Censorship of the Bible includes restrictions and prohibition of possessing, reading, or using the Bible in general or any particular editions or translations of it.
122-469: The Tyndale Bible ( TYN ) generally refers to the body of biblical translations by William Tyndale into Early Modern English , made c. 1522–1535 . Tyndale's biblical text is credited with being the first Anglophone Biblical translation to work directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, although it relied heavily upon the Latin Vulgate and Luther's German New Testament. Furthermore, it
244-748: A printing patent is included in the publications. From this time also printing patents of the Patriarch of Venice can be found. With the censorship of January 4, 1486 and an executive order of January 10, the Elector-Archbishop Berthold von Henneberg of Mainz can be considered a pioneer in censorship regulation in the German-speaking countries for Mainz , Erfurt , and Frankfurt . His censorship decisions did not concern secular topics, but instead targeted specific religious texts, especially translations from Latin and Greek into
366-650: A Georgian alphabet was likely still motivated by Christians who wished to translate holy scriptures. In the 6th century, the Bible was translated into Old Nubian . By the end of the eighth century, Church of the East monasteries (so-called Nestorians ) had translated the New Testament and Psalms (at least, the portions needed for liturgical use) from Syriac to Sogdian , the lingua franca in Central Asia of
488-636: A Gospel of St Matthew in Hebrew letters. Jerome also reports in his preface to St Matthew that it was originally composed "in Hebrew letters in Judea" not in Greek and that he saw and copied one from the Nazarene sect. The exact provenance, authorship, source languages and collation of the four Gospels is unknown but subject to much academic speculation and disputed methods . Some of the first translations of
610-566: A Koine Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures in several stages (completing the task by 132 BC). The Talmud ascribes the translation effort to Ptolemy II Philadelphus (r. 285–246 BC), who allegedly hired 72 Jewish scholars for the purpose, for which reason the translation is commonly known as the Septuagint (from the Latin septuaginta , "seventy"), a name which it gained in "the time of Augustine of Hippo " (354–430 AD). The Septuagint (LXX),
732-554: A Roman Catholic priesthood was not needed as an intermediary between a person and God. The importance of the Tyndale Bible in shaping and influencing the English language has been mentioned. According to one writer, Tyndale is "the man who more than Shakespeare even or Bunyan has moulded and enriched our language." In translating the Bible, Tyndale invented new words into the English language; Thomas More pointed out this
854-651: A Romance language, a transfer of the Vulgate into Valencian , was made by the Carthusian Order's General Bonifaci Ferrer (1355–1417) in 1478. By letter of March 17, 1479, Sixtus IV authorized the rector and dean of the University of Cologne to intervene with ecclesiastical censors against printers, buyers and readers of heretical books. This authorization was approved by Pope Alexander VI . In several theological and non-theological books from this period
976-565: A heretic and false teacher. New published translations of liturgical readings and preaching texts (psalms, pericopes from the Gospels and Epistles) were now bound to an examination by church authorities, though not banned as such. Previously and elsewhere, university theologians had an implied authority to make and publish such translations; in any case, bishops usually delegated review to the universities. Individuals like William Butler wanted to go even further and also limit Bible translations to
1098-792: A manuscript that, if finished, would have been the costliest and largest Bible of the Middle Ages. There is a controversy among academics over the connection of the Middle English Bible translations known as the Wycliffite Bibles . These orthodox translations appeared in the 1380s and 1390s and in some cases included heterodox material associated with the Lollards , the religious wing of an anti-clerical political movement which to some extent drew inspiration or leadership from John Wycliffe . John Wycliffe (1330–1384),
1220-538: A number of Hebrew Bibles and other Jewish books were burned in Andalucía at the behest of the Spanish Inquisition. In the early 1500s, several independent Catholic efforts brought out new Greek, Latin and Hebrew editions for scholars, which bootstrapped the vernacular translations that followed. From 1516 to 1535, Erasmus of Rotterdam published several editions of his Novum Instrumentum omne : it
1342-704: A person was saved. Christ had, by the giving of the Holy Spirit , given the power to forgive sins to his disciples in John 20:20-23. Tyndale's position on Christian salvation differed from the views of the Catholic Church, which followed the belief that salvation was granted to the faithful who maintained the State of Grace by living in charity, faith and hope, and participating in the Church's seven Sacraments in
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#17327661683231464-580: A policing rather than theological basis; Protestant writers have portrayed it in terms of churchmen suppressing the truth in order to maintain power. In most cases, the bans on pious lay people possessing or publicly reading certain Bibles were related to unauthorized vernacular Scripture editions not derived from the Latin Vulgate , or from orthodox translations also containing heretical or confusing material. Clerics were never forbidden to possess
1586-864: A revision of earlier Latin translations, was dominant in Western Christianity during the Middle Ages . The Latin-speaking western church led by the Pope did not translate the Scriptures or liturgy into languages of recently converted peoples such as the Irish, Franks or Norsemen. By contrast, the Eastern Orthodox Church, centred in Constantinople, did, in some cases, translate the Scriptures and liturgy, most successfully in
1708-636: A ruler in England, had a number of passages of the Bible circulated in the vernacular in around 900. These included passages from the Ten Commandments and the Pentateuch , which he prefixed to a code of laws he promulgated around this time. In approximately 990, a full and freestanding version of the four Gospels in idiomatic Old English appeared, in the West Saxon dialect ; these are called
1830-466: A sacrifice. The role of the priest in the Catholic Church was to offer the sacrifice of Christ's body and blood in the ritual of the Mass, to bless, to conduct other religious ceremonies, to read and explain the scripture to the people, and to administer the other sacraments. In these ways they are different from the common believers. In many reform movements a group of elders would lead the church and take
