The Story of the English Bible
Rev Dr Jeffrey Khoo
“Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom 10:17). No Bible, no Reformation! The Reformation fire was lit by the Light of God’s Word. The Word of God which had been kept away from the people in the dark ages had to be put back into the hands of the people. The Lord used His servants like John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, and finally the King James translators to put the Bible into the hands of the people so that they might know the truth. It was the truth that set the people free from the idolatry and superstition of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC).
The Wycliffe Bible
John Wycliffe (1330-1384) was the most famous Oxford theologian of the 14th century. He was called “The morning star of the Reformation.” He was the first to expose the heresies of the RCC. Wycliffe spoke against the RCC for teaching that salvation was by works, and for selling indulgences (“forgiveness tickets”). He believed the Scriptures to be the perfect Word of God and superior to the sayings of the Pope or the Church. He was told to stop teaching his personal convictions as truth. All who taught or defended Wycliffe’s views were threatened with excommunication and execution. This threat did not deter Wycliffe from defending the faith. Gifted with a sharp pen, he continued to write in defence of the faith.
The RCC had kept the people in spiritual darkness and bondage. No one was allowed to read or even own the Bible. Only the priest could read and interpret the Bible for the people. One can imagine that the interpretations of Scripture would be twisted to fit the corrupt doctrines and practices of the Roman Church.
Wycliffe realised that the best way of freeing the people from the shackles of Rome was to let the people read the Bible for themselves. Wycliffe was the first to translate the whole Bible into English. The translation was done not from the Hebrew and Greek since Wycliffe knew no Hebrew nor Greek, but from the Latin Bible—the Vulgate. Although the translation was not as accurate as could be since it was not from the original languages, it was accurate enough for God’s purpose to be fulfilled. At long last, the people could finally read for themselves the truth of salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone.
It has to be noted that it was not easy to mass produce the Bible in Wycliffe’s day because the printing press was not invented yet. It would take about 10 months and cost 5000 chickens to produce just one copy of the Bible. How much would it cost to buy that many chickens today? Since it was so costly, the Bible was sold in parts or in pages. Some could only pay a few cents just to have the New Testament to read for just a day.
To spread the gospel truth, a group of pastors known as the Lollards used Wycliffe’s translation to read and preach the Word to the common folk. For reading the Bible and preaching the gospel to the people, many of these Lollards were burned to death. Many copies of Wycliffe’s Bible were also burned. Nevertheless, the production of Wycliffe’s Bible could not be stopped, and the world today still has 200 copies of it. Faith is the victory, and the Bible is indestructible.
Wycliffe’s Bible spearheaded the Reformation movement which led many to reject the falsehoods of the RCC. It goes without saying that the RCC hated Wycliffe intensely. Their hatred for him was so great that they did all they could to dishonour him at the 40th anniversary of his demise. Seeking to wipe out all memory of Wycliffe, the RCC dug up his bones, burned them, and cast his ashes into the River Swift. God would see to it that such a disgraceful act of wicked men would serve only to hasten the Reformation instead of deterring it. The more the Truth is opposed, the more it will flourish. The Truth cannot be snuffed out. As Luther later wrote, “The body they may kill, his truth abideth still; His kingdom is forever.”
The Tyndale Bible
William Tyndale (1494-1536) was a scholar of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures having studied at Oxford and Cambridge. Seeing how the priests were so ignorant of the Scriptures, and how the people were so lost without God’s Word, he decided to translate the Scriptures into English from the original languages. He completed translating the NT in 1525. 15,000 copies were printed and distributed in England. The Church of England then under the RCC refused to allow the people to read the English NT. The RCC burned every copy of Tyndale’s Bible they could find. For translating the Scriptures, the RCC branded Tyndale a criminal. He was arrested and put in prison.
