Bible

Bible The Bible is a library of different literary types rather than a single book (Greek biblia—books (plural)). The larger part, the Old Testament (OT), is a collection of Jewish sacred writings, originally in Hebrew and consisting of teaching (or Law—Torah), history, prophecy, and poetry. The New Testament (NT), originally in Greek, also includes diverse literary forms—letters of Paul and other apostles, historical narrative (Acts), apocalyptic writing (Revelation), and four Gospels which are not history but arrangements of remembered acts and sayings of Jesus.

The first English translations were spasmodic—paraphrases attributed to Cædmon (c.680), Bede's translation of part of John's Gospel (673–735), and Middle English metrical versions. The first full versions were 14th‐cent. NT translations from the Vulgate, made under lollard influence. Illicit MS translations continued to appear, until a powerful impetus was provided by the printing of the Vulgate (1456), the Hebrew text (1488), and Erasmus' Greek NT (1516), which inspired Tyndale to make the first English NT translation from the original Greek (1526) and of the Pentateuch from the original Hebrew (1529–30). Coverdale, whose first complete English Bible (1535) was partly based on Tyndale, superintended publication of the Great Bible (1539–40). A new version (1557), issued in Geneva—the first with verse‐divisions—formed the basis of the so‐called Geneva Bible, dedicated to Elizabeth (1560). Parker, however, authorized yet another, this time more Latinate, revision of the Great Bible, the Bishops' Bible (1568). Meanwhile exiled English catholics in Rheims translated their own NT from the Vulgate (1582), followed by the OT at Douai (1609–10). At the Hampton Court conference (1604) James I commissioned a panel to produce the King James (or so‐called Authorized) Version of 1611, a comprehensive revision of previous translations. Its superb quality enabled it to supplant all previous versions, and for 250 years it was the only one used. Though new scholarship led to a conservative Revised Version (1881–5), translations proliferated in the 20th cent.: James Moffatt (1922, 1924), Ronald Knox (1945, 1949), followed by the Revised Standard Version (1952), the New English Bible (1961, 1970), Jerusalem Bible (1966), and others.