1952-411: A theologian espousing radical clerical poverty and some pre-Reformation views , is associated with some of the first translations of the Bible from Latin into English from 1382 to 1395. Some of his theological-political teachings were rejected in 1381 by Oxford University and in 1382 by the church; he had to retire. For fear of a popular uprising, Wycliffe was not charged. In 1401, Parliament passed
2074-484: A year and a half attempting to convince each other in a series of private books. This failing, in 1536 he was declared a heretic for his Lutheran advocacy and defrocked. Tyndale now being voluntarily outside the protection of the Church, the Habsburg civil authorities then took him and sentenced him to be strangled to death and the body burned. Tyndale was not condemned because of translating or publishing Scriptures, which
2196-565: Is contested by historians. The following list has information that may be useful in weighing up claims in popular histories, and information elsewhere in this article: Around 1440–1450 Johannes Gutenberg invented a printing press with movable type, with which he produced the Gutenberg Bible . His invention quickly spread throughout Europe. In 1466 the Mentelin Bible was the first vernacular language Bible to be printed. It
2318-563: Is one of the most popular and widely used Bibles in the world today. It has been suggested that around 90% of the King James Version (or at least of the parts translated by Tyndale) is from Tyndale's works, with as much as one third of the text being word for word Tyndale. The translators of the Revised Standard Version in the 1940s noted that Tyndale's translation, including the 1537 Matthew Bible, inspired
2440-712: Is ostensibly the production of a learned committee of churchmen, it is mostly cribbed from Tyndale with some reworking of his translation." Many of the English versions since then have drawn inspiration from Tyndale, such as the Revised Standard Version, the New American Standard Bible , and the English Standard Version . Even the paraphrases like the Living Bible have been inspired by the same desire to make
2562-399: Is wherever true Christians meet together to preach the word of God. To these reformers, the Catholic Church was unnecessary, and its very existence proved that it was in fact not the "true" Church. When Tyndale translated the Greek word ἐκκλησία ( ekklēsía ) as congregation, he was thereby undermining the entire structure of the Catholic Church. Many of the reform movements believed in
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#17327661683232684-545: The De heretico comburendo law in order to suppress Wycliffe's followers and censor their books. His associates or helpers Nicholas Hereford and John Purvey subsequently appealed or escaped charges of heresy by recanting Wycliffite theological-political teachings; the issue of bible translations was not part of it. The translations of the Bible especially with added polemical material caused great unrest among some clergy, and several defensive provincial synods were convened, such as
2806-729: The Wessex Gospels . Around the same time, a compilation now called the Old English Hexateuch appeared with the first six (or, in one version, seven) books of the Old Testament. The arrival of the mendicant preaching orders in the 12th century saw individual books being translated with commentary, in Italian dialects. Typically the Psalms were among the first books to be translated, being prayers: for example,
2928-568: The Beguines which were obsolete by 1329. At the diocesan synod of Trier ( Synodus Dioecesana Trevirensis ) convened by Archbishop Theodoric II in 1231, alleged heretics called anachronistically Euchites were described as having translated the scriptures into German: …heresy was arising on all sides. In the year of 1231 in Trier, heretics were caught in three schools. And several of them belonged to that sect, and many of them were taught from
3050-739: The British Library , and the Württembergische Landesbibliothek in Stuttgart. After his death in 1536, Tyndale's works were revised and reprinted numerous times and are reflected in more modern versions of the Bible, such as the King James Version . Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch was published at Antwerp by Merten de Keyser in 1530. His English version of the Book of Jonah was published
3172-586: The Byzantine text-type , and the Western text-type . Most variants among the manuscripts are minor, such as alternative spelling, alternative word order, the presence or absence of an optional definite article ("the"), and so on. Occasionally, a major variant happens when a portion of a text was missing or for other reasons. Examples of major variants are the endings of Mark , the Pericope Adulteræ ,
3294-691: The Cathar and Waldensian heresies, in South France and Catalonia. This demonstrates that such translations existed: there is evidence of some vernacular translations being permitted while others were being scrutinized. A group of Middle English Bible translations were created: including the Wycliffean Bibles (1383, 1393) and the Paues New Testament, based on the Vulgate. New unauthorized translations were banned in England by
3416-679: The Comma Johanneum , and the Western version of Acts . The discovery of older manuscripts which belong to the Alexandrian text-type, including the 4th-century Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus , led scholars to revise their view about the original Greek text. Karl Lachmann based his critical edition of 1831 on manuscripts dating from the 4th century and earlier, to argue that the Textus Receptus must be corrected according to these earlier texts. Early manuscripts of
3538-518: The Council of Laodicea in 363 (both lacked the Book of Revelation ), and later established by Athanasius of Alexandria in 367 (with Revelation added). Jerome's Vulgate Latin translation dates to between AD 382 and 405. Latin translations predating Jerome are collectively known as Vetus Latina texts. Jerome began by revising these earlier Latin translations, but ended by going back to the original Greek, bypassing all translations, and going back to
3660-569: The Gospel of John into Old English by the Venerable Bede , which is said to have been prepared shortly before his death around the year 735. An Old High German version of the gospel of Matthew dates to 748. Charlemagne in c. 800 charged Alcuin with a revision of the Latin Vulgate. The translation into Old Church Slavonic was started in 863 by Cyril and Methodius . Alfred the Great ,
3782-674: The Masoretic text , but also take into account possible variants from all available ancient versions. The Christian New Testament was written in Koine Greek, and nearly all modern translations are to some extent based upon the Greek text. Origen 's Hexapla ( c. 235 ) placed side by side six versions of the Old Testament: the Hebrew consonantal text, the Hebrew text transliterated into Greek letters (the Secunda ),
