'The Amazing Bible World History Timeline'
"The Amazing Bible World History Timeline"
"Add To Your Understanding of The Bible"
"See 6000 Years of Bible History and Prophecies Compared To World History At A Glance!"
How did we get our English version of the Bible and how accurate is it?
Here’s a short, concise history of the English Bible from the earliest times to the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.
443 BC Completion of all the books of the original Hebrew manuscripts which make up the 39 books of the Old Testament
200 BC Completion of the Septuagint Greek manuscripts which contain the translation of the 39 books of the Old Testament and the 14 books of the Apochrypha.
60 AD Completion of the Greek manuscripts which make up the 27 books of the New Testament
90-95 AD Council of Jamnia, a Jewish council, met to revise the Books of the Canon (or the Old Testament as it is known to Christians.) These were the criteria:
1. The books had to conform to the Pentateuch (the first 5 books).
2. The books had to be written in Hebrew.
3. The books had to be written in Palestine.
4. The books had to be written before 400 B.C..
One result is the removal of the 14 books known as the Apochrypha.
360 AD Laodocia Council meets to decide which books and writings will be accepted as Holy Scripture. The Greek Septuagint is accepted for the Old Testament. Criteria for the New Testament writings include that they must be written by an Apostle or during the time of the Apostles, that they must support true doctrine and must have wide spread usage. Thus, even though the Shepherd of Hermas, the First Letter of Clement, and the Didache may have been widely used and contain true doctrines, they were not canonical because they were not apostolic nor connected to the apostolic age, or they were local writings without support in many areas.
390 AD Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible is produced and in wide circulation. It includes all 80 books including the Apochrypha. It is used in Celtic monastaries in Britain. During this period the British within the Roman Empire use Latin as the official language
Historical Background: 5th - 6th Century: Germanic peoples who came to Britain bring their dialects of which Saxon becomes standard Old English. Because of this, a need for an English version of the scriptures arises.
7th Century: Herdsman Caedmon, spoken of by Bede, the learned monk of Jarrow, sings the themes of the Bible in English. This becomes a common method for presenting scriptural themes in English.
640 AD to 735 AD Aldheim is credited with translating the whole Bible into English while Bede was still working on completing his translation when he died. The translations of these times are based on translations of the Latin Vulgate version rather than translations of the original Hebrew and Greek versions.
1384 John Wycliffe finishes the first translation of the entire Bible into English. His version and copies of it are handwritten.
1408 Synod of Oxford tries to suppress the Wycliffe Bible with little success.
1455 Gutenberg invents the printing press making it possible to mass produce books. The first book printed is Gutenberg’s Bible in Latin.
Historical Background: Reformation
A revolution in western thinking followed the midpoint of the 15th century A.D. The Renaissance opened up the treasures of both classical and patristic learning in a new way. It also revived an interest in the study of both Greek and Hebrew that made possible the study of the Bible in the original languages. This new interest in original editions stimulated textual research and also evidenced anew the corruption and ignorance of the contemporary church. The Renaissance created new opportunities for humanist scholars such as Erasmus of Rotterdam, who sought to make the Bible available to people of all ages, social levels, and countries.
More radical in outlook than Renaissance humanists were the Reformers, who measured the teaching and practice of the contemporary church by the standards of scripture. The Reformers were horrified by the obvious discrepancies. There soon emerged a mission to discover the pure biblical message and to reconstruct both the teaching and practice of the church. The Reformers became deeply convinced that it was both reasonable and necessary to circulate God's word in order to purify the church from ignorance and destructive practices. (from )
1525 William Tyndale’s New Testament is completed. His translation is based on the Latin vulgate, Erasmus Greek and the original Greek manuscripts. His wording and sentence structures are found in most modern day translations of the Bible.
