P054 A Short History of the English Bible.

P054 A Short History of the English Bible. The original manuscript of this version is supposed to be lost, no traces of it having been seen since 1655. This great work is not strictly a translation, but a revision of all the English Bibles which preceded it, so that one who should read Tyndale’s Testament of 1525, or Coverdale’s Bible of 1535, would find a substantial agreement with our own, though, of course, frequent verbal differences. The original Scriptures used by the revisers were not so varied in their sources as those now at hand. It is hard to tell what Hebrew text they followed, as the differences between early printed Bibles are not numerous.

Bomberg’s Rabbinical Bible was most likely used. In the New Testament they are supposed to have depended mainly on Beza’s Greek Testament, fourth edition, 1589. Besides this they had the Greek Testaments of the Complutensian Polyglot, of Erasmus and of Stephens.(1) They also made use of the Rhemish version, and of the Spanish, French, Italian, and German translations. The employment of italic words(2) by our translators is worthy of notice. Dr. Scrivener(3) arranges the instances of their use under six general heads:—

1. When words to complete the sense are introduced from parallel passages.

2. When the extreme conciseness of the Hebrew requires an additional word in English to express the meaning.

3. Where words are necessary to clear up the use of the grammatical figure known as the zeugma.

4. Where a word or two is necessary to mark the abrupt transition from the oblique to the direct form of speech

5. Where it is necessary to indicate that a word or a clause is of doubtful authority as a matter of textual criticism. This, however, is extremely rare.

6. Where words supplied are essential to the English sense, though not necessary to the Hebrew or the Greek. Dr. Scrivener further gives fourteen rules, which seem to have guided the translators in the use of italics.

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(FN1)Bishop Ellicott, in speaking of the dependence of both Beza and Stephens on Erasmus, says: "In the fourth edition of Erasmus we really have the mother-text of our own Authorized Version."—Considerations, etc., p. 35.

(FN2)In the early editions the words now in italics were designated by Roman letters of a smaller size than the type in the body of the book.

(FN3)The "Cambridge Paragraph Bible."—Int. § iii.

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