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3904-677: The New Testament , the Pentateuch , and the historical books of the Old Testament . Of the Old Testament books, the Pentateuch, Book of Jonah , and a revised version of the Book of Genesis were published during Tyndale's lifetime. His other Old Testament works were first used in the creation of the Matthew Bible and also greatly influenced subsequent English translations of the Bible. The chain of events that led to
4026-522: The Pauline epistles and other New Testament writings show no punctuation whatsoever. The punctuation was added later by other editors, according to their own understanding of the text. There is also a long-standing tradition owing to Papias of Hierapolis (c.125) that the Gospel of Matthew was originally in Hebrew. Eusebius (c.300) reports that Pantaenus went to India (c. 200) and found them using
4148-763: The Torah began during the Babylonian exile , when Aramaic became the lingua franca of the Jews. With most people speaking only Aramaic and not understanding Hebrew, the Targums were created to allow the common person to understand the Torah as it was read in ancient synagogues . By the 3rd century BC, Alexandria had become the center of Hellenistic Judaism , and during the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC translators compiled in Egypt
4270-492: The biblical languages of Hebrew , Aramaic , and Greek . As of September 2023 all of the Bible has been translated into 736 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,658 languages, and smaller portions of the Bible have been translated into 1,264 other languages according to Wycliffe Global Alliance . Thus, at least some portions of the Bible have been translated into 3,658 languages. The Old Testament, written in Hebrew (with some sections in
4392-586: The earliest Polish translation from 1280. There are numerous manuscripts of the Psalms in Catalan from the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, translated from the Vulgate, Occitan, French and Hebrew, with a New Testament and full bible translation made in the 1300s. Parts of an Old Testament in Old Spanish from the late 1300s still exist. Monks completed a translation into Franco-Provençal (Arpitan) c.1170-85, commissioned by Peter Waldo . The complete Bible
4514-535: The hours of the blessed Virgin ; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books." This quote was not repeated in 1233 at the provincial Council held in Bréziers . Although sections of the Council Toulouse were used, this statement was omitted. At the synod of Béziers ( Concilium Biterrense ) in 1246 it was also decided that the laity should have no Latin and vernacular and
4636-401: The 5th century, Mesrob Mashtots translated the Bible using the Armenian alphabet invented by him. Also dating from the same period is the first Georgian translation. The creation of the Georgian scripts , like the Armenian alphabet, was also attributed to Mashtots by the scholar Koryun in the 5th century. This claim has been disputed by modern Georgian scholars, although the creation of
4758-461: The 7th-9th centuries. From about the 9th century it was regarded as the only valid Bible translation. In Eastern Christianity , on the other hand, Greek remained dominant. During the Diocletianic Persecution , Bibles were targeted as part of a larger program intended to wipe out Christianity. On February 24, 303, Diocletian's first so-called "Edict against the Christians" was published. Among other persecutions against Christians, Diocletian ordered
4880-426: The Authorised Version, known down the generations as 'the AV' or 'the King James', was made in 1998. It shows that Tyndale's words account for 84% of the New Testament and for 75.8% of the Old Testament books that he translated." Joan Bridgman comments on the Contemporary Review that, "He [Tyndale] is the mainly unrecognized translator of the most influential book in the world. Although the Authorised King James Version
5002-514: The Bible challenged the Catholic Church in many other ways. For example, Tyndale's translation of the Bible into a vernacular language made it available to the common English-speaking person. Tyndale wanted everyone to have access to scripture and gave the common people the ability to read it for themselves but with a decidedly Protestant orientation in the choice of words used and in its annotations, which were suffused with Tyndale's Protestant beliefs. The greatest challenge that Tyndale's Bible caused
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5124-404: The Bible had notes critical of the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic Church had long proclaimed that the only true Church was the Catholic Church. The word church in Catholic teaching could only be used of the Catholic Church, and there was no other organized religion in England at that time. Some radical reformers preached that the true church was the "invisible" church , that the church
5246-413: The Bible have survived to the present day in over 250 manuscripts, usually as selections of books, many without unorthodox added Lollard material. The early English printing industry was impeded in pre-Reformation England, compared to the rest of Europe where vernacular Bible production formed a significant part. Wycliffe's Bible was not printed until 1731, when Wycliffe was historically conceived as
5368-441: The Bible into English. Tyndale in the Prologue to his 1525 translation wrote that he never intentionally altered or misrepresented any of the Bible but that he had sought to "interpret the sense of the scripture and the meaning of the spirit." While translating, Tyndale followed Erasmus's 1522 Greek edition of the New Testament. In his preface to his 1534 New Testament ("WT unto the Reader"), he not only goes into some detail about
5490-590: The Bible occurred in the past and is still going on today. In the 20th century, Christian resistance to the Soviet Union's policy of state atheism occurred through Bible-smuggling. The People's Republic of China , officially an atheist state, engages in Bible burning as a part of antireligious campaigns there. The extent and nature of past censorship of the Bible in Western Europe is controversial. Historically Catholic writers have portrayed restrictions on vernacular translations as temporary prudential responses to regional outbreaks of organized violence and heresy with
5612-505: The Bible understandable to Tyndale's proverbial plowboy . Juhász, Gergely; Arblaster, Paul (2005). "Can Translating the Bible Be Bad for Your Health?: William Tyndale and the Falsification of Memory". In Johan Leemans (ed.). More Than a Memory: The Discourse of Martyrdom and the Construction of Christian Identity in the History of Christianity . Peeters Publishers. ISBN 90-429-1688-5 . Bible translations The Bible has been translated into many languages from
