SOURCE: May, Herbert Gordon. “The Genealogy of the King James Version.” In Our English Bible in the Making: The Word of Life in Living Language, pp. 31-43. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1952.

[In the excerpt that follows, May discusses Coverdale's influence on the origins and development of the King James Bible.]

TRANSLATION IN THE TRADITION

The later authorized versions of the Bible had their antecedents, as truly as does a person. No responsible translator of the Bible translates de novo, making a totally “original” translation, ignoring the suggestions and helps of earlier translations. This is even true of James Moffatt's translation of the Bible, despite the fact that it is an attempt to make a completely fresh translation rather than to revise older translations. It is particularly true of the translations of the Bible that are in any real sense authorized versions. The present Revised Standard Version is a revision of the American Standard Version of 1901 in the light of the best knowledge of today and “in the direction of the simple, classic English style of the King James Version.”

The translators of the King James Version indicate their dependence in the preface to their translation, saying, “Yet for all that, as nothing is begun and perfited at the same time, and the later thoughts are thought to be the wiser: so, if we building vpon their foundation that went before vs, and being holpen by their labours, doe endeuour to make that better which they left so good; no man, we are sure, hath cause to mislike us; they, we perswade our selues, if they were aliue, would thank us.” The King James Bible was a deliberate revision of the preceding Bishops' Bible, which was itself a revision. The versions “in the tradition” are actually revisions of revisions. For this reason, we may speak of the genealogy or the ancestry of the English Bible, and we have called Tyndale the “father” of our English Bible.

MILES COVERDALE

We begin with Miles Coverdale, who was responsible for two versions of our English Bible. Miles Coverdale was born in 1488 in the district of Coverdale in Yorkshire. He was thus a contemporary of Tyndale, although he made his most important version after Tyndale's death. He went to Cambridge, where he studied philosophy and theology. He was admitted to the priesthood in 1514, and entered the monastery of the Austin Friars which was at Cambridge. Something of the theological atmosphere of this monastery may be gathered from the fact that its prior, Robert Barnes, had helped to circulate Tyndale's New Testament. Barnes was also reported to have likened the New Testament in Latin to a “cymball tynnklyng and brasse soundyng.” After Barnes preached against the luxury of Cardinal Wolsey, he was summoned to meet a charge of heresy, and Coverdale went with him to help him to prepare his defense. Although Barnes yielded at this time and did penance by casting fagots on heretical books to be burned, he later relented and was sentenced to be burned at the stake. He managed to flee to the Continent, but he eventually met his death as a martyr in 1540.

After a while Coverdale gave up his monastic habit to devote himself to evangelical preaching. As a reformer he was less virulent than Tyndale, and he did not arouse the strong antagonisms that Tyndale engendered. He was a more quiet and less passionate person, who preferred to reform from within, and partly for this reason he escaped the martyrdom that came to Tyndale. He had powerful friends, under whose patronage he may have prepared his translation of the Bible. One of these was Sir Thomas More, at whose home he had been an occasional visitor. The other was Thomas Cromwell, who was to become vicegerent for King Henry VIII in ecclesiastical affairs and was entrusted with the suppression of the monasteries. In his preaching Coverdale opposed the confessional and the worship of images.

Coverdale was living on the continent of Europe for most of the period from 1528 to 1534, engaged in the translation of the Bible. A dubious report has Coverdale at Hamburg working with Tyndale on the translation of the Pentateuch in 1529. A royal proclamation in 1530 condemned Tyndale's writings and his New Testament, but in the same month a “bill in Englisshe to be published by the prechours” gave the information that King Henry had said he would cause the New Testament to be translated by learned men into English. Later in the year Latimer, bishop of Worcester, reminded the king of his promise, and in 1534 a convocation asked Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, to request the king to decree that the Scriptures be translated by certain honest and learned men named by the king. The times were obviously ripe for a translation that would be acceptable to the authorities. An attempt to have the bishops make a translation failed. Coverdale had his translation ready, and so, doubtless with the encouragement of Thomas Cromwell, he issued on October 4, 1535, what was the first printed English translation of the complete Bible.

COVERDALE'S BIBLE

It is uncertain where Coverdale's Bible was printed, but it was probably at Marburg, Germany, although many think it was at Zurich, Switzerland. Attractive wood-block illustrations surround the title page, and six woodcuts showing the days of creation introduce the reader pictorially to Genesis. There are a total of sixty-eight such separate wood blocks used to illustrate the volume, some used more than once, to make a total of 188 separate pictures. We may take them as a prototype or forerunner of our modern visual aids! The volume also had a map, oriented with the south at the top, and a comparison with the maps in The Westminster Historical Atlas to the Bible (1945) suggests how far cartography or map making and historical geography have developed since those days.

