611 king james version continued to use it as late as the mid 1620s [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the popularity of the geneva bible distressed roman catholics as well as anglican bishops and although the catholic church did not yet acknowledge the right of the laity to read the bible in the vernacular there was clearly a practical need for an antidote to geneva the translation of the new testament was begun at the english college in douay but the college moved to reams in 1578 and the work was completed there the old testament was translated shortly afterward but it was not published until 1609-1610 in douay collectively it was known as the douay-rheims bible and it was the only authorized bible in english for the roman catholics until the 20th century in both testaments the translation was from the latin vulgate the standing of which had recently been affirmed by the council of trent although in the case of the new testament it is clear that the greek was consulted much of the translation can be fluent and elegant but sometimes dogma or literalism intrude so in the case of the lord's prayer matthew 6 11 our daily bread becomes super substantial bread and in philippians 2 7 it's verse 8 in the king james jesus is said to have excellinated himself neither phrase trips off the tongue because readability has been sacrificed on the altar of theological precision the scholarly integrity of the douay rheims bible meant that it had to be taken seriously by later translators england was a protestant nation again when the roman catholic new testament was printed and it met the same opposition under elizabeth that the protestant translations had under mary like tyndale's new testament just 30 years earlier the rheem's new testament had to be smuggled into england english catholics faced the same dangers experienced by protestants earlier despite the efforts of some to demonize the translation the strategy clearly backfired interest in the reim's new testament increased and ultimately influenced the protestant king james version with latin terms such as impenitent remission and grace had the old testament been published sooner it might have had a comparable influence on the king james bible [Music] the anti-episcopal marginal notes to the geneva bible displeased the bishops and in 1568 a revised version of the great bible was published a second edition with more revisions was published four years later coverdale's lively preparatory material was replaced by a solemn preface by archbishop thomas cranmer the large number of bishops on the revision committee led it to being known as the bishop's bible in 1570 the convocation of the canterbury instructed that copies be placed in all cathedrals and thereafter it was widely purchased by parish churches there were 20 editions of which the last was published in 1602 the bishop's bible was the most beautifully illustrated and finely printed edition of the 16th century adorned by finely carved woodcuts it remains a marvel of printing but it was not a bible for the people it is more notable for its dignity and its aspirations to majesty than for the clarity of its prose its scholarship is alas as lacks as its prose is inflated it was clearly the work of senior church men who had more pressing duties on their mind because it was authorized it became the bible that was read in churches and to assist in that endeavor the bishop's bible has a very unique feature what look like inverted commas in the margin are a peculiarity of the bishop's bible archbishop parker gives this instruction in the forward materials of the bible here is to be noted that is such parts and chapters which be marked and noted with such semi-circles at the head of the verse or line with such other text may be left unread in the public reading to the people that thereby other chapters and places of the scripture making more to their edification and capacity may come in their rooms in other words the inverted commas represent areas that are not as important to be read to the people as they are not as edifying as other sections also your listeners may not have the capacity to understand those teachings the bishops bible can boast another innovation in the history of printing the footnote bibles were ideological battlefields their left and right margins were the trenches from which scriptural annotations and citations were lobbed at previous bible's misinterpretations catholics against lutherans lutherans against calvinists calvinists against the church of england the first notes to end up in the foot of the page would be found in the geneva bible but the case could be made that this is not the first true footnote instead the notes and commentary especially as they were expanded in the 1599 edition of the geneva bible had become so plentiful they simply curled around the corner of the text and pooled at the bottom of the page under queen elizabeth the bishop's bible was to be as much about decorum as about doctrine annotations were deliberately moderate in tone guiding the interpretation without invoking the controversy that might lie behind the passage this can be a challenge for the printer however when the annotations that he has given threatened to overrun the margins one example of this was in the book of job half of the first page was taken up by titles and an elaborate illustration seven notes needed to be accommodated on the left margin five a through e could be accommodated by starting the a to the side of and halfway down the illustration and awkward intrusion into the decorated space but tolerable the f and g are left orphans however when this problem came up in the book of exodus the printer needed to follow the disorderly solution found in the geneva bible of curling the notes into the bottom of the page this time however he placed f and g notes at the bottom of the page with space solely and distinctly for themselves and so the first footnotes were born but for all this in the homes of the average englishman readers preferred the good common english and down-to-earth resources of the geneva bible [Music] when james the first followed elizabeth to the throne in 1603 tyndale had been dead 67 years and there had been several revisions of the english bible let's review the principle versions that we've talked about we have the coverdale bible named after its translator miles coverdale the great bible named for its size the geneva bible named for its place of printing and the bishop's