5734-419: The Bible was freely discussed. However, he noted that the desire to read and study the divine scriptures, was not to blame: rather, he commended it. After the end of the Albigensian Crusade , the provincial Council of Toulouse (1229) tightened the provisions against the heretics in this ecclesiastical province. The Inquisition procedure was adopted, and the University of Toulouse was founded, to which
5856-416: The Catholic Church is summed up by a later story about Tyndale's reason for translating the Bible: to "cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more scripture than the clergy of the day", many of whom were poorly educated. (See Plowboy trope .) By this, Tyndale sought to undermine the Catholic Church's authority regarding the access to and interpretation of scripture, which he saw as detrimental. To Tyndale,
5978-418: The Catholic Church's claim that the clergy were of a consecrated order different than the average Christian and that they had different functions within the Church no longer held sway. Tyndale's translation of the Greek word πρεσβύτερος ( presbúteros ) to mean elder instead of priest also challenged the doctrines of the Catholic Church. In particular, it undermined the Catholic Mass and its nature as
6100-434: The Catholic Institute of Toulouse is also called. At the synod a general Scripture book ban was pronounced for lay people of this ecclesiastical province, only Psalterium and Brevier in Latin were allowed. We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old and New Testaments; unless anyone from the motives of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or
6222-412: The Church of Constantinople. Athanasius ( Apol. Const. 4 ) recorded Alexandrian scribes around 340 preparing Bibles for Constans . Little else is known, though there is plenty of speculation. For example, it is speculated that this may have provided motivation for canon lists , and that Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209 , Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus are examples of these Bibles. Together with
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#17327661683236344-448: The Council of Trent, there was no outright ban on vernacular Bible reading in the Catholic world, but only regionally diversified positions. In Germany, the Low Countries, Bohemia, Poland, and Italy, vernacular Bibles circulated and were widely read since the Middle Ages. Censorship measures, however, existed in England and Spain, where the official Church had to deal with what it considered erroneous “Bible-based” faith-systems. In France, it
6466-466: The English tongue or any other, into any other by way of book or treatise. Nor let any such a book or treatise be read, whether new in the time of said John Wycliffe written or written in the future, be read in part or whole, in public or in private, under the punishment of the greater excommunication, till that translation has been approved by the bishop of the place or, if necessary, a provincial council. But those who transgress this should be punished like
6588-572: The German. Berthold was of the opinion that the German language was too poor to reproduce the precise and well-formulated Latin and Greek texts. Up to this time, no heretical writings had appeared printed in German, but since 1466 about ten relatively identical German Bible translations were completed. He commented: Divine printing makes the use of books accessible to the world for instruction and edification. But many, as we have seen, misuse this art out of lust for glory and greed for money, so that they destroy humanity instead of enlightening it. Thus, in
6710-403: The Gospel and salvation was now to be found directly in Tyndale's translation of Scripture. Tyndale's use of the word congregation conflicted with the Catholic Church's doctrine that the lay members and the clergy were two separate classes within the Church, and the Catholic teaching of the Sacrament of Ordination . If the true church is defined as a congregation, the common believers, then
6832-444: The Greek tenses but also points out that there is often a Hebrew idiom underlying the Greek. The Tyndale Society adduces much further evidence to show that his translations were made directly from the original Hebrew and Greek sources he had at his disposal. For example, the Prolegomena in Mombert's William Tyndale's Five Books of Moses show that Tyndale's Pentateuch is a translation of the Hebrew original. His translation also drew on
6954-408: The Greek translations of Aquila of Sinope and Symmachus the Ebionite , one recension of the Septuagint, and the Greek translation of Theodotion . In addition, he included three anonymous translations of the Psalms (the Quinta , Sexta and Septima ). His eclectic recension of the Septuagint had a significant influence on the Old Testament text in several important manuscripts. In the 2nd century,
7076-453: The Hebrew texts on which the Septuagint was based, many scholars believe that they represent a different textual tradition (" Vorlage ") from the one that became the basis for the Masoretic texts. Christian translations of the Old Testament also tend to be based upon the Hebrew, though some denominations prefer the Septuagint (or may cite variant readings from both). Bible translations incorporating modern textual criticism usually begin with
7198-441: The Latin Vulgate and Luther's 1521 September Testament. Of the first (1526) edition of Tyndale's New Testament, only three copies survive. The only complete copy is part of the Bible Collection of Württembergische Landesbibliothek , Stuttgart. The copy of the British Library is almost complete, lacking only the title page and list of contents. Another rarity is Tyndale's Pentateuch, of which only nine remain. Tyndale's Bible laid
7320-410: The Latin language alone. However, modern academics such as Henry Ansgar Kelly , in part following Thomas More , interpret Arundel's Constitution as attributing the orthodox translations to exist by Wycliffe's time and so not restricting or banning them. However, even if this is correct, over the course of the fifteenth century, as the connection of even orthodox translations with Lollardy increased in
7442-444: The Old Testament was translated into Syriac translation, and the Gospels in the Diatessaron gospel harmony. The New Testament was translated in the 5th century, now known as the Peshitta. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, the New Testament was translated into various Coptic (Egyptian) dialects. The Old Testament was already translated by that stage. In 331, the Emperor Constantine commissioned Eusebius to deliver fifty Bibles for
