Bible

In this article, the Bible will be discussed as a great book or collection of books, as it really is, stating its history, character, subject matter, and the long and sustained and as yet unended effort to ascertain its true, original text and meaning. Since it is a book of religion and has had over many centuries a pronounced, though somewhat varying and unsettled connection with, and influence upon Freemasonry, that phase of the subject will be discussed under RELIGION.

The name, Bible, comes from Byblos, one of the names of Gebal (Jebel), Phoenicia, an ancient market for papyrus, the crude paper used for manuscripts. Hence, the Greek biblion, biblia, or bible came to mean a book, which in those days was a scroll of papyrus, and finally became applied to the groups of books which were the canons of the Old and New Testaments, that is, miscellaneous manuscripts which were selected by the Rabbis as those which were true, authentic, sanctioned, sacred, or holy as distinguished from those which were of doubtful validity or, worse yet, might 'pollute the hands.'

The Law, the Prophets, and the Other Writings.

Long prior the birth of Christ references were frequently made to the Law and the Prophets, and Christ, himself, used those terms. In early ages there was no question about the authoritativeness of any of the old Hebrew writings but, as time went on, their volume increased to such extent that it seemed necessary to draw a line somewhere, select the writings deemed most dependable and codify them into The Law. That is where the idea of canons or canonization originated, a canon being a document branded as authentic, and canonization being the declaration of some authority that it was such. At first the only subject matter deemed to enjoy that preeminence and to deserve canonization was The Law, for it seems to have been the practice of law givers to attribute their codes to direct oral or even manual transmission from some Divine source. The Law was codified about 444 B. C. by the Jews who had returned from Babylon (about 536 B. C.), where they had been in captivity or, more correctly, in exile, and where they had become broadened in intellectual and spiritual outlook. In Nehemiah Ch. 8-10, appears an elaborate account of the formal presentation, proclamation, and acceptance of The Law.

About 200 years later, the list of the Prophets appears to have been complete, and that body of writings was presumably closed. But there was a third class of writings which were neither Law nor Prophets which were not so often or so reverently referred to and which were of such miscellaneous character that they received only the name Other Writings or the Rest, but which have come to be more technically named Hagiographa (sacred writings). In those times, none of the manuscripts or books (scrolls) bore the names afterwards given to them but were designated by their opening word or phrase, thus, what we call Genesis was called In the beginning.

The books or scrolls thus classified were 24 in number and, by their present names, were listed as follows:

• I. The Law also now called Pentateuch comprising: 1. Genesis; 2. Exodus; 3. Leviticus; 4. Numbers; 5. Deuteronomy;
• II. The Prophets: 1. Joshua; 2. Judges; 3. Samuel; 4. Kings; 5. Jeremiah; 6. Ezekiel; 7. Isaiah; 8. Twelve Minor Prophets (counted as one book);
• III. Other Writings: 1. Ruth; 2. Psalms; 3. Job; 4. Proverbs; 5. Ecclesiastes; 6. Song of Songs; 7. Lamentations; 8. Daniel; 9. Esther; 10. Ezra, including Nehemiah; and 11. Chronicles.

Thus, the Jewish canon was closed, which means only that the books described were included and others excluded, and it does not mean that the text or contents of any of them was settled or fixed. They underwent amendment, elaboration, enlargement, editing, and re-editing again and again for many years, possibly centuries, not with the intent of disturbing or detracting from the contents but, on the contrary, as a labor of admiration and commendation to improve and emphasize them, as shown by the fact that the most admired books were the most amended. It is probable that every important book of the Bible was the work of many authors over a long period of years. In many of the books, the same incidents are repeated once or twice in somewhat different language and details and sometimes with a difference in meaning, the former text being left intact, though the later was intended to improve it. It is interesting to note that Josephus classified the 24 canons into 22 as follows: 5 Mosaic, 13 Historical, and 4 Poetic or Didactic.

Apocrypha.

In addition to the above there are many other Hebrew MSS. difficult to distinguish from the 24 canons on any reasonable grounds of reliability or importance and evidently omitted simply because they did not impress the Rabbis making the selection, who were possibly controlled somewhat by the mere fact that they had to draw the line somewhere. The 70 books thus excluded were written some time prior to 96 A. D. and are deemed by many critics and a wide circle of Jews to be superior to the Jewish canonical books. Such unapproved books are called the Apocrypha, and are printed in some Bibles, or can be secured in separate volumes.