bible authorized by the church of england clergy all drew heavily from tyndale's translation but each favored different religious points of view the geneva bible was very popular with the people but was annoying to the bishops of the church of england the bishop's bible was the clergy's answer to the geneva bible but it was so biased that it left the puritans unhappy no bible translation was accepted by everyone as a consequence in january 1604 king james the first convened a conference to settle differences between these groups a proposal was made for a new translation to be authorized by king james as the official bible of england this new translation was eventually made by committees of the top scholars assigned to various parts of the bible the king james translators did not work directly from the greek and hebrew texts there were 15 translation principles constructed to govern the work the first of these stated that the bishop's version would form the foundation bible to act as a guideline and would be altered only when the truth demanded it those who worked on the king james version can thus be viewed more as editors than as translators but this takes nothing away from their monumental accomplishment they worked patiently through all parts of the bible scrutinizing every passage they selected the words they felt best represented the intent of the hebrew and greek originals often drawing words directly out of the earlier english translations thus the tyndale bible and all of the translations that derived from it became the drafts for the king james version the final product of almost 90 years of work to create the english bible the outcome was the most consistent and carefully produced of all the english bibles to that date awkward passages from the bishop's bible survived in the king james version in many instances as in matthew 6 34 sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof compare that with tyndale the day present hath ever enough of his own trouble but in other instances the translators wisely abandoned the bishops bible and followed geneva instead often improving upon geneva's wordings on the whole the language of the king james translation is strongest in the gospels where it is most firmly based on the genius of william tyndale it is least strong in the old testament prophetic books which tyndale never translated the king and bishops who produced the king james version were themselves less enthusiastic than tyndale and the geneva translators about turning the bible over to lay readers this reluctance is reflected in interesting ways whereas the first geneva title page had an illustration of moses parting the red sea inviting readers into the promised land of reading the bible in their own language the king james title page depicted a massive stone wall guarded on all sides by statues of moses aaron the apostles and the evangelists it was a statement of authority not invitation the king james version's title contained the words appointed to be read in churches and that is what the translators had in mind while most geneva editions were small and portable and were printed in roman type easy to read by then this was the type familiar in most books and is the same type we use today in 1611 king james bible was huge 11 by 16 inches very expensive and printed in archaic black letter type like the other pulpit bibles in england fortunately the people's desire to possess the word of god prevailed and the king james version was soon printed in much more economical marketable and reader-friendly formats the translators at the king's insistence wisely excluded marginal notes with commentary on the text although its notes still contain other helpful information such as information relating to explanations of hebrew or greek words the king james version contained a thick section of preliminary material 74 pages of calendars tables place names a detailed map and incredibly designed genealogies with scriptural references the language used in the king james bible was already old when it was created it was born archaic it was deliberately cast in a language more antiquated than that of common speech it was a formal ritualized language that created an atmosphere of holiness and sounded transcendent when spoken aloud while the king james version provides a literal and faithful rendering of the original hebrew and greek texts it infuses that translation with a sense of beauty and ceremony now we would be remiss if we didn't mention some interesting misprints of the various editions of the king james version first off it appears that there was more than one printing press printing pages for the first edition of the king james bible leading to two distinct versions known as the he and she bible this is in reference to ruth chapter 3 verse 15. a true first edition in 1611 reads and he went into the city referring to boaz the she bible printed between 1611 and 1613 reads and she went into the city referring to ruth which is the correct reading the she edition although is not without its errors in this edition if one reads matthew 26 36 it is judas not jesus who goes to the garden of gethsemane to pray this print error was corrected in many additions by gluing the correct name over the top as shown here sometimes lines got duplicated like in exodus 14 10 of the first edition it appears that the egyptians marched after the children of israel twice and they were sore afraid each time printing a bible was big money and they didn't come much bigger than the king james version this led to sabotage in some cases the most famous of which was the wicked bible in 1631 the greatest printing error occurred when the ten commandments in this edition taught that thou shalt commit adultery the printer christopher barker a famous and respected printer was fined 300 pounds and suffered a blow to his reputation it seems to have been a sabotage by a rival printer who had lost a lawsuit to barker in reviewing past bible versions we've made some commentary on the title pages and the way they use imagery let's take a more detailed dive into the title page believed to be engraved in copper by flemish artist cornelis bowle to start with it is the only title page to display the father son and holy ghost notice the placement although god is above represented by the tetragrammaton the four hebrew letters that represent the name of god jesus is the lamb found in the midst of the disciples the holy ghost is the intermediary represented