When in prison, Tyndale wrote this letter to the Marquis of Bergen which revealed how greatly he loved the Bible and how much he suffered for Christ: “I believe, right worshipful, that you are not unaware of what may have been determined concerning me. Wherefore I beg your lordship, and that by the Lord Jesus, that if I am to remain here through the winter, you will request the commissary to have the kindness to send me, from the goods of mine which he has, a warmer cap; for I suffer greatly from cold in the head, am afflicted by a perpetual catarrh, which is much increased in this cell; a warmer coat also, for this which I have is very thin; a piece of cloth too to patch my leggings. My overcoat is worn out; my shirts are also worn out. He has a woollen shirt, if he will be good enough to send it. I have also with him leggings of thicker cloth to put on above; he has also warmer night caps. And I ask to be allowed to have a lamp in the evening; it is indeed wearisome sitting alone in the dark. But most of all I beg and beseech your clemency to be urgent with the commissary that he will kindly permit me to have the Hebrew bible, Hebrew grammar, and Hebrew dictionary, that I may pass the time in that study. In return may you obtain what you most desire, provided that it be consistent with the salvation of your soul. But if any other decision has been taken concerning me, to be carried out before winter, I will be patient, abiding by the will of God, to the glory of the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ, whose spirit (I pray) may ever direct your heart. Amen.”
Tyndale was finally condemned to death. He was strangled and burned at the stake. Tyndale was ready to die for His Lord and His Truth: “That light o’er all thy darkness, Rome, in triumph might arise; an exile freely I become, freely a sacrifice.” His dying words were: “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.”
The King James Bible
The Lord heard Tyndale’s prayer and opened the eyes of the King of England. King James I commissioned a new translation of the Bible which became known as the Authorised Version or the King James Version (KJV).
The KJV was built upon Tyndale’s translation. It is an excellent translation of the Holy Scriptures because of good and godly translators who used the pure and preserved texts and not the corrupted texts, and they employed the formal equivalence (word for word) and not the dynamic equivalence (thought for thought) method of translation. There were a total of 57 translators. They were not only men of great learning but also of great piety. They were skilled in the biblical languages, and lived in a period when the English language was at its glorious height. It was a most providentially opportune time to produce the best translation of the Scriptures in the English tongue. They began their work in 1604 and completed it in 1611—a total of seven years.
The KJV was a fruit of God’s extraordinary providence. Alexander McClure, in his biography of the KJ translators, wrote, “As to the capability of those men, we may say again, that by the good Providence of God, their work was undertaken in a fortunate time. Not only had the English language, that singular compound, then ripened to its full perfection, but the study of Greek, and of the oriental tongues, … had then be carried to a greater extent in England than ever before or since. … it is confidently expected that the reader of these pages will yield to the conviction, that all the colleges of Great Britain and America, even in this proud day of boastings, could not bring together the same number of divines equally qualified by learning and piety for the great undertaking. Few indeed are the living names worthy to be enrolled with those mighty men. It would be impossible to convene out of any one Christian denomination, or out of all, a body of translators, on whom the whole Christian community would bestow such confidence as is reposed upon that illustrious company, or who would prove themselves as deserving of such confidence” (Translators Revived, 63-4).
How do the modern versions and their translators compare to the KJV and its translators? According to McClure, “As to the Bible in its English form, it is safe to assume the impossibility of gathering a more competent body of translators, than those who did the work so well under King James’s commission. … And what has not been done by the most able and best qualified divines, is not likely to be done by obscure pedagogues, broken-down parsons, and sectaries of a single idea, and that a wrong one,—who, from different quarters, are talking big and loud of their ‘amended,’ ‘improved,’ and ‘only correct’ and reliable re-translations, and getting up ‘American and Foreign Bible Unions’ to print their sophomorical performances. How do such shallow adventurers appear along side of those venerable men … The newly-risen versionists, with all their ambitious and pretentious vaunts are not worthy to ‘carry satchels’ after those masters of learning. Imagine our greenish contemporaries shut up with an Andrews, a Reynolds, a Ward, and a Bois, comparing notes on the meaning of the original Scriptures! It would soon be found, that all the aid of our moderns could render would be in snuffing the candles, … Let tinkers stick to the baser metals; and heaven forefend that they should clout the vessels of the sanctuary with their clumsy patches” (Translators Revived, 233-4).
The Bible scholars, theologians, and linguists of today fail to come even close to the calibre of scholarship and spirituality that we find in the King James translators. I sincerely doubt that the KJV will ever be surpassed by a superior translation. Let us therefore stick to the Reformation Bible, which is the good old, time-tested, and time-honoured Bible—the King James Bible.