The original imprint gave the title as BIBLIA, The Bible, that is, the holy Scripture of the Olde and New Testament, faithfully and truly translated out of Douche and Latyn in to Englishe. In the same year, 1535, unbound sheets were brought to England and provided with a substitute title page, and the title omitted the clause “truly translated out of Douche and Latyn.” This was doubtless because the “Douche” (i.e., German) referred to was Luther's translation, which might be looked upon as heretical, and perhaps so that it would not appear so obviously to be a translation of earlier translations. It may have been at this time that there were added several preliminary pages, a dedication “vnto the most victorious Prynce, and oure most gracyous Soueraigne Lorde, Kynge Henry the eyght,” called “An Epistle vnto the Kynges hyghnesse,” signed “youre graces humble subjecte and daylye oratour, Myles Couerdale.” It contains fulsome praise of Henry, and the pope is denounced as the “blynde bysshoppe of Rome (that blynde Baalam)” and “that Antychrist of Rome,” the “vntollerable and nomore to be suffred abhominacions” he has caused being due to ignorance of Scripture. Despite this dedication, the Coverdale Bible did not have royal authority, although a corrected edition in 1537 carried the words “sett forth with the Kynges moost gracious licence.” There exist today 120 copies of the Coverdale Bible.

Coverdale's Bible was not an original piece of work. The Old Testament was based chiefly on the Swiss-German version published in Zurich in 1524-1529, although Coverdale used extensively Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch. The New Testament was a revision of Tyndale's New Testament compared with that of Luther. Coverdale also used the Latin Vulgate, as well as a Latin translation of 1528. The translation includes the Apocrypha. The title page of the section containing the Apocrypha has the subtitle, “The bokes and treatises which amonge the fathers of olde are not rekened to be of like authorite with the other bokes of the byble, nether are they foūde in the Canon of the Hebrue.” In “A Prologe, Myles Couerdale vnto the Christen Reader,” Coverdale's beginning statement illustrates the modesty so characteristic of him: “Considerynge how excellent knowlege and lernynge an interpreter of scripture oughte to haue in the tongues, and ponderyng also myne owne insufficiency therin, how weake I am to perfourme ye office of a translatoure, I was the more lothe to medle with this worke.” He calls to mind the adversity of those who would have completed what they began, “if they had not had impediment,” an obvious reference to the imprisonment of Tyndale, who was at the time in the Castle of Vilvorde.

Although it was a secondary translation, Coverdale's Bible possessed real qualities which made it influential in later translations, and some of the literary virtues of the King James, particularly in the books of poetry and the Prophets, are due to Coverdale's influence. Weigle points out (Religion and Life, 1946, p. 171) that to the Coverdale Bible are owed such phrases still preserved in the Revised Standard Version as “till heaven and earth pass away” (Matt. 5:18); “none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself” (Rom. 14:7); “death is swallowed up in victory” (I Cor. 15:54), etc.

We shall return to Coverdale again. Not only did he print, in 1538, the Vulgate with a literal English translation and the Latin in parallel columns in order to show how the New Testament in English did not misrepresent the Vulgate, but he was to be largely responsible for another one of the significant translations “in the tradition.” But more of that shortly. …

THE GREAT BIBLE

Matthew's (i.e., Rogers') Bible had been licensed by the king in 1537. But in the same year Coverdale's Bible, “newly ouersene and corrected,” had been issued “with the Kynges moost gracious licence.” To have two such widely variant translations circulating with authority was confusing, to say the least. It would put a weapon in the hands of those who were antagonistic toward a translation in the vernacular. This was especially true in view of the fact that one of the versions was largely the work of the heretic Tyndale, whose initials were actually at the end of the Old Testament section of that version! So Coverdale was asked by Thomas Cromwell to undertake the preparation of another version, based on Matthew's Bible, which would replace both it and Coverdale's own Bible. It is characteristic of the earnestness and lack of pretense of Coverdale that he agreed to do this. In fact, in the dedication to the Coverdale Bible, Coverdale had said that if anything in his translation was “translated amysse (for in many thynges we fayle euen when we thynke to be sure),” it was in the king's hand to correct, emend, or improve it, “yee and cleane to reiecte it,” if in his godly wisdom he thought it necessary. In the dedication to his Latin-English New Testament mentioned above he had indicated that he was “alwaye wyllynge and ready to do my best aswel in one translation, as in another.”