as a dove peter is next to christ holding the key given to him in matthew 16 19. on the other side is paul carrying the sword of the spirit referenced in ephesians 3 17. surrounding them are the other apostles represented by symbolic attributes andrew carries the x-shaped cross on which he was crucified saint john holds the cup he was poisoned with but received no hurt according to tradition matthias who replaced judas holds the axe with which he was beheaded for his faith and so on beneath the new testament apostles are a foundation including heraldic shields representing each of the 12 tribes of israel those are supported by an imposing architectural frame the pillars of which are moses representing the law of god and on the right is aaron the authority of the priesthood in each of the four corners are the writers of the gospels in the upper left is matthew pen in hand accompanied by his symbol the angel next is mark the ready author with his symbol the lion in the lower left is luke accompanied by his symbol the ox and lastly john with the eagle finally notice a remarkable image in the bottom center a cartouche similar to the one that encloses the pascal lamb contains the image of a female pelican vulning herself that is stabbing herself with her beak to feed her starving young so that they might live it is an ancient image used to represent jesus voluntarily shedding his blood to redeem mankind it may seem strange to use today especially since as a birder myself i can tell you that does not look like a pelican but the image can still be seen on places as prominent as the louisiana state flag new discoveries of older and better manuscripts as well as advances in our understanding of the ancient cultures and languages of the bible have continued to encourage new translations updated translations of the bible are also produced to keep pace with changes in the language to facilitate ease of understanding and occasionally to harmonize language with doctrinal understandings in the modern world it must be recognized that any translation is automatically an interpretation however nothing yet has quite hit the high-water mark left by the king james version once it became established in the church of england the king james version also became a mainstay of protestant christianity in the english-speaking world this held true until more modern translations of the last century began to displace it even in the unlikely event that the king james version were to go out of print someday according to scholars the english language would still bulge with king james expressions like the skin of my teeth a drop in the bucket my brother's keeper and holier than thou today over 400 years after the publication of the authorized version of 1611 it remains the most quoted version though modern translations might proliferate none will so shape a language mold a culture and change the world as the king james version [Music] [Applause] [Music] now as we've been exploring the history of the english bible you may have noticed that some of the bibles we've shown are not easy to read even though they are in english we're going to discover how to decode ancient english bibles and learn a little bit about the history of some symbols and literary tools we take for granted today so let's look at the first english bible wycliffe 1382 what can you read some people ask is this english part of what makes it so difficult to understand is how early the english is add to that the gothic handwritten letters and the spelling inconsistencies and abbreviations and well it seems impossible let's instead go forward tyndale was the first printed bible produced about 145 years later and although it's more readable it's still challenging what is that word supposed to be it kind of looks like profit but what is that letter after the p is it an r well this is what an r is supposed to look like and i don't even know where to start with that thing at the end of the word the geneva bible was printed outside of england and they chose to use a roman font like we used today so that should make it a lot easier and it does but then we get words like this or this is that a nine at the end of the word spoiler it is not so let's start with the first edition of the king james version published in 1611 and then we can backtrack from there and see if what we learn here can help us with earlier bibles spoiler alert it does before we are done you'll be able to read this like a pro the typeface is black letter originally created in imitation of gothic handwritten script but now carrying with it a sense of biblical tradition at least in england the first clue to decoding this is knowing what a long s is yes this is the word shall and that is not an f at the front long s was used throughout the medieval period and only began to fall out of favor later in the 1700s in the bill of rights we see it beautifully written in caligraphic form in printed bibles it looks like this almost as if someone chopped it in half and only used the top half of the long s and i know it looks a lot like an f but as you can see the f has a crossbar all the way through let's look at it in a word confess has both a long s and a short s long s's are only used at the beginning unless it's a capital and in the middle of words never at the end if we change the word to confessor well we have a problem because the short s is in the body of the word so we need to change it to this but that isn't completely right either because when the letter r is printed next to a letter that has a curved stroke on the right hand side that means we need to change the normal r into an r rotunda you will see this when an r comes after o or b p h etc notice both the normal r and our rotunda in the word forefront but getting back to the long s here you see it in the summary at the top of the page here in roman font the last supper notice that the long s is in the body of the word but when the s is at the beginning of supper it is a capital and therefore a short s you might also notice that the long s and the t in the word last are connected this is known as a ligature sometimes two characters will link together to form a single character this is a stylistic element but also helpful for the printer so that he only has to put one character in instead of two the similarity between the long s within a word and the letter f causes problems with modern readers but may also have been a problem even to those thoroughly used to the typeface