The English Bible

 
On this day, October 6, 1536, William Tyndale 

was strangled to death and his body burned at 

the stake for the crime of translating the Bible 

into English. Remember that as you read your 

English Bible today. 

As he was dying he yelled out his final 

prayer, "Lord, open the king of England's 

eyes!"

A true HERO of The Faith!  Sadly, nowadays, all 

too few Christians recognize what great men 

these were and how much we are indebted to 

them for their courage and for their contribution 

to our now being able to easily access the text of 

Scripture. 

Since Tyndale's English translation in 1526, translators and publishers have created approximately 450 different English Bibles. Counting other languages there may be 900+ printed translations and paraphrases of the Bible making it difficult to know what was originally written. 

Example: Psalm 12:6-7

Geneva 1599: The words of the Lord are pure words, as the silver, tried in a furnace of earth, fined sevenfold. Thou wilt keep them, O Lord; thou wilt preserve him from this generation forever. What does "him" refer back to?

KJV 1611: The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

"Them" refers back to the words of the Lord.

NIV 1978: And the words of the Lord are flawless, like silver purified in a crucible, like gold refined seven times. You, Lord, will keep the needy safe and will protect us forever from the wicked.

Notice all the word changes of the NIV version. Why did the publishers change so many words?  Answer: Publishers cannot get a copyright (and make more money) unless at least 10% of the words are different from the original.

Fortunately, there is one factor in this whole subject of texts and manuscripts that is not disputed by scholars on any side, and which enables us to avoid getting bogged down into the very technical details of manuscripts. What is that one factor?

It is the historical fact that virtually all modern Bibles, except the King James Version, can be traced back in their textual genealogy to the Greek text which was invented and collated by two Englishmen in the late 1800s: Bishop Brooke Foss Westcott and Dr. Fenton John Anthony Hort. There will be much, much more on these two players in the chapters to come.

There are only a very few other Bible versions in English which are exceptions to that, and we will mention them in due course. If we were to show this historical genealogy of Bible texts and versions diagrammatically, it would look like this chart.

At the top of the chart, we have the original New Testament manuscripts. The technical term for those is the autographs. The originals are no longer extant. Whatever manuscripts do exist are copies of copies of copies to who knows how many generations.

No need to fret over which translation to choose, simply go to Strong's Concordance and see what the original word God inspired to be written. Do not blindly trust ANY translation of the Bible. Always check the original Hebrew and Greek words to get the true meaning and intend.

 

 

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