Where We Got the Bible: Our Debt to the Catholic Church by Henry G. Graham

Author:Henry G. Graham
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Catholic Answers

XIV

A Deluge of Erroneous Versions

FOLLOWING TYNDALE'S EXAMPLE, others continued the work of issuing English-printed Bibles, and so in the reign of Henry VIII we have to face quite a deluge of them. One by one they came forth, authorized and unauthorized, printed and published by irresponsible individuals, full of errors, with no proper supervision and having no other effect (as we shall presently see) than that of drawing down contempt and disgrace upon the Sacred Scriptures.

1. The English Church was now separated from Rome, and the English bishops were mere puppets and slaves at the beck and call of the royal tyrant, Henry. They exercised no real independent jurisdiction over either clergy or people; the governor and ruler in Church and state was the king, and consequently no ecclesiastic could undertake responsibility in regard to the publication or suppression of Bibles without the will of his imperial master. So long as Henry made no objection, any printer or publisher or literary hack, who thought he saw a chance of making a little money out of the venture, would take in hand the publishing of a new version of the Bible.

George Joye, for example, took this course in regard to Tyndale's Bible and in consequence (1535) brought down upon himself a volley of bitter and un-Christian reproaches from that worthy who (as I have said before) was a man of uncontrollable temper and scurrilous language when thwarted or resisted.

In reply to this tirade, George Joye published an “Apology,” in which he showed that the printer had paid him only four-and-a-half pence for the correction of every sixteen leaves, while Tyndale had netted £10 for his work; and besides, he exposed in fine style the departure from the truth of which Tyndale had been guilty in boasting of his translation and exposition as if it were his own, whereas Joye shows it was really Luther's all the time, that Tyndale did not know enough Greek to do it and had only added “fantasies” and glosses and notes of his own imagination to the work of others. However, we have no time to dwell on the quarrels of these amiable Bible translators, else we should never reach the end of our historical review. Let us enumerate briefly the versions that saw the light in rapid succession during the reign of Henry VIII.

2. There was Myles Coverdale's in 1535. Coverdale was a priest who married abroad and kept a school. In after years King Edward VI granted him and his wife, Elizabeth, a dispensation to eat flesh and white meats in Lent and other fasting days. It is wonderful what power the kings of England had in those days!

In 1537 appeared Matthew's or Rogers’ Bible (which was a mixture of Tyndale's and Coverdale's), and this has the distinction of being the first that Henry authorized to be used by the people at large. Matthew or Rogers (for he assumed different names for Bible-selling purposes) was, like Coverdale, a renegade priest and had married, and

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