one such example is found in the variation between editions of the king james version in leviticus chapter 1 verse 6 and he shall notice the long s flay the burnt offering this is how it reads in the first edition in the second edition published just after the same verse reads and he shall slay the burnt offering it seems there was some confusion between the long s and the f the second edition got it wrong since the offering was already slain in the previous verse you may also notice inconsistencies in the spelling of the word he between verse 5 and verse 6 terminal e's were thrown in with abandon and not consistently remember that spelling didn't get standardized in the king james version until the 1762 edition which had the support of the first english dictionary published in 1755 the samuel johnson dictionary so don't fight the creative spelling used throughout early bibles so where were we oh yes long s let's take what we've learned and try to read a verse how about verse 26 okay before we begin reading what is this thing that symbol marks a paragraph and is called a pilcrow by the 12th century scribes were marking their paragraphs with a c for capitulum which is latin for little head to divide texts into capitula also known as chapters the pilgrim evolved due to the inconsistencies inherent in hand drawing and as it became more widely used the c gained a vertical line which was trendy at the time and other more elaborate embellishments eventually becoming the character today it has been stylized even more and often looks like this but it started with the letter c in late medieval writing the pilcrow had become an ornamental symbol drawn in elaborate style often in a bright red ink by specialized rubricators this was done after a manuscript had been copied by scribes or later printed by the press who left spaces in the document explicitly for such embellishments well sometimes even the most skilled rubricator ran out of time leaving pages filled with empty spaces or indentations as demand grew for the printed word and production increased lubricators just couldn't keep up and the pilcrow was abandoned though the spaces remained so let's go back to the verse and as they were eating okay we've seen this double hyphen before the hyphen appeared in various formats throughout the middle ages but was displayed with extravagant double hyphens from 1300 onwards but still used as we do today to connect words split across lines or spaces the word here is jesus jesus took bread notice the r rotunda and blessed it notice the double long s connected as a ligature i know i skipped the two vertical lines we'll get back to those don't worry i want to first talk about this next symbol this my friends is a tyronian et tyro was originally a slave but later freed of famous roman orator cicero tyrod devised a system composed of latin abbreviations supplemented with existing greek shorthand symbols modifying and expanding it by degrees to yield a unique cipher romans were no strangers to scribal abbreviations but tyro's work was in a different league altogether a recognition of which cicero boasted about often tyro's shorthand and its various descendants would be common currency among scribes for more than a thousand years his career continued to blossom even after his master's death which earned him a comfortable retirement on a farm of his own among tyro's symbols was an innocuous character representing the latin word et meaning and it was just one symbol out of thousands but it continued to be used even after tyros cipher no longer was there were many iterations over the centuries but this version appears in the king james of 1611 and other early black letter bibles back to our verse you may also have noticed that u's and v's are used interchangeably here's a u being used as a v in gave and a v sounding like a u at the beginning of unto but the u is also used as a u in jesus and cup there are no answers about this except that the rules of english were still being developed these are generally used at the beginning of words and used in the middle but the sound can be either a u or a v sound okay now we can talk about the double lines which is related to this asterisk and they are related to the marginalia this margin is used for the three kinds of annotation the asterisk is used for annotating scripture cross-references the double vertical lines are used for alternative english renderings the third is the obelisk it looks like a sword and is used to note literal translations in this case in hebrew various versions of the bible had differing amounts of information in the marginalia and each marked the note in different ways in verse 8 you can also see some words in the text that are in roman letters within the normal black letter these are words that have no equivalent in the original text they help the english read better the use of small roman type means that they are visually de-emphasized which is the intention today when using roman type in our scriptures we italicize such words or phrases which actually does exactly the opposite of what was originally intended the identification of added words is inconsistent and incomplete in 1611 and many other bible editions let's finish up examining the layout of these pages recto pages or right-hand pages like this have the chapter number in the middle of the header except in psalms while verso pages left hand pages have the name of the book notice here proverbs with the u instead of the v on either side of the header there are very brief summaries of the content of each column at the beginning of each chapter there is a summary of its contents a feature innovated for the geneva bible in 1560 and of course the marginalia instead of page numbers or foliation which was something that was developing at the time but instead a catchword is used the catchword was at the bottom of the right hand column on a line all by itself it is the word that will begin the next page which you can see here another thing you might find interesting is that in the king james bible as in other bibles before it there are no jays that's crazy talk i hear you say well look at this what look like jays are black letter eyes you could see that the name jacob here but then look at it in the roman type setting above and you can see it's an i also notice that in verse 7 it says joseph in verse 8 it says which i met go to verse 10 and jacob said nay i pray thee see it's the same letter it looks like a j but it's actually