Tyndale was committed to taking the Bible directly to the people. Expressing open defiance of the Pope, Tyndale said that if God would spare his life he would make it possible for even a ploughboy to know more about Holy Scripture than the Pope himself. By August of 1525 his translation of the New Testament was complete. Printing began at Cologne, but when the authorities forbade the project, Tyndale escaped to Worms, where 6,000 copies were printed and sold in England by April of 1526. Official opposition in England led to the destruction of most of these early copies.
Tyndale's English work is similar to that of Martin Luther. Although he used Luther's German translation, Tyndale also drew upon the Latin Vulgate as well as Erasmus' Greek text. Ninety percent of the New Testament in the King James Version (KJV) is Tyndale's translation. By the same token, where the KJV departed from Tyndale's wording, the English Revised Version (ERV) of 1881 went back to it. Without question, this first printed English New Testament is the basis of all future works of translation.
1536 Tyndale executed. Tyndale did not live to complete his Old Testament translation. On May 21, 1535, he was arrested and later executed for heresy at Vilvorde, Belgium, on October 6, 1536. His dying prayer was that the Lord would open the eyes of the King of England. He left behind a manuscript containing the translation of the historical books from Joshua to 2 Chronicles that was finally published in 1537.
1535 Myles Coverdale, student of Tyndale’s, produces a Bible. It includes 80 books (The 39 Old Testament, 27 New Testament and 14 Apochrypha) His version uses the translations Tyndale was able to complete. Coverdale finished translating the rest of the Bible but not being a Hebrew or Greek scholar his portions are based on intermediate Latin and German translations rather than the original Greek and Hebrew.
1537 Matthews Bible printed. Matthews Bible is really Tyndale’s translation supplemented by Coverdale’s translation. Henry VIII through the efforts of Archbishop Crammer and Thomas Cromwell gave permission for this English version of the Bible to be bought and sold throughout Britain.
Historical Background Leading to King James (Protestant) and Rheims-Douay (Catholic) Bibles: It is during this time that the Protestant Reformers gain political power in England with the breakoff from the Catholic Church by Henry VIII. The various Bible translations that follow are dependent upon the rise and fall of Protestant power. Mary Tudor is Catholic and during her time no new translations are permitted. Elizabeth is Protestant. Mary Stuart, never allowed to reign, is Catholic. Her son James who became King James I of England and King James VI of Scotland was raised in England by Elizabeth as a Protestant upon Mary Stuart’s abdication of the crown of Scotland when James was one year of age.
1539 The Great Bible is called that because of it’s size but it is basically Matthews Bible and was authorized for public use. It contains 80 books including the Apochrypha as an appendix.
1546 Council of Trent is called to answer the accusations of corruption and apostasy in the Catholic Church by the Protestant Reformers. The Council meets over a 27 year period. One of the results is that Jerome’s Latin Vulgate version of the Bible is held to be the official version of the Bible accepted by the Catholic Church.
1560 The Geneva Bible is printed. Verses are added for the first time in this edition. It is also the first translation of the Bible based entirely on the original Hebrew and Greek. It was translated by exiles from England living in Geneva during the Catholic Mary Tudor’s reign. The majority of the translation is attributed to William Whittington a relative of John Calvin.
1568 Bishops Bible produced. Because there was no “official” version of the Bible in England at this time, the Archbishop of Canterbury suggested the Geneva Bible be revised by the Bishop’s to be used by all the churches. This is the version known as The Bishop’s Bible
1609 Rheims-Douay Bible is the First Complete English Catholic Bible. Called Rheims – Douay because the New Testament portion was first completed in Rheims France in 1582 followed by the Old Testament finished in 1609 in Douay. In this version the 14 books of the Apochrypha are returned to the Bible in the order written rather than kept separate in an appendix.
1611 King James Version. The stated purpose of the King James translation was “"not to make a bad version good, but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones one principal good one.” It is primarily a re-translation of the Bishop’s Bible. 54 men work on translation using all the widely accepted versions up to then including Bishop’s, Geneva, Matthews, Coverdale and Tyndale translation as well as looking at original manuscripts. All available copies of the original manuscripts are brought in. It is found that the Hebrew manuscripts are virtually identical while there is wide variations in the Greek manuscripts as they have been hand copied and handed down. The 54 men work as teams checking each other’s work. It was printed originally with all 80 books including the Apochrypha again as a separate section.
