Many times over the last year, I have found myself wanting a similar list but for early English Bibles. So that’s what I have given you here. It should be self-explanatory. The Bibles are listed chronologically and I have usually only included the most important edition(s) of each. If you know of better sources for some of these or see a correction needed, let me know in the comments.
Wycliffite Bible (14th c.)
First complete Bible in (middle) English.
- Christ Church MS. 145 (14th c.): images and details; OT, NT, Apocryrpha
- Egerton MS 617 (c. 1390-1397): images and details; Proverbs-Maccabbees; “the earliest datable copy of the complete Bible in English”
- Egerton MS 618 (c. 1390-1397): images and details; Matthew-Revelation
- Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments with the Apocryphal books, in the earliest English version etc., ed. J. Forshall and F. Madden (1850), vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3, vol. 4
- Searchable version.
Luther (1522, 1534)
Not an English Bible, but included because it was used by many of the early English translators like Tyndale.
- 1522 NT: Luther’s “September Testament” color images
- 1534 OT+NT: color images
Tyndale (1525–1536)
- 1525 NT: select images – not finished and only 8 sheets survive
- 1526 NT: Full PDF, select images; only three copies exist, one at St. Paul’s in London which is missing 70 leaves, the one at the British Library, and one rediscovered only in 1996 at the Württemberg State Library (the only copy with an extant title page).
- 1534 NT: PDF (b/w); text
- 1534/1535 NT: his last revision, sometimes known as the “GH” edition; the basis for the “Matthew Bible”
- Pentateuch (1530), Jonah (1536): text; b/w images
- Searchable version
Coverdale (1535)
The first complete printed Bible in English; basis for the Matthew Bible where Tyndale wasn’t extant.
- 1535: b/w images
Matthew Bible (1537)
First complete English Bible licensed by the crown for sale in England; basis for the Great Bible and Taverner.
1537: color images; b/w PDFs
Great Bible title page (1539)
Great Bible (1539)
It was a BIG; basis for the Bishops’ Bible.
- 1539: haven’t found one online
- 1540: b/w PDF
Taverner’s Bible (1539)
Often neglected thanks, in part, to Westcott giving it short shrift.
- 1539: b/w images
- 1551: color images
Geneva (1557, 1560, etc.)
First English Bible with verse numbers, first to use italics to mark words not in the original, etc.- 1557 NT: 1 photo (only one I can find); Reprint
- 1560 OT+NT: PDF (missing the note to the reader) color version on Google Books
- 1570: A few color images
- 1599: this has updated marginal notes which took a sharper Calvinist and anti-Catholic turn
Bishops’ (1568, 1602)
1602 was the basis for the KJV.
- 1568: color images; color PDF (missing some pages in 1 John)
- 1602: b/w images PDF
Douai-Rheims (1582, 1609/1610)
The first Roman Catholic translation in English, intended as a response to Protestant translations.
- 1582 NT: b/w images PDF
- 1609 OT+NT: ?
- 1635 OT+NT: b/w PDF
KJV (1611)
To quote Hixson (probably), “If it ain’t the King James, it ain’t the Bible.”
- For the 1602 Bishops' used by the translators, see here
- 1611: color images; “He Bible” (thought to be the earlier of the 1611 printings); slightly larger pictures from UPenn
- 1611: “She Bible” (thought to be the later of the 1611 printings)
- 1767 Blayney: PDF – Thorough update behind most modern printings
Two other sources you may want to check, if you have access, are the English Short Title Catalogue (or STC) and Early English Books Online.
Peter,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this information! It will enable me to complete and check work on the English translation history of chosen texts. I echo what was said earlier : this sort of information couldn’t have been ascertained, at least by most of us, in the not too distant past!
Thank you also for the link to Peter Head’s GNT list.
Help, please! I was going to get some information from Steven Avery’s reply on the 1567 Geneva New Testament, but I cannot now see the reply! Where has it gone?
Delete"To quote Hixson (probably), 'If it ain’t the King James, it ain’t the Bible.'"
ReplyDeleteComplete, Protestant English bibles...
1. Coverdale
2. Matthew Bible
3. Great Bible
4. Taverner’s Bible
5. Geneva
6. Bishops
7. KJV
There you go! 7 times purified!
Ooops you forgot Tyndale's 1526, Becke's 1549 "wife beater bible", Roger's 1551 and Jugge's 1552
DeleteThose don't count because they don't fit the narrative ;)
DeleteSurely, it’s not the Saga of the Seven, but the Tale of the Three?
Delete“… by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established.”
1. 1539 Coverdale’s Bible received Royal Assent - first authorised Bible
2. 1568 Bishops’ Bible received Royal Assent - second authorised Bible
3. 1611 Authorised Bible permitted, ordered, commissioned, financed
by the King - third and *the* Authorised Version
“Where the word of a king is, there is power;
and who may say unto him,
‘ What doest thou’ ?”
Consider Titus 02:13, long -discussed text, whether “Jesus is God/god”.
DeleteBefore the supposed Granville Sharp rule swam into our ken, the translators of the three authorised versions (as well as other translators) had a definite view of the fact that the text speaks of two separate persons and not of one.
1539 - Coverdale - “of the great God and of our saviour Jesus Christ”;
1568 - Bishops’ - “of the great God, and our saviour Jesus Christ”;
1611 - Authorised - “of the great God, and our saviour Jesus Christ”.
The second “of” in 1539, and the comma in each of 1568 and 1611, show clearly two persons.
Now consider 1769 - Blayney, !873 - Scrivener’s Cambridge Paragraph Bible, 2005 - Norton’s New Cambridge Paragraph Bible; 2011 - Bible Society; 2012 Trinitarian Bible Society : all important editions of AV/KJV.