an i at the time eyes did the work of both a vowel and a consonant eventually they would be distinguished and the i as a consonant would be given a little tail that's what became the letter j but at the time even in the king james bible there are no j's now you might notice here on the chapter number at the top what looks like a j it's not this is the roman numeral but in lowercase letters and so the terminal i is given a decorative element so it looks like a j but it's actually an i and i'm glad that that happened because i don't think either of us would be able to spell our names with an i very well no are we having fun but before we move on let's review the long s is used at the beginning unless it's a capital or the body of the word but not at the end it may look like an f but it's not and f has a full crossbar with u and v the sounds are interchangeable r rotunda is used when r follows a letter with a rounded stroke to the right i think we're ready to move on to the roman letters of the geneva bible of 1560. it feels good to see letters that we recognize so easily but notice in verse 25 the i declared unto thee that something fishy is going on here notice the mark above the e that is an abbreviation mark which indicates that there is an n or an m that needs to be added it should then be read then i declared unto them that those marks show up a lot in earlier bibles so watch for them did you notice a very strange thing with the letter y this one has a superscript t and the other has a superscript e originally this was not a letter y it was the letter thorn don't remember that one when you learned the alphabet i'm afraid it didn't make the cut but it was part of the english alphabet at the time it makes the th sound as it evolved it looked kind of like a y because the geneva bible was published in europe and not in england remember that catholic queen mary disallowed the printing of english bibles printers had to use something close to thorn since thorne was not part of the normal roman alphabet so they used a y the abbreviation means that and this one means the you may have seen this abbreviation in things like ye olde blacksmith's shop it meant the old blacksmith shop just as this meant thou but as thorn fell out of use often replaced with why thou becomes you one last interesting symbol story that is well illustrated in the roman letters of the geneva bible and that is the ampersand of course we know the ampersand means and but where does the symbol come from it has a different origin than the tyronian ed but it too is a symbol for the latin word meaning and in this case it is a stylistic development of a ligature e and t it's easier to see here in its italicized form can you see the e and the t as the letter developed it was drawn in such a way that one does not have to lift up their pen in order to create this very stylized et but where did the name come from well during the 19th century the ampersand was routinely taught as the 27th letter of the alphabet and in common with those other letters which formed words by themselves like a and i for example it was prefixed by the latin per se which means by itself school children would recite per se a b c d e f g h per se i j and so forth when they got to the end x y z and per say and while particularly bored pupils would not so much recite as slur the final syllables ultimately resulting in ampersand try it out and per se and and per say and ampersand ampersand which was included in the dictionary as its official name in 1837 much like our modern letter lmno [Laughter] we've covered a lot of ground so far so let's see if we can read from the tyndale bible john was clothed with don't let this one throw you this symbol is left over from latin it's a truncation sign indicating the emission of a final s or is this is the symbol we saw earlier that looks like a nine here the word is camels here it is the word tarsus and do you recognize this one think about what we've learned about the long s and the abbreviation mark the word is vision let's be very daring and go all the way back to wycliffe this is hard even with all we've learned but many of us also know this text it is from the beginning of the book of john let's break it down one letter that might be difficult to read is this w look at how it's used here as an abbreviation with a superscript t it means with you can see then that the word is without let's start here though in the beginning notice the letter thorn here it is different than the y here notice the abbreviation mark to add an n in the beginning was this one you don't have to worry about except in wycliffe's writings this mark is a superscript a so the word is was in the beginning was the word note the r rotunda and please note our good friend the tyronian et the word was at god this mark here is a virgule which was used like a comma and god was the word this was in the beginning at god all things were made by him note the abbreviation mark over the top of the eye h i and then we need to add an m or an n and with w i thorn with and then we would go on so there it is we've done it there will be different bible samples linked in the description check them out and you'll be able to read them now have fun with it and treasure the incredible blessing of being able to have the scriptures so readily available as interesting as all this is the real pearl is found in the teachings of god and how they connect us with jesus christ preserved for us with so much care and inspiration we've heard some beautiful music as we've learned about the history of the bible music on the page is not alive but it has the potential to be it is only when the notes on the page are performed that they bring peace and joy to the world we are god's instruments don't let his words lay on the page and don't just keep them to yourself share them and if necessary use words we hope you recognize the miracle of the preservation of the word of god in the bible we hope it helps you continue to study it treasure it and apply it in your lives [Music] you

Channel: Fullmer Gems

Views: 570,378

Keywords: Come follow me, Seminary, Fullmer, Church of Jesus Christ, Book of Mormon, Scripture Gems, Institute, Bible, Sunday School, Latter-day Saints, King James, Geneva, Tyndale, Wycliffe, Coverdale, Bishop, Great, Targum, New Testament, Septuagint, Old Testament, History, papyrus, parchment

Id: fnlp3--RG3c

Length: 116min 21sec (6981 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 19 2021