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#17327661683237564-417: The Peshitta, these are the earliest extant Christian Bibles. The Bible was translated into Gothic (an early East Germanic language) in the 4th century by a group of scholars, possibly under the supervision of Ulfilas (Wulfila). The canonical Christian Bible was formally established by Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem in 350 (although it had been generally accepted by the church previously), confirmed by
7686-457: The Septuagint contain several passages and whole books not included in the Masoretic texts of the Tanakh . In some cases these additions were originally composed in Greek, while in other cases they are translations of Hebrew books or of Hebrew variants not present in the Masoretic texts. Recent discoveries have shown that more of the Septuagint additions have a Hebrew origin than previously thought. While there are no complete surviving manuscripts of
7808-399: The Septuagint was widely used by Greek-speaking Jews, and later by Christians. It differs somewhat from the later standardized Hebrew ( Masoretic Text ). This translation was promoted by way of a legend (primarily recorded as the Letter of Aristeas ) that seventy (or in some sources, seventy-two) separate translators all produced identical texts; supposedly proving its accuracy. Versions of
7930-422: The Silk Road, which was an Eastern Iranian language with Chinese loanwords, written in letters and logograms derived from Aramaic script. They may have also translated parts of books into a Chinese . When ancient scribes copied earlier books, they wrote notes on the margins of the page ( marginal glosses ) to correct their text—especially if a scribe accidentally omitted a word or line—and to comment about
8052-433: The Tyndale Bible was similar to searching for water in the sea and charged Tyndale's translation of The Obedience of a Christian Man with having about a thousand false translations. Bishop Tunstall of London declared that there were upwards of 2,000 errors in Tyndale's 1525/1526 Bible, having already in 1523 denied Tyndale the permission required under the Constitutions of Oxford (1409), which were still in force, to translate
8174-466: The Vulgate Bible translation in the Latin language. The Index Librorum Prohibitorum of the Catholic Church included various translations or editions of the Bible. The Old Testament was written mostly in Hebrew and partly in Aramaic . The New Testament was written in Koine Greek , a form of ancient Greek. The books were translated into several other languages, including Latin and Gothic . From about AD 300 onward, Latin began to assert itself as
8296-451: The anachronism of ester could not be sustained; and so coined the neologism passover , which later Bible versions adopted, and substituted for ester in the New Testament as well. Its remnant is seen as Easter once in the King James Version in Acts 12:4 and twice in the Bishops' Bible , John 11:55 as well as Acts 12:4. Tyndale was accused of translation errors. Thomas More commented that searching for errors in (the first edition of)
8418-414: The authority of scripture alone. To them it dictated how a "true" church should be organized and administered. By changing the translation from church to congregation Tyndale was providing ammunition for the beliefs of the reformers. Their belief that the church was not a visible systematized institution but a body defined by believers, however organized, who held a specifically Protestant understanding of
8540-405: The body of Christ on earth. To change these words was to strip the Church hierarchy of its pretensions to be Christ's terrestrial representative, and to award this honor to individual worshipers who made up each congregation." Tyndale used ester for páskha ( πάσχα ) in his New Testament, where Wycliffe had used pask . When Tyndale embarked on his Old Testament translation, he realised that
8662-592: The book of Daniel in the Aramaic language) was translated into Aramaic (the so-called Targums, originally not written down), Greek and Syriac . The New Testament, written in Greek, was first translated into Syriac, Latin and Coptic – all before the time of Emperor Constantine. By the year 500, the Bible had been translated into Ge'ez , Gothic , Armenian and Georgian. By the year 1000, a number of other translations were added (in some cases partial), including Old Nubian, Sogdian, Arabic and Slavonic languages, among others. Jerome 's 4th-century Latin Vulgate version,
8784-566: The case of the Slavonic language of Eastern Europe. Since then, the Bible has been translated into many more languages. English Bible translations have a rich and varied history of more than a millennium. (See List of English Bible translations .) Textual variants in the New Testament include errors, omissions, additions, changes, and alternate translations. In some cases, different translations have been used as evidence for or have been motivated by doctrinal differences. The Hebrew Bible
8906-641: The clergy no vernacular theological books. At the provincial Second Council of Tarragona ( Conventus Tarraconensis ) in 1234, the Spanish bishops, according to a decree of King James I of Aragon , declared that it was forbidden to anyone, to own a Romance language translation of books of the Old and New Testament. This had to be burned within eight days, otherwise they would be suspected as heretics. The bans were not permanent but responses to exigencies. The provincial Council of Tarragona of 1318 introduced bans for
9028-466: The creation of Tyndale's New Testament possibly began in 1522, when Tyndale acquired a copy of the Luther's German New Testament. Tyndale began a translation into English referencing a Greek text compiled by Erasmus from several manuscripts with texts then thought to pre-date the Latin Vulgate (whose Latin Gospel translations owed to Jerome but whose Epistles come from Old Latin versions.) The Vulgate
9150-646: The creation of the Matthew Bible which was published in 1537. Tyndale used numerous sources when carrying out his translations of both the New and Old Testaments. He also made use of Greek and Hebrew grammars. Tyndale's translations and polemical books were condemned and banned in England by Catholic authorities: in particular almost all copies of his first 1526 New Testament, which authorities regarded as particularly flawed, were bought and burned by Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall who had sponsored and helped Erasmus with
9272-466: The destruction of all Hebrew books and all vernacular Bibles in 1497. This was five years after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain . In 1498, the Inquisition stated that it was impossible to translate the Bible into a modern language without making mistakes that would plunge unskilled and especially new converts into doubts about faith. The first complete printed translation of the Bible into