This new version which Coverdale now produced was called the Great Bible. It was a large-folio edition, and was issued in 1539. Perhaps because of lack of adequate press for such a project in England, and in order to secure better paper and a supply of experienced workmen, it was decided to do the printing in Paris. Because of an order of confiscation from the Inquisition, Coverdale, along with Grafton who had accompanied him to Paris, had to flee from Paris, and the printer, Regnault, was arrested. Cromwell then had the type, presses, and workmen brought from Paris, and the printing was completed in London. Grafton and Whitchurch were the printers. According to the imprint at the end, it was “fynisshed” in April, 1539, but it was probably near the end of the year before the work was really completed.

It is deservedly called the Great Bible, for the pages of the 1539 edition measured 16[frac12] by 11 inches. Both the quality of the paper and the artistry of the print (typography) merit high praise. There is a remarkable title page woodcut. At the top the enthroned King Henry is pictured handing a Bible to Archbishop Cranmer, who heads a clergy group at his left, and giving another copy to Thomas Cromwell, who stands before a group of nobility on his right. God is in the clouds above. On one side of the title Cranmer presents a copy of the Bible to a kneeling priest, while on the other Cromwell gives a copy to one of a group of nobility. Below a priest preaches to a crowd of commoners, while opposite him some men, perhaps those who would not acknowledge Henry's authority, peer through the barred windows of Newgate Prison. Wavy ribbonlike bands carry the words of the various personages. As Willoughby remarks in his description of the scenes, the engraving dramatizes the patriotic and religious loyalty which Henry, Cranmer, and Cromwell hoped might result from making the Bible available to the people in the vernacular.

It was thus a revision of the Matthew's Bible. In making the revision, for the New Testament Coverdale had consulted the Latin text of Erasmus and the Vulgate, and for the Old Testament had made use of a new literal Latin translation from the Hebrew by Münster. Because of his use of more recent authorities who were conversant with the original tongues, he was able to indicate on the title page that it was translated “after the veryte of the Hebrue and Greke textes by ye dylygent studye of dyuerse excellent learned men.” It has been suggested that the translation was made by indicating the changes on a copy of Matthew's Bible, even as the translators of the King James Version are reputed to have annotated a copy of the Bishops' Bible. The year after it was issued, a revision of the Great Bible was made, and a preface added to it by Archbishop Cranmer.

A new era seemed to have entered, although it was not to last very long. The Great Bible became the authorized version. It has with reason been called the first authorized English Bible. The king had turned the Great Bible over to Bishop Gardiner and others for judgment, and they had tried to hinder its publication because of what they thought to be its faults. But when they could not point out to the king any heresies, King Henry said, “If there be no heresies, then, in God's name, let it go abroad among our people.” The 1540 revision of the Great Bible bore on the title page the words, “This is the Byble apoynted to the use of the churches,” and in May, 1541, the king issued a proclamation “for the Byble of the largest and greatest volume to be had in euery church.” Archbishop Lee of York ordered all curates to provide a Bible within forty days, and have it chained in some open place in the church. The people gathered around Bibles thus placed in the churches, eager to read them, and they even read during the church services and while the sermons were being preached, some arguing so loudly that they had to be admonished. Three editions of the Great Bible were published in 1540, and three in 1541.

The April, 1540, edition of the Great Bible, which was the second edition, and the subsequent editions carried an important preface written by Archbishop Cranmer and called by Willoughby a primary document of the English Reformation. It is because of this preface that the Great Bible is often spoken of as Cranmer's Bible. In the preface Cranmer writes “for two sondrye sortes of people,” i.e., in order that the book may be better accepted by those “which hitherto coulde not well beare it,” and that it may better be used by those “which hertofore haue mysused it.” He protests against those who refuse to hear or read the Scriptures “in theyr vulgar tonges” and who discourage others from reading and hearing the Scriptures. He criticizes those who slander and hinder the Word of God by “theyr inordinate readyng, undiscrete speakyng, contentious disputyng, or otherwise by theyr licencyous lyuinge.” In his opposition to those who are merely content with that to which they are accustomed, he recalls an “olde prouerbe” that after the discovery of the cultivation of grain many continued to delight in malt and acorns, rather than eat bread made of good grain. The bearing of this on the reception of the translated Bible is obvious, and not without its application today. Cranmer appeals to the history of the Church for support for the Bible in the vernacular. He thinks that in the Bible men, women, young, old, learned, unlearned, rich, poor, priests, laymen, lords, ladies, officers, tenants, and mean men, virgins, wives, widows, lawyers, merchants, artificers, farmers, and all manner of persons may learn all things they ought to believe, what they should do and not do, “aswell concerning almyghtye God as also concernynge them selues and all other.” …