The canonizers substantially accomplished their purpose but not without creating some nineteen centuries of dissent and debate and raising issues that are not yet settled or rather that have been settled differently by different sects. Some books which were at first regarded as apocryphal finally gained acceptance, such as Daniel and Esther, but many others with strong support failed. Among these, were IV Ezra, Baruch, Judith, Maccabees, Sirach, Tobit, Jubilees, Wisdom of Solomon, Psalms of Solomon, Enoch, and Noah. On the other hand, some were admitted as canonical books which seem distinctly of the type which pollute the hands, for example, Song of Solomon. The direct result of closing the canon, thereby, denying any improvement or progress in the sacred literature, was the stupendous mass of interpretations, commentaries, and qualifications by generations of Rabbis, which they have named the Talmud (Learning), and which simply add to the non-canonical writings.

Authenticity or Inspiration of the Bible.

The idea that the Bible was inspired or the word of Jahweh probably had its basis long anterior to the production of the Hebrew Scriptures. The feeling that all writing was inspired or holy existed more or less from great antiquity, because only a very few people could read or write and those few were secluded priests of religion. It seemed magical and superhuman to be able to record thoughts on paper and take them off again years later without change, whereas the masses had to depend on memory and repetition of myths, traditions, and legends, which became the folklore of the people. Hence, one who could read and write was something of a magician and possibly a demigod. The Chinese are said to have considered writing sacred from the time of Confucius, especially if that writing came from him.

In Israel, the Jews, for some reason not so apparent, adopted the general idea of sacredness of writing, but limited their selections to very ancient writings and not to all of those. Hence, there developed the idea of canons or selected and approved ancient writings regarded as holy and also the further idea of closing the canons and permitting none to compete with the work of the fathers. That was a very severe measure and, if attempted at the present day with current literature, would be at once denounced as censorship or book-b*rning. We do not know what tests the Rabbis applied, whether age, religious orthodoxy, racial idealism, literary elegance, persuasion, logic, prestige among contemporaries, acceptance by successors, or general sentiment. The process was much as we would today select, as Dr. Eliot did, a Five Foot Shelf of Books, containing what we considered the best literature of all times and would ordain such to be the only good literature, forbidding any addition thereto or subtraction therefrom and enjoining that it, and it only, be taught in the public schools. Now, that would be beneficial in some respects for, under those circumstances, every educated person would speak classical English and have elevated classical ideas and the miserable corrosion of the English language would cease. But there would also be suffered a serious detriment in that the expansion of ideas and the progress of learning would cease, except on the black market. This we can appreciate if we suppose that the English language and literature had been canonized and closed in Chaucer's time.

The human mind is a difficult thing to put in chains. The attempt to limit the law, the guidance, or the inspiration which man hopes to receive from the Supreme Being is doomed to failure, and is probably less desirable in the religious field than in any other. Even thr*ats of anathema and Divine veng*ance fail, for they can be doubted as well as any other vicarious declaration of Divine Will. It can hardly be doubted, therefore, that the plan of Freemasonry to leave such questions to the individual is best in ultimate analysis.

To the original superstition about the sacredness of writing, the Israelites added the impetus of authoritative command, with anathema on violators, thus, establishing a strong national policy if not enacting a positive national law. In some of the MSS., the priesthood considered that there was internal evidence of authority or inspiration. This was true as to most of the Law, for the MSS., themselves, supposedly written by Moses, repeatedly declared the author's personal communication with and command from Jahweh, such as the handing down of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai (Exodus Ch. 19-20) and the encounter at the Burning Bush (Exodus Ch. 3) and others. The 5 books known as the Pentateuch and attributed to Moses as the agent of Jahweh stood preeminent in the esteem of the Rabbis, not only with unanimous consent and preference but by 100 years in time. The Prophets usually supported their exhortations by asserted words directed to them by Jahweh or, as that name was translated in the King James Version, the Lord (e.g. Joshua 1:1; Jeremiah Ch. 1; Ezekiel Ch. 1; Hosea Ch. 1; Jonah 1: 1-2), though some were slightly equivocal, indicating merely that the words came ultimately from Jahweh, without asserting direct communication of them (e.g. Joel, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi). Nevertheless, all prophetic claims seemed less than fully convincing, for a long period elapsed before the Prophets rose to the place of acknowledged authority and, then, they were accepted in two ranks or grades, the former or historical ones being Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, and the latter being Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the Twelve Minor Prophets, the whole canon of Prophets attaining its present form about 200 B. C.