1613-1901: At that time until today translations have continued as translators gained a better understanding of the Hebrew language and the Greek writers. 300 corrections were made in the 1613 version of the King James Version. In the 18th century Bishop Challoner made revisions to the Rheims-Douay Bible removing some Latin terms and adding the use of King James translation in some areas.
The Apochrypha were removed in 1885 from King James Versions when the English Revised Version was printed and in 1901 when the American Standard Version was printed.
New King James Version
New Testament, 1979. Arthur Farstad et al., The New King James Bible, New Testament. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1979.
Bible, 1982. Arthur Farstad, ed., Holy Bible: The New King James Version: Containing the Old and New Testaments. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.
History of the Version
The New King James Version was conceived by Arthur Farstad, a conservative Baptist and a former editor at Thomas Nelson Publishers. The project was inaugurated in 1975 with two meetings (Nashville and Chicago) of 68 interested persons, most of them prominent Baptists but also with some conservative Presbyterians. The men who were invited to these meetings prepared the guidelines for the NKJV. The names of the scholars involved in the production of the version are listed below.
In 1984 the NKJV was slightly revised by a committee of reviewers chaired by Farstad.
Textual Base
The New King James Version is a conservative revision of the King James version that does not make any alterations on the basis of a revised Greek or Hebrew text, but adheres to the readings presumed to underlie the King James version. In the New Testament, this means that the Greek text followed is the Textus Receptus of the early printed editions of the sixteenth century. The ancient manuscripts, upon which critical editions of the Greek text have been based for nearly two centuries now, are ignored (except in the marginal notes). So, for example, the Johannine Comma is printed in the text of 1 John 5:7-8 just as it was in the King James Version (although a note informs the reader that "only 4 or 5 very late manuscripts contain these words in Greek").
Statements made in the Preface regarding this aspect of the version are somewhat misleading. The Preface points out that the few late medieval manuscripts upon which the Textus Receptus was based "were representative of many more" which constitute "the traditional text of the Greek-speaking churches" (also called the 'Byzantine Text'), and it further asserts that "it is now widely held that the Byzantine Text that largely supports the Textus Receptus has as much right as the Alexandrian or any other tradition to be weighed in determining the text of the New Testament." While this statement is true as far as it goes — all manuscripts and other witnesses to the text deserve to be weighed and are weighed by scholars — the reader should be told that nearly all competent scholars agree that the so-called Byzantine manuscript tradition of the middle ages can never be given the same evidential weight as the ancient manuscripts.
The NKJV editors have provided information on the readings of the ancient manuscripts in the margin. Most of the significant differences between the underlying Greek text of the NKJV and the ancient manuscripts are indicated there, by notes which give the readings of the United Bible Societies' third edition (see Aland Black Metzger Wikren Martini 1975). Also indicated are significant differences from the "Majority Text" published by Hodges and Farstad in 1982. The Preface explains that with these notes the NKJV "benefits readers of all textual persuasions," and this is true. No other Bible version has such a complete set of text-critical notes. However, it is not true that the editors have presented this information minus "tendentious remarks," as is claimed in the Preface. The textual note on the Story of the Adulteress in the eighth chapter of John's Gospel reads, "NU brackets 7:53 through 8:11 as not in the original text. They are present in over 900 mss. of John." Obviously the purpose of the second sentence in this note is to give a 'Majority Text' rationale for the authenticity of the story. Students would have been better served by a note which indicated that the verses are absent from the ancient manuscripts and versions.
Method of Translation
The NKJV revisers followed the essentially literal method of translation used in the original King James Version, which the NKJV Preface calls "complete equivalence," in contrast to the "dynamic equivalence" of less literal versions.