Each presents the text thus : “..of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ”. The absences of both the comma and of the second “of”, may be ambiguous; and, indeed, it was this aspect that led me, even as a lad, to examine this text, as well as 2 Peter 01:01 and Jude 01:04.
Why did these important editions after 1611 not respect its Translators?
I see that the link system brings up a text in only one translation! Mmm… Can it no be set to (say) the “multi” option of biblehub?
DeleteConsider Titus 02:23, 02 Peter 01:01, Jude 01:04, in AV/KJV.
DeleteTitus - “of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ”
Peter - “of God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ’
Jude - “the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ”
Thus, the Translators clearly distinguished two persons in each of the three verses! Why, therefore, did subsequent editors from (Parris and?) Blayney to the present decide to misrepresent the Translators and to confuse the reader? What modern scribal factors - as serious as any in antiquity - are at play here?
I was surprised - or was I? - not to receive any comments on the matter of the misrepresentation, in modern reproductions of the nine historic English Bibles, and especially of the AV/KJV, of the three “Jesus is God” texts that I adduced. Recently, I was again told by three learnèd individuals that the translators of these historic English Bibles all translated the three texts as definitely referring to one person and not two. It was my privilege and pleasure to refer them to the present article and it’s opportunity to check the texts for themselves; and to invite them to further discussion - but, alas, they have forgotten to come back to me!
DeleteHi Andrew,
DeleteYes the comma changes in the AV on what became some of the Granville Sharp identity mistranslation verses is an interesting question. Maybe occurred in 1769 but would need some checking.
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This next was in, and then vanished.
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The Geneva 1576 by Laurence Tomson (1649-1608) was a different edition than the 1560, and Geneva Bibles were then split between the 1560 and 1576 editions. Tomson's edition had some verses and phrases that were omitted in the 1560, I have notes about John 8:6 Luke 17:36 and 1John 2:23b, variants which were later placed in in the Authorized Version of 1611. And Tomson had an awkward Latin-influenced pronoun usage.
Online I see editions of 1595 and 1599, check John 1:1 "and that Word".
The Bible, that is, the Holy Scriptures conteined in the Olde and New Testament, translated according to the Ebrew and Greeke, and conferred with the best translations in diuers languages. With most profitable annotations vpon all the hard places, and other things of great importance (1595)
https://archive.org/details/biblethatisholys00toms/page/n939/mode/2up
Michael Marlowe gives the info:
Tomson's New Testament (1576).
http://bible-researcher.com/genevabib.html
Steven Avery
Dutchess County, NY USA
https://linktr.ee/stevenavery
Steven,
DeleteFor some reason, I’ve only just seen your comment.
I have little doubt but that the commas were dropped by Parris 1760/1762 and/or Blayney 1769.
The translators before then were men steeped in Greek, who knew nothing of anything like Sharp’s rule.
But why do good publishers of the KJV, eg TBS, continue with the omission of the commas?
I don’t see the matter discussed by commentators and apologists.
Trinitarian bias all round?
Steven,
DeleteMany thanks!
Peter
ReplyDeleteI have the following complete color pdf Bibles if you are interested
Wycliffe 1380 NT
Coverdale 1535
Matthew 1537 & 1549
Taverners 1551
Great 1541
Roger's 1551
Jugge's 1552 NT
Bishop's 1568
I have a few others but they are B/W
Are you able to put them up on archive.org?
DeleteThere is a facsimile of the 1525 Tyndale fragment, and CSNTM owns a copy. I have wanted to digitize our facsimile for a while. It might be old enough for us to be able to put the images of the facsimile online. I'll try to add that to my growing to-do list for the next time I am in the office.
ReplyDeleteMIGHT be old enough? Who would own the copyright on an underground edition?
DeleteThat's interesting that you would include Luther as a source for the Protestant English Bibles. There was also an English translation of Beza's text IIRC--I'll have to check on that. But Luther interests me, because he included a Latin, rather than Greek, text in his Tobias translation. That leads me to suspect that he wasn't translating from Erasmus' Greek column, but the Latin (there are considerable textual differences in Tobias, most of the significant ones having to do with a dog). If the first Protestant English OT came from the Vulgate, that would account for Coverdale at least following the Latin text, but I haven't been able to identify when the shift happened to the Greek text behind the KJV.
ReplyDeleteThe Geneva (1560) is the first to translate the entire OT from Hebrew. Before that, Tyndale made it as far as 2 Chronicles but only his Pentateuch was published in his lifetime. Coverdale used his Pentateuch and Matthew used the rest of Tyndale’s OT. Luther used Erasmus’s Greek and I don’t know what you mean by Erasmus’s Latin of Tobit.
DeleteI understand Tyndale also translated Jonah and published it in 1531.
DeleteHere is the 1609 and 1610 Doway
ReplyDeletehttps://archive.org/details/holiebiblefaithf01engl/page/n13/mode/2up?q=ne
https://archive.org/details/ost-english-bible00lond/page/n1125/mode/2up
I have examined the copies of nine Bibles, for four texts. The nine Bibles are : 1534 Tyndale, 1535 Coverdale, 1537 Matthew, 1539 Great Bible, 1539 Taverner, 1560 Geneva, 1568 Bishops' Bible, 1582 Douai-Rheims, 1611 AV/KJV. The four texts are : 2 Peter 01:01, 2 Peter 01:02, Titus 02:13, Jude 01:04. For 2 Peter, Matthew and AV/KJV have two persons; the rest have one. For 02 Peter 01:02, all nine have two persons. For Titus 02:13, eight have two persons, while Douai-Rheims is somewhat ambiguous but leans to two persons. For Jude 01:04, all nine have two persons. I have had some English graduates and teachers confirm these most interesting conclusions.
ReplyDelete