P052 A Short History of the English Bible.
P052 A Short History of the English Bible.
5. The division of the chapters to be altered either not at all, or as little as may be, if necessity so require.
6. No marginal notes at all to be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek words, which cannot without some circumlocution so briefly and fitly be expressed in the text.
7. Such quotations of places to be marginally set down as shall serve for the fit reference of one Scripture to another.
8. Every particular man of each company to take the same chapter or chapters; and, having translated or amended them severally by himself where he thinketh good, all to meet together, confer what they have done, and agree for their parts what shall stand.
9. As any one company hath dispatched any one book in this manner, they shall send it to the rest, to be considered of seriously and judiciously; for his Majesty is very careful in this point.
10. If any company, upon a review of the book so sent, doubt or differ upon any place, to send them word thereof, note the place, and withall send the reasons; to which if they consent not, the difference to be compounded at the general meeting which is to be of the chief persons of each company, at the end of the work.
11. When any place of special obscurity is doubted of, letters to be directed by authority to send to any learned man in the land for his judgment of such a place.
12. Letters to be sent from every bishop to the rest of his clergy, admonishing them of this translation in hand, and to move and charge as many as, being skillful in the tongues, and having taken pains in that kind, to send his particular observations to the company either at Westminster, Cambridge, or Oxford.
13. The directors in each company to be the deanes of Westminster and Chester, for that place, and the king’s professors in the Hebrew or Greek in either university.
14. These translations to be used, when they agree better with the text than the Bishops’ Bible: Tyndale’s, Matthew’s, Coverdale’s, Whitchurch’s,(1) Geneva.
15. Besides the said directors before mentioned, three or four of the most ancient and grave divines in either of the universities, not employed in translating, to be assigned by the vice-chancellor upon conference with the rest of the heads, to be overseers of the translations, as well Hebrew as Greek, for the better observation of the fourth rule above specified.
Some authorities give but fourteen rules, and add the fifteenth as a by-law, while others assert that the number was finally reduced to seven.
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(FN1)By this was meant the Great Bible, Whitchurch being one of the printers. He married the widow of Archbishop Cranmer.
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