9394-494: The destruction of their scriptures and liturgical books across the entire Roman empire. For the ordinary semi-literate or illiterate laity, the main source of scripture was oral and regular: the priest's vernacular paraphrase of the day's readings according to the liturgical calendar during the homily , bolstered by derived works such as dramas, poems, songs, icons, paintings, carvings and sculptures. Historian Wim Francois notes "the late medieval Catholic church did not forbid
9516-613: The earlier permission to use the Slavonic language liturgy, including the scripture reading. The reason he gave, in the explicit context of questioning Vratislaus' loyalty and orthodoxy in the highly political Investiture Controversy , was that "(Not without reason has it pleased Almighty God that) the Sacred Scripture should be obscure in certain places, lest, if it were freely open to all, it would perhaps become worthless and would be subject to scorn, or it would perversely lead
9638-1030: The empire. In 1523, at the Reichstag in Nuremberg the papal nuncio Francesco Chieregati asked for the Holy Roman Empire to enforce the clause of the Lateran V Council against printing any book without the permission of the local bishop or his representative. He also wanted the Edict of Worms to be enforced. Instead, on March 6, 1523, it was decreed that until the demanded new ecumenical council could be held, local rulers themselves should ensure that no new writings were printed or sold in their territories unless they had been approved by reasonable men. Other writings, especially those of an insulting nature, were to be banned under severe punishment. The 1529 Diet of Speyer limited its decrees essentially to repeating
9760-475: The entire Bible in Latin is the Codex Amiatinus , a Latin Vulgate edition produced in 8th-century England at the double monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow . Latin and its early Romance dialects were widely spoken as the primary or secondary language throughout Western Europe, including Britain even in the 700s and 800s. Between the 4th to 6th centuries, the Bible was translated into Ge'ez (Ethiopic). In
9882-484: The following year. This was followed by his revised version of the Book of Genesis in 1534. Tyndale translated additional Old Testament books including Joshua , Judges , First and Second Samuel , First and Second Kings and First and Second Chronicles , but they were not published and have not survived in their original forms. When Tyndale was executed, these works came to be in the possession of one of his associates, John Rogers . These translations were influential in
10004-554: The forefather of the English Reformation . The next English Bible translation was that of William Tyndale , whose Tyndale Bible had to be printed from 1525 outside England in areas of Germany sympathetic to Protestantism. Tyndale himself was executed after refusing to recant his Lutheranism , and was not charged for infringing any law relating to vernacular translation. The nature and extent of censorship of vernacular published bibles in various regions over history
10126-604: The foundations for many of the English Bibles which followed his. His work made up a significant portion of the Great Bible of 1539, which was the first authorized version of the English Bible. The Tyndale Bible also played a key role in spreading Reformation ideas to England which had been reluctant to embrace the movement. By including many of Martin Luther 's commentaries in his works, Tyndale also allowed
10248-685: The greater part of the New." Friar Giovanni da Montecorvino of the large Franciscan mission to Mongol China in the early 1300s translated the Psalms and New Testament into the language of the Tartars : the Uyghur language or perhaps the Mongolian language . A royal Swedish version of 1316 has been lost. The entire Bible was translated into Czech around 1360. The provincial synods of Toulouse (1229) and Tarragona (1234) temporarily outlawed possession of some vernacular renderings, in reaction to
10370-636: The hands of the people, which are translated from Latin into German, libri de divinis officiis et apicibus religionis nostrae can be found for the reduction of religion and its peaks. The sacred laws and canons, however, are composed by wise and eloquent men with such great care and skill, and their understanding is so difficult that the duration of human life, even for the most discerning, is scarcely sufficient to cope with them. Nevertheless, some cheeky and ignorant people have dared to translate those writings into such poor ordinary German that even scholars are seduced by their work into great misunderstandings. In 1490
10492-616: The language of Tyndale. An example of this is Matthew 5:9, "Blessed are the peacemakers." Such Germanic compound words as "peacemaker" are hallmarks of Tyndale's prose, and follow Middle English word-formation principles more than Modern English. The hierarchy and intelligentsia of the English Catholic Church did not approve of some of the words and phrases introduced by Tyndale, such as "overseer", where it would have been understood as "bishop", "elder" for "priest", and "love" rather than "charity". Tyndale, citing Erasmus (who
10614-520: The language of worship in Western Christianity . This was aided by the fact many European languages, called the Romance languages , are all descended from Latin. In contrast the earliest written Western Germanic languages date only from the 6th century. From AD 382–420, a new translation was made into the Latin vernacular, the Vulgate , which became the dominant translation for Western Christianity in
10736-411: The light of the Church's teaching. Tyndale's translation challenged the belief that a repentant person should still do penance for their sins after they were forgiven by God. According to Tyndale's New Testament translation and other Protestant reformers, a believer could repent with a sincere heart, and God would forgive without an intent of submission to some formal restitution. Tyndale's translation of
10858-586: The loose paraphrase Speculum Vitae Christi ( The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ ), which had been authorized into English around 1410. A Cornish version may have been made. The Hungarian Hussite Bible appeared in 1416. Individual books continued to be translated: for example the Gospel of John in Slovak (1469). The first 12 books of the Old Testament in Danish (also used for Norwegian)
10980-538: The mind into error due to mediocre translations." Between 1170 and 1180, Peter Waldo commissioned a cleric from Lyon to translate the New Testament into the vernacular "Romance" ( Franco-Provençal ). He is credited with providing Western Europe the first translation of Scriptures in a 'modern tongue' outside of Latin . In 1199, Pope Innocent III , writing in a letter to the bishop of Metz about Waldensians , banned secret meetings (which he labeled as occultis conventiculis , or "hidden assemblies") in which
