The enduring glory of Tyndale, however, is that he laid the foundation of the English version of the New Testament. That work of his has never been set aside or superseded, but only revised and amended. It is to a very large extent in the words of Tyndale that English-speaking Christians at the present day express their dearest hopes and richest consolations. Coverdale's Bible, 1535. Matthew's Bible, 1537. Taverner's Bible, 1539. The Reformers' Bibles. The Great Bible, or Coverdale's second Bible, 1539. Revised Edition, with prologue by Cranmer, 1540. Editions consulted and quoted from : Coverdale's Bible.-Bagster's Reprint, 1838. Matthew's Bible.-Edition, 1537, (Glasgow University Library). Great Bible.-Grafton's Edition, 1541, (printed Nov. 1540).--New Testa- THE demand for a Bible in English was every day becoming louder and more urgent in England, as the Reformation advanced. The questions at issue between Churchmen and Protestants must, it was felt, be decided by an appeal to the Bible. The whole system of ecclesiastical teaching, ecclesiastical worship, ecclesiastical mediation, and ecclesiastical government must, said the Reformers, be tried and judged by the Scriptures on which it is alleged to be founded. Besides Tyndale, therefore, other men were engaged in the work of translating the Bible into English. One of the most notable of these was Miles Coverdale. Some authors have represented Coverdale as a collaborateur of Tyndale's at Hamburg; but according to recent writers, there is no evidence to support that statement. He is said to have been born in 1488, and at an early age to have espoused the principles of the Reformation. For so doing he "found himself in danger, and fled beyond sea, where he chiefly applied himself to the study and translation of the Holy Scriptures." 1 Lewis' History of the several Translations of the Bible into English, p. 92. I Where he resided while engaged in this work is not known; nor is it definitely ascertained where he found his first printers. He did not, like Tyndale, issue his translation by instalments, but published the whole Bible in English at once. This was in 1535, while Tyndale was still living. The book bore no publisher's name; and it presented itself to national notice, says Dr. Eadie, "unheralded and unanticipated." This version of the Bible, by Coverdale, was not a translation from the original tongues in which the Scriptures were written. On its title page there was an honest confession that the translation was made out of " Douche and Latyn." It was, therefore, only a secondary version of the Scriptures in English: the translation of a translation. It consequently had not the scholastic and theological value it should have had, if it had been drawn direct from the fountain head, And not only so, but while Coverdale's Bible may be acknowledged to be in part an independent translation from the "Douche and Latyn," it is in part not even that. Coverdale was preceded by Tyndale in the translation of the New Testament, the Pentateuch, and the Book of Jonah. And as far as these portions of Scripture are concerned Coverdale's translation was only a revision of Tyndale's labours. Two parts of Coverdale's Bible have thus to be considered separately: the part that was an original translation, and the part that was not. It is in the former of these parts that Coverdale's most notable renderings occur. His Bible is sometimes spoken of as the "treacle" Bible, and sometimes as the "bug" Bible, from these words being used in his Bible in an odd sense and an odd connection.2 The passages containing these readings are 1 Some have surmised that it was printed at Frankfort by Egenolph ; others that it was printed at Cologne; but, Dr. Eadie says, "there is a very strong presumption that Frosehover of Zurich, who printed the edition of 1550, also printed that of 1535." In an old French biography there is a statement, which till recently was overlooked, that Jacob van Meteren "was at pains and very zealous at Antwerp, towards the translation of the English Bible, and employed for that purpose a certain learned scholar, called Miles Coverdale." This statement, Dr. Mombert remarks, "renders it probable that the first edition of Coverdale was printed at Antwerp." 2 It might, also, for a similar reason be termed the "beer" Bible. One of the found in the part translated at first hand. Where in the authorised version of the Bible we read: “Is there no balm in Gilead," Jer. viii. 22, it is said in Coverdale's Bible: "There is no more triacle at Galaad:" and where again in the authorised version we read: "Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror by night," Ps. xci. 5, it is said in Coverdale's translation, " thou shalt not nede to be afrayed for any bugges by night." Other odd renderings in this part of Coverdale's Bible might be instanced. The invocation, "put them in fear, O lord," 2 Ps. ix. 20, is with unconscious humour rendered by Coverdale, "set a schoolmaster over them:" Solomon's note on the inconvertibility of fools, Prov. xxvii. 