As above stated, the closing of the canon did not prevent subsequent generations of Rabbis from amending, supplementing and, as they supposed, improving the texts of the canonical books, though this privilege was exercised more freely with respect to the Prophets than with respect to the Law, the latter seeming to have more positive Divine authority and from its very subject matter being less amenable to variation.

The Hagiographa or Other Writings, consisting of the 11 books above named, in most instances lacked any claim of direct command from above, though they sometimes implied possession of superior knowledge or insight by the agency of visions or the gift of prescience and art of interpreting dreams and some of them are simply stories or romances. Jonah (Ch. 38-40) however, does relate directions from Jahweh. These writings were canonized only after persistent efforts of their sponsors, and their approval remained long in suspense, urged by some, opposed by others. Of this disputed kind were Proverbs, Esther, Ecclesiastes and, particularly, Song of Solomon, which last named, even at the present day, seems so certain to 'pollute the hands' that it is difficult to see how it was ever acceptable to anyone as sacred literature, unless for the same reason that Ecclesiastes was received, because it was attributed to King Solomon.

The writings called Apocryphal by some were not only not received and canonized as inspired but were evidently not even deemed worthy of preservation officially as a part of the national literature, though they were not b*rned or outl*wed. But, as we shall see, a number of them were canonized by the Roman Catholic Church and are deemed by some superior to the Rabbinical canons.

Purpose and Effect of the Canons.

Upon the closing of the Canons, which seems to have occurred about 200 years after the birth of Christ, no more sacred books (which meant no books at all, since the literature was all religious) could proceed from the Hebrew or Jewish mind. The religion and most of the learning of the Jews was congealed. The religious literature and concepts of that people were to be confined to the 24 books of Law, Prophets, and Other Writings, and evidently, the Rabbis were expected to go on for all time reading and re-reading this same standardized learning and revelation. This they refused to do, for, though they ceased to amend the MSS. themselves, as was possible in earlier times before the MSS. were so widely circulated, they went right on with the explanation, elaboration, and exploitation of the 24 books in separate writings, which when collected became the Talmud (Learning). This consists of a great volume of commentaries of almost limitless variety by innumerable Rabbis over the past 1700 or 1800 years. So, the Talmud was the outgrowth of canonization and shows the impossibility of shutting off thought or expression. The doctrine of canonization may have been the outgrowth of the old Hebrew idea of racial purity and exclusiveness, which had permeated the traditional law for ages as an ideal, but which had been so extensively violated or disregarded that the Jews of the canonization era were no more and no less racially pure than any of the other nations of the Middle East. The canonical books, themselves, attest the frequent mixture of Hebrews, especially prominent ones with aliens. It is probable that such occurred in Babylon (e.g. Esther) and, with that obvious experience as a warning, that the most nationalistic of the Rabbis envisaged the coming break-up and dispersion in addition to alien migrations into Palestine, all calculated to destroy the identity of the Jewish race. Palestine was already under Roman rule, both dispersion and immigration had to some extent begun and the day when the Law and the Prophets would be simply swallowed up in the flood of Hellenistic philosophy emanating from Alexandria and other centers was not far off. In order to preserve their traditions they saw the necessity of saving some remnant of orthodox Jewry, physiologically and spiritually. They did not succeed completely, but they came as near to it as any other people ever have. (Compare the Hindus, the Parsees, and the Mohammedans.)

The Alexandrian School.

It may be that the progress of the Judo-Hellenistic school at Alexandria, Egypt was the very thr*at that stirred the Jerusalem Rabbis to action for, at the time the Old and New Testament canons were declared, the group of international scholars at Alexandria (about 300 B. C. to about 391 A. D.) had been producing a high quality of philosophical and religious literature which was a thr*at to any old and complacent belief. Here were the grammarians: Zenodotus, Eratosthenes, Aristophanes, Aristarchus, and Zoilus; the poets: Apollonius, Lycophron, Aralus, Nicander, Euphorion, Callimachus, Theocritus, and Philetus; the mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers: Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius of Perga, Nicomachus, and Ptolemy; the Neo-Platonists: Ammonius, Plotinus, Origen, Adamantius, lamblicus, and Porphyrius; and a number of Jewish writers, including Philo Judaeus (the Jew), to which were added several groups of Gnostics. But all that learning was closed to the Jewish Dispersion, as it is called, meaning the Jews who by the harsh Roman rule in Palestine or from lack of cohesion, began the great wandering and scattering into and among all other nations and peoples, with the ideals of exclusive racism and canonized religion which has characterized them for the past 17 or 18 centuries.

