Power In His Presence

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS IN KNOWING THE HISTORY OF THE TRANSLATION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE?

The history of the translation of the English bible is fixated with diversities of assistance to Christianity. Knowing this history helps to understand the transformations, pressures, torments and persecutions the versions of the bible especially the English bible had gone through before reaching our door steps with ease and comfort. Also, it keeps us as Christians abreast with the pains our predecessors in the faith went through before translating the bible into English for us.

Knowing the history of the English Bible is tantamount to knowing the history of the movement of the Bible from its possession and use by clergy alone to the hands of the laity. The beneficiaries of English translation is all and sundry who professes allegiance to Christ our Master. Eons of time ago, the bible was in seclusion and read in isolation, possessed by the powers of the time, viz the Bishops and the hegemony that were clad with the dibs and the delegated authority to peruse and assimilate it. For seven or eight centuries, it was the Latin Vulgate that held sway as the common version nearest to the tongue of the people. Latin had become the accepted tongue of the Roman Catholic Church, and there was little general acquaintance with the Bible except among the educated. During that time, there was little room for a further translation. While the illiterate majority of the people had little desire for access to the Bible, the educated minority would have been averse to so great and revolutionary a change.

These centuries added to the conviction of many that the Bible ought not to become too common, that it should not be read by everybody, that it required a certain amount of learning to make it safe reading. They came to feel that it is as important to have an authoritative interpretation of the Bible as to have the Bible itself.

The translation of the English bible had been very advantageous in the sphere of giving every believer the leeway and the latitude to understand and to comprehend the totality of what had hitherto transpired with regards to the history of Christianity. Even though Christianity reached England in the 3rd century, the Bible remained in Latin re Jerome’s Vulgate and almost exclusively in the hands of the clergy for a thousand years. The Roman Catholics were very much familiar and acquainted with the Latin language so they built entrenched positions and monuments around the Latin and they were intentionally fixated with the idea of NOT translating the Latin into a different language.

Knowing these histories enlightens us to know the difficulties embodied in the translation of one language to another with regards to the bible. The dozen or so modern English versions in common use today should be greatly studied for their differences. Because of the knowledge of the history of translating the English bible, the reader should and must know how and why versions differ. It was the work of the English reformer John Wycliffe, whose goal was to give the Bible to the people.

Tyndale was fluent in eight languages and is considered by many to be the primary architect of the modern English language. After Wycliffe’s efforts, Tyndale took the bait to further the propagation of the gospel via translation. Already hunted because of the rumor spread abroad that such a project (translation of the bible into English) was underway, inquisitors and bounty hunters were on Tyndale’s trail to abort the effort. God foiled their plans, and in 1525/6 Tyndale printed the first English New Testament. The Bishop of London sought to confiscate and burn them, but copies continued to be smuggled into England.

This history instills the greater understanding of the power of God in buffering His word from being vanquished into the dusk. The more the King and Bishop resisted its distribution, the more fascinated the public at large became. Bishop Tunstal declared that Tyndale’s translation contained thousands of errors as they torched hundreds of New Testaments confiscated by the clergy. One risked death by burning if caught in mere possession of the forbidden books. Through the new allegiance to Humanism and relevance, modern publishers and the public have been allowed to forget grammar, history, and the men who laid down their lives in the foundation of the Bible in English. We have not been told that the Manuscripts used in the modern versions are other than that used by the great scholars who laid down their lives for Truth. These modern versions are without the test of persecution and blood.

Like the Pharisees of old, the clergy realized that having God’s Word available to the people in the language of common English, would mean disaster to the church. No longer could they control access to the scriptures. If people were able to read the Bible in their own tongue, the church’s income and power would crumble. They could not continue the selling of indulgences (the forgiveness of sins) or bartering the release of loved ones from “Purgatory”.  People would begin to challenge the church’s authority if the practices of the church were exposed to the light of Scripture. The contradictions between God’s Word and what the priests taught would open the “eyes of the blind” and the truth would set them free. Salvation by grace alone — through faith (not by works) would be revealed. The need for “priest craft” would give way to the priesthood of all believers. The veneration of canonized Saints and of the Virgin would be called into question. The availability of the scriptures in English was the greatest threat imaginable to the corrupted Romish church. The Church of Rome would never give up without a fight.