11102-550: The original Hebrew wherever he could instead of the Septuagint. There are also several ancient translations, most important of which are in the Syriac dialect of Aramaic (including the Peshitta). The Codex Vaticanus dates to c. 325 –350, and is missing only 21 sentences or paragraphs in various New Testament books: it is one of the four great uncial codices . The earliest surviving complete single-volume manuscript of
11224-406: The people of England direct access to the words and ideas of Luther, whose works had been banned in England. William Maldon 's account of learning to read to directly access the Tyndale Bible testified to the sometimes violent opposition to the translation's use. Perhaps the Tyndale Bible's greatest impact is that it heavily influenced and contributed to the creation of the King James Version , which
11346-521: The place of the Catholic priests . These elders were not a separate class from the common believers; in fact, they were usually selected from amongst them. Many reformers believed in the idea of the priesthood of all believers , which meant that every Christian was in fact a priest and had, for example, the right to read and interpret scripture. Tyndale's translation challenged the claim of scriptural basis for Catholic clerical authority. Catholic doctrine
11468-543: The printer and the printing location. The nuncio's request had failed. As part of the 1541 Diet of Regensburg which set the terms of the Regensburg Interim , the rule against publishing insults was repeated. At the 1548 Diet of Augsburg , which pronounced the terms of the Augsburg Interim , the ordinance against insults was repeated and the previous provisions were extended to include the name of
11590-540: The provincial Oxford Synod in 1408 under church law; possession of material that contained Lollard material (such as the so-called General Prologue found in a few Wycliffite Bibles) was also illegal by English state law , in response to Lollard uprisings. Later, many parts of the Bible in Late Middle English were printed by William Caxton in his translation of the Golden Legend (1483), and in
11712-576: The provincial 3rd Council of Oxford (ended in 1408). Under the chairmanship of Archbishop Thomas Arundel , official positions against Wycliffe were written in the Oxford Constitution (which applied at the University of Oxford) and so-called Arundel's Constitution (which applied to a wider area of England.) The latter reads as follows: […] that no one in the future by his own authority will translate any text of Holy Scripture into
11834-557: The public mind, the production of new manuscripts and the use of translations waned. At the ecumenical Council of Constance in 1415, Wycliffe was ultimately proclaimed a heretic; with his body to be removed from a church burial place. However, the Bible or vernacular translation are not mentioned in the list of Wycliffe's 45 heretical positions by the council, nor are they mentioned in the censorship of "the books called by him Dialogus and Trialogus and many other treatises, works and pamphlets." The so-called Wycliffite translations of
11956-490: The reading of the Bible in the vernacular,[...]there was no central Roman policy[...]pertaining to Bible reading in the vernacular, and [...] biblical books circulated in most of Europe's linguistic regions." Bans were regional, on unauthorized translations, and often used the policing of actual or predicted violence as a justification. There were some controversies whether the translation in Old Church Slavonic
12078-517: The resolutions of 1523 Diet of Augsburg . On May 13, 1530, the papal nuncio gave the Emperor a memorandum which recommended that the Edict of Worms and the bull of Leo X was to be implemented by imperial decree and on pain of punishment. Following the Protestation at Speyer at the conclusion of the Reichstag on November 19, 1530, it was decided that nothing should be printed without specifying
12200-656: The revised edition of 1534), "repent" and "love", challenging key doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. (Most of these ideas originated from More's best friend, the Catholic priest Erasmus ; however, More insisted that Erasmus' intent was to enrich the meaning not to subvert Catholic teaching.) In 1535 in Flanders (Brabant), Tyndale was betrayed by an Englishman to local authorities and imprisoned. The Catholic theologian Jacobus Latomus and he spent almost
12322-570: The sacred scriptures, which they had translated into German. Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor issued an edict against German interpretations of Scripture at the request of Pope Urban V 1369 in Lucca , This was in order that such interpreters would not seduce laymen and malevolent spirits to heresy or error. Nevertheless, his son allowed the German translation of the Wenceslas Bible in 1385,
12444-520: The text, since the original text contained only consonants . This sometimes required the selection of an interpretation; since some words differ only in their vowels their meaning can vary in accordance with the vowels chosen. In antiquity, variant Hebrew readings existed, some of which have survived in the Samaritan Pentateuch and other ancient fragments, as well as being attested in ancient versions in other languages. The New Testament
12566-409: The text. When later scribes were copying the copy, they were sometimes uncertain if a note was intended to be included as part of the text. See textual criticism . Over time, different regions evolved different versions, each with its own assemblage of omissions, additions, and variants (mostly in orthography ). There are some fragmentary Old English Bible translations , notably a lost translation of
12688-570: The translation of his 1518 Latin/Greek New Testament that Luther had used. Catholics, prominently layman Thomas More , the Lord Chancellor of Henry VIII , claimed that he had purposely mistranslated the ancient texts in order to promote anti-clericalism and heretical views. In particular they cited the terms "church", "priest", "do penance" and "charity", which became in the Tyndale translation "congregation", "senior" (changed to "elder" in
12810-739: The translations that followed: The Great Bible of 1539; the Geneva Bible of 1560; the Bishops' Bible of 1568; the Douay-Rheims Bible of 1582–1609; and the King James Version of 1611, of which the RSV translators noted: "It [the KJV] kept felicitous phrases and apt expressions, from whatever source, which had stood the test of public usage. It owed most, especially in the New Testament, to Tyndale". Brian Moynahan writes: "A complete analysis of
12932-583: The very first translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek , later became the accepted text of the Old Testament in the Christian church and the basis of its canon . Jerome based his Latin Vulgate translation on the Hebrew for those books of the Bible preserved in the Jewish canon (as reflected in the Masoretic text ), and on the Greek text for the deuterocanonical books . The translation now known as