Early Christian Church.

The only religious recognition accorded the Alexandrians came from the new sect of Christians. We find Matthew 27:9 referring to Jeremiah the Prophet (not the canonic book of Jeremiah); Luke 11:49 to Wisdom of God; Jude 9 to Assumption of Moses; Jude 44 ff. to Enoch; I Corinthians 2:9 and Ephesians 5:14 to Apocalypse of Elijah; and Hebrews 11:37 to Martyrdom of Isaiah; and others. When the Christian movement became organized into a m*litant missionary church, the question of authenticity of Scriptures again arose. Since the bulk of the church was of the Jewry, it was natural that the Jewish canon should be quoted from the first as authoritative but, though the Greeks and the Alexandrians had proposed no canons, there was a tendency toward a more liberal view than had been enforced by the leading Rabbi, Aquila. Wherefore, the Apocrypha were respected from the first and were finally received into the canon of the Catholic Church. The first to suggest the right of the Church to form its own canon was Justin Martyr (100-165 A. D.), and Melito (170 A. D.), Origen, Bishop Hippolytus, Cyprian, and Tertullian all approved various books of the Apocrypha. But, by the 4th century A. D., the Jewish canon had prevailed and had the powerful support of Jerome.

The Roman Catholic Church.

In the Decretal of Gelasius (382 A. D.) and in the Canon of Innocent I (405 A. D.), the list of authorized books included all of the Apocryphal, the principal ones of that time being called Deutero-Canonics or Secondary Canonics. In 1442, A. D., the Council of Florence approved the Decree of Pope Eugenius IV which declared the Deuteros to be inspired but refrained from calling them canons. Finally, the Ecumenical and General Council of Trent, April 8, 1546, decreed the whole list of books of both Testaments sacred and canonical, including all their parts found in the ancient Vulgate, thereby approving all of the Deuteros, including Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, I and II Maccabees. Still, something was missing which plagued the Catholic Church for over 300 years; it was the failure of the Decree of 1546, expressly to declare the Deuteros to be inspired. That was done by the Vatican Council of 1870, closing the dispute within the Church. Therefore, canonicity contains no positively exclusive feature, since new canons may be declared, though there appears to be no instance where that process has been reversed.

Protestant Christian Sects.

Martin Luther was forced (1519) for technical reasons to deny the authenticity of II Maccabees, and, in the first edition of his translation of the Bible, he sandwiched the Deuteros and other Apocrypha between the Old and the New Testaments, thereby treating them as the canon of neither, a degradation to which Protestant sects have ever since consigned them. Until 1827, the Apocrypha were contained in Bibles printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society, to which the Scotch and some Continental churches contributed, but since that year, the Apocrypha have been omitted from Bibles in practically all English-speaking countries, though still current in some other Protestant churches, in parts of the Anglican liturgy, and printed in a separate volume of the Revised Version of 1894. So, the canons of the Old Testament were established by decree and not by the inherent character or value of the writings themselves and, therefore, the canons differ in the Roman Catholic, the Greek Catholic, and the Protestant Churches.

The New Testament.

The Jewish religion was Jewish only but the Christian was universal; the Jewish Jahweh was the god of the Jews, but the Christians thought of God as the Father of all mankind. While it is now easier to trace the formulation of the Canons of the New Testament, the debate about them in early times was more acrimonious, because the outlook was wider and there were more diverse peoples to be satisfied. Monotheism meant to the Jews, as it had to the Hebrews throughout their existence, partiality to a tribal god favorable to his children and terrible to their en*mies, one who gave them counsel against alien races and encouraged them to take by f*rce the land of the Canaanites. But they and Jahweh, too, recognized the existence of other gods; the teaching of Moses and the Prophets was, not that Jahweh was the only god, but that he was the best god for the Hebrews. The early Christian missionaries, obeying the behest to go among all peoples and preach the Gospel, found no great difficulty in changing their concept from one god for the Jews to One God. Moreover, it was natural for these early Christians, many of whom were reformed Jews, to prove their One God by citing the adulatory language of the Law, and the Prophets praising the god of the Jews. Hence, the Canons of the Old Testament were the Canons of the early Christians, but in a more liberal interpretation in that they embraced some of the Apocryphal writings, all, however, Jewish, since several centuries passed before any Christian writings, except possibly the four Gospels, received equal recognition.

