Why We Use the King James Bible, Lesson 9: The English Bible Before 1611

Welcome to Authorized Sword Ministries. This is Lesson 9 in our series, Why We Use the King James Bible. Today's lesson is called The English Bible Before 1611.

We're so glad you're here.

Lessons 1 and 4 already told part of this story. Today we walk the road more slowly. The King James Bible did not fall out of the sky in 1611. God gave the Word, and He also gave faithful men, and those who stood with them, who laboured and suffered so that ordinary people could read it in English.

Our Key Verse

"The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it."
— Psalm 68:11 (KJV)

The Lord gave the word. Then a great company published it. That is the story of the English Bible.

"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."
— Romans 10:17 (KJV)

If faith comes by hearing the Word, then getting that Word into the language of the people is a holy work.

John Wycliffe and a Bible in English

In the 1300s, John Wycliffe and those who worked with him gave English-speaking people a Bible they could hear in their own tongue. That work was translated from the Latin Vulgate, not from the Hebrew and Greek, and it was copied by hand, not printed. Wycliffe died in 1384. His labour was costly, and those who loved this English Bible were often treated as suspects and troublemakers. Still, the desire could not be put back in the bottle. People had tasted the Word in their own language.

William Tyndale

The next great step belongs to William Tyndale. In the 1520s it was against the law in England to have the Bible in English. Tyndale translated the New Testament from the Greek anyway, and it was printed in 1526. Copies were smuggled into England in bales of cloth, and church leaders burned every copy they could find. He also translated a large part of the Old Testament from the Hebrew. In 1536 he was strangled and burned at the stake in Vilvoorde. His last prayer is remembered as, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes."

God answered that prayer. Much of the New Testament wording in the King James Bible still traces back to Tyndale. When you read the Gospel of John, or the letters of Paul, in the Authorized Version, you are often hearing Tyndale's faithful English, honed and checked by later men, but still his gift to the church.

Coverdale, Matthew, and the Great Bible

Miles Coverdale published a complete printed English Bible in 1535, using Tyndale's work and completing what remained. In 1537 the Matthew Bible appeared, associated with John Rogers, again building on Tyndale and Coverdale. Then came the Great Bible of 1539, a large Bible authorized to be set up in the parish churches of England. The common people could now hear the Scriptures read in English in public, only a few years after Tyndale's death. The king's eyes had been opened, just as Tyndale had prayed.

The Geneva Bible and the Bishops' Bible

In 1560, English exiles in Geneva published the Geneva Bible. It was the first complete English Bible to include both chapter and verse numbers throughout, and it became the Bible of many homes and of many of the early English settlers. It had helpful notes, and it was small enough to carry and read. Then, in 1568, the Bishops' Bible was produced for use in the churches of England.

When King James called for a new translation in 1604, these were the Bibles already in English hands. The translators were told to use the Bishops' Bible as their starting point, and they were also free to draw on the earlier work, especially Tyndale and Geneva, whenever it was closer to the original. About forty-seven scholars, in six companies at Westminster, Oxford, and Cambridge, did the work, and in 1611 the Authorized Version was published. That is the Bible we hold.

A Great Company, Men and Women Together

We remember the names of Wycliffe, Tyndale, Coverdale, and the later translators, because their labour is known. But they were not alone. There were men and women who hid copies, who paid for printing, who read the English Bible aloud in homes, who taught it to children, and who suffered for being found with it. "Great was the company of those that published it." The Lord gave the Word, and then He used a host of ordinary saints to put it into our language and to keep it there.

A Simple Step for This Week

Read the Gospel of John chapter 1 in the King James Bible, slowly and out loud. As you read, thank God for Tyndale and for all who risked their lives so you could hold this Book. Then tell someone in your family one piece of this history they may never have heard.

A Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank You that You gave the Word, and that great was the company of those that published it. Thank You for Wycliffe, for Tyndale, for all who carried, hid, read, and printed the English Bible, and for the men who gave us the Authorized Version. Help us never to take lightly what others bought at so high a price. Open our eyes, as Tyndale prayed, and help us to read it, believe it, and live it. In Jesus' name, amen.

Thank you for spending this time with us. This is Authorized Sword Ministries. God bless you.

Study Questions

1. What two truths does Psalm 68:11 hold together: who gave the Word, and who published it?
2. Why does Romans 10:17 make an English Bible so important?
3. How did Wycliffe's Bible differ from Tyndale's, in language source and in how it was produced?
4. What did Tyndale translate, and what happened to him in 1536?
5. How does Tyndale's last remembered prayer connect to the Bibles that followed so quickly after his death?
6. What were the Coverdale Bible, the Matthew Bible, and the Great Bible, and why do their dates matter?
7. What made the Geneva Bible especially useful in the home?
8. How did the earlier English Bibles feed into the King James Bible of 1611?
9. Why is it right to remember, along with the famous translators, the unnamed men and women who carried and read this Book?
10. How will this history change the way you hold your King James Bible this week?

Sources

This lesson expands the English-Bible history already taught in Lessons 1 and 4 of this series: Wycliffe and the fourteenth-century English Bible from the Latin; Tyndale's 1526 New Testament from the Greek, his Old Testament labour, and his death at Vilvoorde in 1536; Coverdale 1535; the Matthew Bible 1537; the Great Bible 1539; the Geneva Bible 1560 (first complete English Bible with chapter and verse numbers throughout); the Bishops' Bible 1568; and the 1611 Authorized Version, with about forty-seven translators in six companies, building on that earlier stream, much of the New Testament wording still tracing to Tyndale. Tyndale's last prayer is given, as in Lesson 1, as it is commonly remembered. Standard reference accounts of this history include the Trinitarian Bible Society materials cited in Lesson 5 and general histories of the English Bible.