L17 & 18 & 19

English Reformation and the Bible


John Wycliffe translated the entire Bible into English from the Latin Vulgate before the invention of the printing press and was condemned as a heretic (1382). Possession of any part of the Bible in English was a capital offense. William Tyndale published the New Testament and parts of the OT in English in 1525. Subsequently English versions appeared by Myles Coverdale in 1535 and Thomas Matthew in 1537.


  1. The Reformation in England was distinctive in character because it was tangled in the dynastic concerns of Henry VIII (1491-1547). Henry was Roman Catholic in theology and practice but insisted on serial monogamy requesting several annulments from Rome. When he was refused a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, England broke with Rome in 1533. Thomas Cranmer was archbishop of Canterbury (1489-1556) and was the author of the Book of Common Prayer – a fete not sanctioned by Henry but by his son, Edward VI. The first Book of Common Prayer was 1549.

  2. Mary Tudor (1516-1558) was queen from 1553-1558. She was staunchly Roman Catholic and was nicknamed “Bloody Mary” for her persecutions of any Reformation practices. She took England back to Roman Catholicism.

  3. Elizabeth I (1533-1603) ruled from 1558-1603 and brought about the “Elizabethan Settlement”.

  4. John Wycliffe was an Oxford don who opposed monastic life, and thought civil government should reform the Church, consistent with Scripture. His translation was extremely literal, handwritten and based on the Vulgate.

  5. William Tyndale studied at Oxford and Cambridge, knew Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, German and English. Wanting to translate the Bible into English but denied, he moved to Germany. There he translated from the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. Before completing the Old Testament, Tyndale was burned at the stake in 1535.

  6. Several English versions appeared after Tyndale. Myles Coverdale was an Augustinian friar produced a translation based on the Vulgate, Luther and Tyndale. John Rogers under the pseudonym Thomas Matthew died a martyr under Mary Tudor but not before publishing the Matthew’s Bible based on Tyndale and Coverdale and dedicated to Henry VIII.

  7. Thomas Cromwell sponsored the publication of the Great Bible in 1539, named for its size (15 x 9 inches) and is based on the Coverdale translation.

  8. The Geneva Bible in 1560 was translated by William Whittingham and was the first English version to have chapters and verses. [The Geneva Bible was used by James I and the Puritans. It was the Bible of Bunyan and Shakespeare.]


King James Version: Just as Jermone’s translation of the Vulgate brought some order to the chaotic world of ancient Latin translations, so did the Authorized Version of the Bible ordered by King James I of England in 1604. The process by which this revision was carried out set a pattern for future efforts. There were teams of scholars, each of whom was an expert in the original languages. The translation appeared in 1611 with the Apocrypha.


  1. At Hampton Court Conference in 1604, James I responded to a petition for a new translation in English. The conference issued a set of principles to guide the work. 54 scholars from Oxford, Cambridge, and Westminster formed teams to translate assigned sections. A review panel of 3 scholars went over the work of the six teams.

  2. The translation was based on the Masoretic text of the Old Testament and the Textus Receptus of the New Testament (about 80% of the NT agrees with Tyndale).

  3. The authorized version was published in 1611 and then went through 5 editions with the 1769 version being the most commonly cited.

  4. The use of the “red letters” marking the sayings of Jesus in the New Testament is a recent addition added by Louis Klopsch (editor of the Christian Herald magazine) in 1899.

  5. The KJV was “the Bible” for generations of English-speaking people in England and its many colonies include America. The KJV replaced the Geneva Bible in 1644. However, it was the Geneva Bible not the KJV that was read by Bunyan, Shakespeare and John Donne.



Exercise: Compare 1 Corinthians 13 in KJV with NRSV.


How does an understanding of the process by which the KJV came into existence affect claims made for its unique authority for Christians?


Authority and Authenticity


Between the 18th and 20th centuries, historians discovered biblical manuscripts much earlier than the Textus Receptus.

  1. Codex Sinaiticus was found in 1844 and is a 4th century manuscript of the New Testament.

  2. Codex Vaticanus was another 4th century text containing both Testaments and Apocrypha.

  3. Codex Alexandrinus dates from the 5th century and contains Old Testament and much of the New.

  4. One of the oldest ancient manscripts is Codex Bezae a bilingual Latin and Greek manuscript of the Gospels, Acts written in parallel columns.

  5. The Chester Beatty Papyri include a manuscript from c 200 with Paul’s letters and Bodmer Papyri with a portion of John dates c 200. The earliest known text of Jude and 2 Peter date 3rd century and the earliest witness to the Gospel of Luke c 175-225.

  6. Other fragments were found along the Nile River dating from the 1st – 7th centuries C.E.

  7. The Nag Hammadi found in Egypt in 1945 contains a variety of Gnostic writings in Coptic from the 3rd and 4th centuries.

  8. In 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in jars in caves at Wadi Qumran in Israel containing the library of the Essenes.

  9. The collection of ancient texts led to a realization of greater variation in the manuscript tradition originating very early in the evolution of Christianity.