Evidently no effort to form a New Testament Canon had been made for the first century of the Christian era, for Justin Martyr (100-165 A. D.) did not mention any. Much light is cast on this point by the five volumes entitled, Against Heresies, written by Irenaeus between 181 and 189 A. D., which cite no Christian Canons in the earlier volumes, while references are found to nearly all of the New Testament books in the later volumes. Though other Scriptures were referred to, Irenaeus considered only the four Gospels to be authorized Christian Scriptures. Tertulian of Africa (2nd cent. A. D.) spoke of the Old and the New instrumentum or testamentum, but he rarely applied the term scriptures to the new writings, which he divided into two categories, first, the four Gospels and, secondly, the Acts of the Apostles, Commentary of Luke, Paul, John's Apocalypse, and First Epistle, but the Epistle to the Hebrews and several others were not recognized. Important writers of the 3rd century were Clemens Alexandrinus and Origen, and of the 5th century, Eusebuis.

The Gnostics of the Alexandrian school were the first scientific theologians of Christianity. Copious writers, religious philosophers, keen-witted expositors, they were the teachers of the most illustrious of the Church Fathers, The Gnostic text of the New Testament differed from the Catholic form, though both grew out of the same original MSS. Therefore, no dates or authorships can be ascribed to the New Testament MSS., since they were moulded into present forms by many hands. In 363 A. D., the Council of Laodicea enacted that only the Canonics of the New and Old Testaments should be read in church. In 367 A. D., Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, declared the Canon to be 22 Old Testament books (exclusive of Esther) and the exact list as it appears in our modern New Testament, but he quoted apocryphal scriptures and allowed them to be read. His Canon was finally generally accepted, though not without considerable non-conformity over a long period even by the Syrian Churches. To some degree this dissent continued into the Middle Ages. In the East, the Canon expanded and contracted from time to time and, in the West, it swung between the strict view of Jerome and the liberal view of Augustine, until Luther's time in the early 16th century, when the Catholic Church took the liberal course and the Protestant Church the strict. Martin Luther classified the Scriptures according to degrees of inspiration, somewhat as Origen and the Syrians had done, into authoritative, semi-authoritative, and of no authority, a doctrine which found its way into some creeds. But the Roman Catholic Church in the Florentine Council of 1441, the Tridentine Council of 1546, the Vatican Council of 1870, and the Jerusalem Synod of 1672, accepted all of the Deutero-Canonics as having absolute authority. That is why the Catholic Bible differs in content from the Protestant Bible, to mention only the more important distinction.

Translations.

One of the troublesome questions growing out of the necessity for translating the old MSS. was the claim that, since they were the word of Jahweh or God in the Hebrew, Greek or whatever other language some of them may have been dictated and written in and, since no translation can ever reproduce exactly the same meaning as the original, because some words in one language have no exact counterparts of the others, there can be no authoritative translation. In short, inspiration cannot be translated. One possible source of relief lay in the declaration of the Council of Trent (1546) that the Vulgate translation (see below) was canonical and should be used in church service. That answered those inured to an authoritarian, dogmatic church, but was no help to those whose consciences were overburdened with doubt.

In the matter under discussion, the problem was not so simple as that of translating modern French into modern English or even ancient Latin into modern Spanish. The Old Testament MSS. were composed and are, except small portions, extant just as written in a running Hebrew script composed entirely of consonants, with no spaces between the consonants or words. The vowel sounds and the spacing of words had to be known or discerned after great study. It was also written from right to left but that was the least of its faults. About 176 B. C., the portions of the Old Testament then extant were copied into the oldest form of square letter script and, notwithstanding the many mistakes that must have been made, some one copy, and not several for comparison, was adopted as the true text. Moreover, from the 5th century A. D. on, the Rabbis intervocalized the text by placing vowel signs called Masoretic points where deemed to be needed and also divided the text into words. The oldest dated MS. of the Masoretic text is of A. D. 916. The resulting text was a Masoretic interpretation of an unknown square Hebrew copy of an unknown cursive Canaanitish script text. That then has to be translated into modern English, French, German, etc.

The Septuagint and other Jewish Translations.