22, is translated, "though thou shuldest bray a foole with a pestell in a morter like otemeel, yet will not his foolishness go from him": Shebna, the shame of his Lord's house (Revised version, 1885) is denounced, Is. xxii. 18, as "thou vyllene of the house of thy Lorde": in comparison of the Almighty, the isles of the earth are declared, Is. xl. 15, to be "as the shadowe of the sonnebeame": "the word that judgments it pronounces on the people of Israel for their sins is, “The beer shall be bytter to them that drinke it," Is. xxiv. 9. I The designation "treacle" Bible is sometimes given to Matthew's Bible also. In the verse referred to, the word treacle occurs in all the Reformers' Bibles, (Coverdale's, Matthew's, Taverner's and the Great Bible) and also in the Bishops' Bible; but as Coverdale's was the first published of these versions, it should have the credit or discredit of the phrase. By bibliographers the term "bug Bible" is applied specially to a particular edition of Matthew's Bible, printed in 1551; although the word " bugges" appeared long before that date, not only in Matthew's In the sense of terror, but in Taverner's and Coverdale's translation of Ps. xci. 5. or scare-crow, "bug" appears in Shakespeare also :—“Warwick was a bug that feared us all."-Henry VI. Part iii. Act 5, Scene 2. s."-Vulgate. In some other Latin 2 "Constitue, Domine, legislatorem super eos.' versions this rendering is changed into: "Pone, Jehovah, timorem eis."-Zurich, 1564. 66 His To Coverdale's mind teaching and flogging were nearly synonymous terms. My father correcte you with scourges, but I rendering of Kings, xii. 11, was will nurtoure you with scorpions ;" and of Ps. xciv. 10, "He that nurtureth the heithen and teacheth a man knowledge shal not be punysh." A phrase quite worthy of Coverdale, however, (and it is not a phrase of his) stands in both the authorised and revised versions of the Bible: "He took the elders of the city, and thorns of the wilderness and briers, and with them he taught the men of Succoth," Judges, viii. 16. came to Jeremiah from the Lord" is paraphrased, "this is another sermon which the Lord commanded Jeremy for to preach" and the two staves of Zechariah, which are known to us by the names of Beauty and Bands, are strangely designated Louynge Mekenesse and Wo. The diction of Coverdale's Bible, it will thus be scen, is characterised by the same quaintness and homeliness as that of Wyclif's and Tyndale's translations. And this remark applies not to one portion of Coverdale's Bible only, but to the whole of it. A word of very frequent occurrence in his version is tush: "The foolish bodyes saye in their hertes, Tush, there is no God," Ps. xiv. I; "Tush, God will not destroy us utterly," Jer. xii. 5; "He [the war horse] feareth not the noyse of the trompettes, but as soone as he heareth the shawmes blowe, Tush, sayeth he," Job xxxix. 25. A passage whose sublimity is made well nigh ridiculous by Coverdale's Arcadian phraseology, is Ps. xlii. 7: "One depe calleth another with the voyce of thy whystles." In its simplicity and homeliness, however, Coverdale's style is sometimes very racy: "There be thre thinges that are neuer satisfied, and the fourth saieth neuer hoo," Prov. xxx. 15; "He that is geven to much slepe shal go with a ragged cote," Prov. xxiii. 21; “Death and we are at a poynte ; and as for hell, we haue made a condicion with it," Is. xxviii. 15. At other times, Coverdale's renderings are, in their homely phraseology, extremely picturesque: "There be thre thinges that go stiffly, but the goinge of the fourth is the goodliest of all. A lyon which is kynge of beestes, and geueth place to no man ; a cock ready to fight; a ramme; and a kynge that goeth forth with his people." Now and again, however, the realism in 1 Of homely diction, specimens without number could be gathered from Coverdale's Bible. The following will serve as additional examples here :-"When Jacob sawe that there was moch corne in Egyipte, he sayde unto his sonnes, Why gape ye?" Gen. xlii. 1; "The kyne .. wente on blearynge," 1 Sam. vi. 12; "We trust in the Lorde oure God: A goodly god, indede! whose hie places and aulteres Ezechias toke downe," Is. xxxvi. 7; "There went a rygge wall rounde aboute them.. Then sayde he unto me, This is the kechin, where the ministers of the house shall dight the slayne offerynges of the people," Ezek. xlvi. 23-24; "They call not upon me with their hartes, but lye youlinge upon their beddes," Hos. vii. 14; "Laye to youre sythes, for the haruest is rype," Joel. iii. 13. |