13054-488: Was a double edition of the New Testament with both a revised Latin version as well as the first print of the Greek text. In 1520 the Complutensian Polyglot Bible (Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic) with both Testaments was published. In 1527, Santes Pagnino published his word-for-word New and Old Testament (Latin, Greek, Hebrew in Latin letters). [2] All were made with Papal approval. On the eve of
13176-420: Was a word-for-word translation from the Latin Vulgate. Pope Paul II (pontificate 1464–1471) allegedly confirmed the decree of James I of Aragon on the local prohibition of Bibles in Spanish vernacular languages. Under Isabella I of Castile and her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon , the printing of vernacular Bibles was prohibited in Spanish state law. The Spanish Inquisition which they instituted ordered
13298-483: Was also challenged by Tyndale's translation of the Greek μετανοεῖτε ( metanoeîte ) as repent instead of do penance . This translation conflicted with the Catholic Sacrament of Confession . Tyndale's translation of scripture backed up the views of reformers like Luther who had taken issue with the Catholic practice of sacramental penance . Tyndale believed that it was through faith alone that
13420-523: Was excommunicated with the bull Decet Romanum Pontificem , declared a heretic, and was issued with the Edict of Worms . In 1522, the first translation of Luther's New Testament was published. It was translated influenced by the Greek text of Erasmus. In 1534 the entire Holy Scripture was printed in German, completing the Luther Bible . The Edict of Worms against Luther was not enforced throughout
13542-518: Was made in c. 1480. Censorship of the Bible Violators of Bible prohibitions have at times been punished by imprisonment, forced labor, banishment and execution, as well as by the burning or confiscating the Bible or Bibles used or distributed. The censorship may be because of explicit religious reasons, but also for reasons of public policy or state control, especially in authoritarian states or following violent riots. Censorship of
13664-664: Was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew , with some portions (notably in Daniel and Ezra ) in Biblical Aramaic . From the 6th century to the 10th century AD, Jewish scholars, today known as Masoretes , compared the text of various biblical manuscripts in an effort to create a unified, standardized text. A series of highly similar texts eventually emerged, and any of these texts are known as Masoretic Texts (MT). The Masoretes also added vowel points (called niqqud ) to
13786-547: Was not a crime in Brabant, but for the promulgation of Lutheran views that the Catholic states considered seditious or threatening to peace. In 1543, The English Parliament enacted Henry VIII 's Act for the Advancement of True Religion which banned keeping and using Tyndale's translations by most of the population, and required his "preambles and annotations" be cut or blotted out.(ch 1, s. VI) Tyndale's translation of
13908-549: Was permissible. According to St. Methodius , he was officially allowed to use it by John VIII in 880. Yet Christians were forbidden to use the Old Church Slavonic translation by John X in 920 and by the Lateran Synod of 1059, with the synod being confirmed by Nicholas II and Alexander II . In a letter to Duke Vratislaus II of Bohemia dated 2 January 1080, Pope Gregory VII refused to re-establish
14030-470: Was problematic for a "vernacular" translation. Many were subsequently used in the King James Bible. As well as individual words, Tyndale also is reported as having coined many familiar phrases, however, many of the claimed expressions turn out to have antecedents in the Middle English Bible translations or the German. Many of the popular phrases and Bible verses that people quote today are in
14152-617: Was put into print in 1525 in Cologne of which there is only one fragment left, in the British Library. But before the work could be completed, Tyndale was betrayed to the authorities and forced to flee to Worms , where the first complete edition of his New Testament was published by Peter Schöffer the Younger in 1526, of which there are only 3 extant copies left. These can be found in the collections of St Paul's Cathedral, London ,
14274-496: Was referring to the Latin not English), contended that the Greek New Testament did not support the traditional readings. Controversially, Tyndale translated the Greek ekklesia ( Greek : εκκλησία ), (literally "called out ones") as "congregation" rather than "church". It has been asserted this translation choice "was a direct threat to the Church's ancient – but, so Tyndale here made clear, non-scriptural – claim to be
14396-455: Was the advent of l’évangélisme in the 1520s that gave cause to more restrictive measures. The 1515 ecumenical Fifth Council of the Lateran , Session X, established requirements for printed books (as distinct from manuscripts): bishops were to set up book-vetting experts: it specifically mentioned books translated into Latin and vernacular books, but not Scriptures specifically. In 1517 Luther published his Ninety-five Theses . In 1521 he
14518-475: Was the first English biblical translation that was mass-produced as a result of new advances in the art of printing. The term "Tyndale's Bible" is not strictly correct, because Tyndale never published a complete English language Bible; instead, a completely translated Bible was completed by Myles Coverdale , who supplemented Tyndale's translations with his own to produce the first complete printed Bible in English in 1535. Before his execution, Tyndale had translated
14640-476: Was the only Latin translation in use by the Roman Catholic Church but had accumulated a multitude of small variations between hand-copied manuscript despite several regional efforts over the millenium to make a definitive text. Tyndale made his purpose known to Bishop of London Cuthbert Tunstall but was refused permission. Thwarted in England, Tyndale moved to the continent. A partial edition
14762-471: Was translated into Old French in the late 13th century. Parts of this translation were included in editions of the popular Bible historiale , and there is no evidence of this translation being suppressed by the Church. In England, "about the middle of the fourteenth century — before 1361 — the Anglo-Normans possessed an independent and probably complete translation of the whole of the Old Testament and
14884-538: Was written in Koine Greek reporting speech originally in Aramaic , Greek and Latin (see Language of the New Testament ). The autographs , the Greek manuscripts written by the original authors or collators, have not survived. Scholars surmise the original Greek text from the manuscripts that do survive. The three main textual traditions of the Greek New Testament are sometimes called the Alexandrian text-type ,
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