The oldest and most authoritative of the pre-Christian Hebrew texts of the Old Testament is called the Septuagint (from septem, seven) because of the legend that Ptolemy Philadelphus (283-247 B. C.) called on the Jews to make a Greek translation of the Scriptures, with the result that the High Priest Eleizer at Jerusalem sent 72 experts, 6 from each of the tribes, who were put on an island, each working alone in a separate hut and, after great labor, they all produced their translations which agreed exactly and were proclaimed authoritative. But, after the early Christians adopted the Septuagint, the orthodox Jews rejected it, whereupon, in about the 2nd century A. D., the version of Akyla (Aquila) was made, and other translations were undertaken by Symmachus and Theodation. That made four versions, all different. Origen then collated all texts in six columns, some in Hebrew and some in Greek, which work received the name Sextuple or Hexalpha. To the above translations, were added the Targums or paraphrases of the Scriptures. From that time on there were other translations of the Old Testament, translations of the New Testament, and translations of the whole Bible right up to the present day.

New Testament Translations.

The problem of determining the original true text and of translating the New Testament MSS. is not much simpler than with those of the Old Testament, because the MSS. consist of Greek texts, translations of the Greek into various other languages, and quotations from the MSS. by a multitude of authors. In most instances, the MSS. are partial and do not contain the whole of the New Testament. There are about 167 MSS. covering the whole of the New Testament; 1277 containing sections, such as the Gospels; 32 containing the Acts and the Epistles of Paul; 25 contain the Acts and the Catholic Epistles; and about 40 are fragments. Attempts to restore the original text of the New Testament have been made from 1707 to 1894 by some 15 different efforts, each occupying many years. There is no extant original New Testament MSS. in the ordinary sense, not even an original which has been amended or slightly expanded. The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), especially, are the result of century-long growth consisting of continual changing and rewriting. The same chapter and verse often shows layer upon layer of varying or even inconsistent modification. So, with the New Testament, as with the Old, there is no possibility of ascertaining in all respects what the original text of the writings was.

Modern Translations of the Bible:

Omitting translations of the Old Testament to the number of at least 25 by Jewish scholars in modern times, the following are the principal translations and editions of the entire Bible: The premier and greatest work of scholarship ever turned out by the Roman Catholic Church was the Vulgate by St. Jerome about 383-392 A. D., which was stamped as exclusive authority by the Tridentine Council on April 8, 1546. (The Septuagint remained authority in the East for the Greek and Byzantine Churches.) Thereafter, there were many secondary translations of the Bible into the tongues of many lands.

The first complete French translation was issued about 1250 A. D. The first complete English Bible was that of John Wyclif in 1382. John Huss made his German translation about 1400. The first movable type were used for printing in 1448, and the Vulgate was the first Bible to be printed by that means about 1452-56. Next came a dozen German editions, the Rabbinic Bible at Venice in 1516, the Complutensis in 1517-20, the Aldine at Venice in 1519. Then came, by 1520, some 21 Hebrew editions, accompanied and followed by many Catholic new versions in Latin. Martin Luther, translating from the Hebrew Brescia edition of 1494, issued his Bible in 1530-34. Tyndale's New Testament was issued at Worms in 1525; his Pentateuch in 1530; and Jonah in 1531. His work remained the basis for all subsequent English versions, 80% of his Old Testament and 90% of his New being retained in the authorized version. But Tyndale's Bible was forb*dden in 1543 by the Catholic Church and by the same authority Tyndale was impr*soned and str*ngled in Belgium in 1536. Miles Coverdale, an Augustinian friar, in 1535-36, translating from the Dutch and Latin, made the first complete English printed Bible. It was undertaken at the request of Thomas Cromwell and dedicated to Henry VIII. John Rogers under the name Thomas Matthews, in 1537, issued the Matthews Bible, a revision of Coverdale's. It was called the Great Bible or the Chained Bible, the second edition in 1540 being called Cranmer's Bible and, after 1546, the only Bible allowed in England. At the time Tyndale's Bible was suppr*ssed in 1543, church orders issued that no notes were to be allowed relating to the Bible, no women (except noblewomen or gentlewomen), no artificer, journeyman, serving man under the degree of yeoman, or husbandman should read any part of the Bible. In 1557-60, Puritans led by John Knox and Wittingham at Geneva revised the Great Bible into the Geneva or Breeches Bible, (so called, because it said that Adam and Eve made for themselves breeches instead of aprons or girdles). This was the first English Bible to be divided into verses. Archbishop Parker and 7 Bishops attempted to supersede the Breeches Bible with the Bishop's Bible (1562-68) but failed. In 1609, an authorized Catholic translation was made by English refugees and called the Douay Bible.

The King James Version of 1611 was instigated by the Puritans under the leadership of Dr. John Reynolds who personally persuaded James I to authorize the work. It was made by 47