In This Section:
History of Bible Translation
God must want people to read his Word - he always speaks their language.
Through Old Testament authors, he spoke in Hebrew, the language his people understood best. In the New Testament, he spoke in Koine Greek, the trade language of the 1st century. Today he continues to speak to many people in many languages, through translators.
The first translations
The early church needed few translations. Believers copied and circulated Scriptures in Greek that everyone could read.
But during the 4th century, Latin began to replace Greek as the common language. Several Latin translations, often inaccurate, leaked into circulation. The Church needed an official translation.
Pope Damasus assigned the job to Jerome, his theological advisor and perhaps the most learned man of the time. Jerome's translation, called the Latin Vulgate (meaning vulgar or common) became the Bible of the Middle Ages.
Reformation struggles
The Vulgate would outlast its purpose. As centuries passed, Latin became the language only of the highly educated. Common people could no longer understand the Church's liturgy or Scripture reading. Instead of promoting new translations, clergy clung to the Vulgate because it forced people to rely on their teaching.
John Wycliffe, often called the Morning Star of the Reformation, defied the clergy. He translated the first English Bible and recruited traveling preachers, called Lollards, to spread God's Word in English. Wycliffe's Bibles, and later his bones, were burned, but he had sparked a Reformation.
William Tyndale, a scholar fluent in 7 languages, left England to work on the first English translation based on the original Hebrew and Greek. In 1525, smuggled copies of his New Testament began circulating England.
"I had perceaved by experyence how that it was impossible to stablysh the laye people in any truth, excepte the scripture were playnly layde before their eyes in their mother tongue."
- William Tyndale
Martin Luther later published about 100,000 copies of his German translation, and soon translators across Europe made God's Word available in every major language.
"I have undertaken to translate the Bible into German. This was good for me; otherwise I might have died in the mistaken notion that I was a learned fellow."
-Martin Luther
James I (1564-1625), King of England, alarmed by all the versions appearing, commissioned a group of biblical scholars to produce an authorised version, combining the best of earlier translations. The Authorized Version, written in the language of the day, appeared in 1611, the first Bible produced by an authorized group of scholars.