Because the NKJV is an essentially literal translation we may compare it to the New American Standard Bible (NASB). If we consider which of the two versions is most literal, often we find that it is the NASB. The renderings of 1 Corinthians 13:8-11 will illustrate the stricter literalism of the NASB. See the NKJV Preface below for their discussion of translation principles.
|1 Corinthians 13:8-11 |
|NASB: Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, |NKJV: Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they|
|they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease;|will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether|
|if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in |there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part |
|part, and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the|and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has |
|partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak|come, then that which is in part will be done away. When I was|
|as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became|a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I |
|a man, I did away with childish things. |thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away |
| |childish things. |
Here the NASB represents the Greek forms of καταργεω consistently as "done away," while the NKJV preserves the more elegant but less exact diction of the KJV.
On the other hand, there are places in which the NKJV exceeds the NASB in literalism, chiefly by retaining the Hebrew and Greek idioms (following the KJV) which the NASB occasionally renders in more idiomatic English. The examples below will illustrate this.
|Genesis 18:19 |
|NASB: For I have chosen him, so that he may command his |NKJV: For I have known him, in order that he may command his |
|children and his household after him to keep the way of the |children and his household after him, that they keep the way |
|LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may |of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD |
|bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him. |may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him. |
|Amos 3:2 |
|NASB: You only have I chosen among all the families of the |NKJV: You only have I known of all the families of the earth;|
|earth; Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. |Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. |
|Romans 6:22 |
|NASB: But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, |NKJV: But now having been set free from sin, and having |
|you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the |become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and |
|outcome, eternal life. |the end, everlasting life. 1 |
|Colossians 3:9 |
|NASB: Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old |NKJV: Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the |
|self with its evil practices. |old man with his deeds. 2 |
|1 Peter 1:13 |
|NASB: Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in |NKJV: Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and|
|spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to |rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to |
|you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. |you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. |
|Revelation 21:16-17 |
|NASB: The city is laid out as a square, and its length is as |NKJV: The city is laid out as a square; its length is as |
|great as the width; and he measured the city with the rod, |great as its breadth. And he measured the city with the reed:|
|fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are |twelve thousand furlongs. Its length, breadth, and height are|
|equal. And he measured its wall, seventy-two yards, according |equal. Then he measured its wall: one hundred and forty-four |
|to human measurements, which are also angelic measurements. |cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of an |
| |angel. 3 |
|NOTES ON THE COMPARISON: |
|1. The "fruit" metaphor should be preserved, especially because it continues in the next chapter. |
|2. The more literal "old man" vs. "new man" points to the analogy with Adam and Christ. |
|3. The numerical symbolism should be preserved here. |
An Evaluation
In conclusion we will say that the New King James Version is a useful resource and a worthy addition to the student's bookshelf, but that its flaws — chiefly those relating to the underlying text — are very numerous. There are other equally literal versions that are based upon better texts. We can recommend this version for occasional use, for comparative study, and for the information given in the margin, but not as a primary study Bible.
The most troubling aspect of this version is the encouragement it will give to the "Textus Receptus only" party in the churches, who for the past 30 years have tried to discredit all modern versions by claiming that the critical Greek texts upon which they are based are unsound, and who have denigrated all textual scholarship as heretical. Sadly, after two centuries of textual scholarsip, in which text-critical questions have been painstakingly investigated and settled by the sifting of ancient evidence, the publisher of this version takes advantage of the prejudices of the uneducated, with such promotional advertisements as this:
[pic]
The "complete" Lord's Prayer referred to in this advertisement is the Lord's Prayer as it appears in the Textus Receptus (Matthew 6:13), with the liturgical doxology added to the text. But if such "completeness" is thought to be a measure of textual integrity, why not adopt the even more complete Lord's Prayer as it is found in several other late manuscripts? — "for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit for ever, Amen." Perhaps someone who prefers this more "complete" doxology will care to argue that the trinitarian clause was expunged by heretical scribes and text-critics.
Michael Marlowe
August 2004
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