FORCES OF OPPOSITION

In a convocation in 1542 the bishops planned to make a revision “according to that Bible which is commonly read in the English Church,” i.e., the Vulgate. Bishop Gardiner prepared a list of ninety-nine Latin words which “for their genuine and native meaning and for the majesty of their matter” he thought should be kept in the proposed revision, or at least turned into English as closely as possible. Among the words he suggested were such words as poenitentia, pontifex, ancilla, baptizare, sandalium, lites, simulachrum, panis propositionis, concupiscentia, peccatum, inenarrabilis, didrachma, charitas, distribueretur, impositio manuum, etc. It was fortunate that nothing came of this attempt to Latinize the Bible for the benefit of the clergy. The project fell through, Cranmer being largely responsible for “putting the skids under it,” and, as Eadie says, no further attempt was made to papalize the translation and put a foreign mask on its everyday English.

Indicative of the fears in the minds of many of the authorities, an act passed by parliament in 1543 prohibited reading Tyndale's translation, and decreed that “no manner of persons, after the first of October, should take upon them to read openly to others in any church or open assembly, within any of the king's dominions, the Bible or any part of the Scripture in English, unless he was so appointed thereunto by the king, or by any ordinary, on pain of suffering 100 months' imprisonment … every nobleman and gentlewoman, being a householder, may read or cause to be read by any of his own family, servants in his house, orchard, or garden, to his own family, any text of the Bible; and also every merchantman, being a householder, and any other persons, other than women, apprentices, etc., might read to themselves privately the Bible. But no women, except noblewomen and gentlewomen, might read to themselves alone; and no artificers, apprentices, journeymen, servingmen of the degrees of yeomen, husbandmen, or labourers, were to read the New Testament to themselves or to any other, privately or openly, on pain of one month's imprisonment.” If ever there was class legislation, this is it. One does not have to guess how the Carpenter of Nazareth would have reacted to it. Other decrees of King Henry were even more restrictive, but when he died and Edward VI came to the throne, the situation improved. It was ordered that within three months curates should set up “Bibles in large volume,” and every parson, vicar, curate, etc., under the degree of bachelor of divinity should possess his own New Testament in Latin and English.

COVERDALE'S LATER LIFE

Thomas Cromwell, Coverdale's friend and patron, had urged further reforms in the Church at the time when King Henry was on the side of doctrinal conservatism and when parliament in 1539 passed the Six Articles, which reaffirmed the faith though they did make clear the break with Rome. Cromwell further gained the displeasure of Henry because he urged on Henry marriage to the unattractive Anne of Cleves, “the Flanders mare,” Henry's fourth wife, to cement a Protestant alliance on the Continent. Henry now had no use for Cromwell, and had his head chopped off on July 28, 1540. That same year Coverdale found it wise to leave England. He spent some time in Tübingen, and was pastor and schoolmaster in Bavaria at Bergzabern. He married Elizabeth Macheson, a sister-in-law of Joannes MacAlpinus, who had taken part in the first translation of the Bible into Danish. The year following Henry's death, Coverdale returned to England and became chaplain to King Edward VI. In 1551 he was consecrated as bishop. In this period he published a number of works. When Edward died and Catholic Queen Mary succeeded to the throne, the time was one of terror and torture for the Protestants. Under Heath, the successor of Gardiner as Mary's lord chancellor, 217 persons are said to have suffered martyrdom, and during Mary's reign 400 persons lost their lives by imprisonment, torture, and burning at the stake. Among them were John Rogers and Archbishop Cranmer. Cranmer had at first submitted and had signed a recantation, but with last-minute courage he had declared again his Protestant faith. At the stake he held in the flame, until it was consumed, the hand that had signed the retraction. Even the printing of Bible verses in English on the walls of the churches was strictly forbidden.

Coverdale was made a prisoner at large, and he might have been a martyr had not his wife's brother-in-law MacAlpinus persuaded Christian III, king of Denmark, to intercede on his behalf. It took two letters from King Christian, and then Coverdale was reluctantly permitted to leave England for Denmark. We find him later preaching for a while in Westphalia. From there he moved to Bergzabern to take up again his pastorate there, and he also went to Geneva. He returned to England at the accession of Elizabeth as queen. In 1563 he caught the plague, but recovered. He was appointed to the living of St. Magnus, near London Bridge, but we find him practically penniless in his old age, despite recognitions that he was given in academic circles. He resigned his charge in 1566, but continued to preach as occasion offered. At the age of eighty-one he died. We must acclaim him as one of the great figures in the history of the English Bible. He may not have been so courageously aggressive as Tyndale and Rogers, and his work did not possess the originality of some others in the history of the English Bible, for he leaned on secondary sources. Yet we should not underestimate his scholarship or his influence. …