THE KING JAMES BIBLE OF 1611
IS
NOT THE PROTESTANT VERSION
OF
THE BIBLE TRANSLATED BY TYNDALE
FROM THE GREEK
THE REAL BEGINNING OF THE PROTESTANT
MOVEMENT WAS
IN ENGLAND NOT GERMANY
John Wycliffe was
the first to
translate
the bible in English
and thus the first
to
protest against the
Roman dominated
church. The key
feature of
Wycliffe's
(1324-1382) reform
was, "the endeavor
to
recall the Church
to 'Apostolic
Christianity'. Each
human soul might
have access to the
divine life and was
responsible to God
alone. Therefore,
the
mediation of a
priest was
unnecessary,
and
the pride and greed of the
ecclesiastical
hierarchy for power
over nations was
nothing more than a
fungus grown upon
the primitive
church of Christ. He
denounced
pilgrimages and the sale of pardons,
indulgences and
relics, as of no
avail. The
climax came when he
denounced the
cornerstone of
priestly authority,
TRANSUBSTANTIATION.
Under pressure
and overshadowed by
persecution, he
withdrew to his
parish church at
Lutterworth and
devoted his energies
to
translating the
Bible into the
speech of his
countrymen and to
training "poor
priests"
who would
perpetuate his
message. These
men came to be
known as Lollards.
In due
time Wycliffe was
denounced as a
heretic
and although his
writings were burned
in
accordance with
Papal decree they
were
reproduced by the
Lollards with
marvelous
rapidity and were
read everywhere,
even
in the houses of
the nobility and at
the
court of King
Richard the Second.
Richard's consort,
Anne of Bohemia
(Czech Republic),
possessed a copy of
Wycliffe's Bible,
and upon her
decease,
her attendants
returned to Prague
carrying Olympian
like, the
light of truth which
John Huss proclaimed
to the Czech people
until the
protestant revolt
against the Church
was permanently
established in
Bavaria (southern
Germany, Munich).
THE BIBLE
PROHIBITED
As this first
translation began to
circulate throughout
England people of
every
walk of life
hungrily aborbed the
''New Learning''. As
quickly as they
came to realize the
great truth, - that
every man was
equally blessed
with the Holy
Spirit as his
personal birthright
and was endowed with
the power to commune
with his God without
the necessity of any
mediator outside of
himself to intercede
for him -
Protestantism spread
like an uncontrolled
forest fire. Men
joyously proclaimed
the ''Glad
Tidings'' to their
fellow workmen as
they toiled from sun
up till dark.
Handwritten copies
of each of the four
Gospels were sold in
separate
books or traded on
the open market. As
British court
records show,
Paul's Letters ''were
bought once for a
wagon load of hay''.
Because of this
translation
disturbances and
unrest against the
organized Church
developed in due
course from the
excitement of being
able to read the
'Altar Book'' itself.
Finally rioting
broke out in all
seriousness and in
June 1381, one year
before Wycliffe's
death, a mob
under the direction
of Wat Tyler took
possession of London
Town and
on the 14th day the
Archbishop of
Canterbury, Simon
Sudbury, was
beheaded in company
of other ''theiving
Prelates''. The
wilfull beggary of
the mendicant friars
''who blasphemed and
slandered Christ's
religion, was
vanquished by the
very force of the
scriptures''.
It was
not long before
the Church, which
was also the body of
State government,
filled the jail
houses. When Arundel
succeeded Archbishop
Courtney, in 1400
A.D., he
became the
uncompromising
persecutor of all
who were suspected
of
''Lollardie'', and
caused Wylliam
Sautre to be the
first to be burned
in
England for heresy.
In 1408 A.D. a convocation of the
Bishops, called
Canterbury, was held
at Oxford and
thirteen
constitutions were
enacted
that sounded the
death knell to the
personal inward
religion of the
Protestant movement.
The first two
defined WHO
alone might
preach; the third
and fourth
determined WHAT
might be preached;
the fifth restricted
the School Men as to
what the pupils WERE
ALLOWED TO KNOW;
the sixth was
directed against the
writings of John
Wycliffe by name;
while the seventh
PROHIBITED ALL
SCRIPTURES in
English. The edict
reads: ''It is a
dangerous thing, as
Saint Jerome
assures us, to
translate the Holy
Scripture, it being
very difficult in a
version to keep
close to the sense
of the inspired
writers: for by the
confession of the
same father he has
mistaken the meaning
of several
texts. (!!) We
therefore decree and
ordain, that from
henceforward no
unauthorized person
shall translate any
part of the Holy
Scriptures into
English or any other
language, under any
form or treatise:
neither shall
any such book,
treatise, or version,
made either in
Wycliffe's time or
since, be read,
either in whole or
in part, publicly or
privately, under the
penalty of
------------'' (BAGSTER'S
ENGLISH HEXAPLA,
Preface, page
34).
PROHIBITION
LIFTED
For one hundred and
thirty years
relative was
enticed to betray
relative, all to the
"Grace of God" to
keep the
stake supplied with
victims. In Fox's
extracts from the
Registar of
Lincoln, dated 1521,
details are given of
the evil manner in
which the
cruel
persecutions were
carred out. It was
for this reason that
Tyndale "could
find no place in all
England" and had to
flee to the
continent to make
his
translation, then
have the copies
smuggled back to the
land that gave
him birth. The ban
remained in force until
a time when John
Rogers, his
printer at Antwerp (Belgium),
collected all of
Tyndale's writings,
prologues and notes
and made them into
one WHOLE bible,
supplying
the Psalms and those
books still wanting
from Coverdale's
translation
made from a Latin
version, and printed
all of it under the
nome de plume
of Thomas Matthew,
translator. This
book was the first
whole Bible. One
of these "tall, fine
copies" came into
the hands of Cranmer
who was
then
Archbishop.
Meanwhile, the
country had been
deluged with six
editions
of Tyndale's New
Testament books,
together with
innumerable others
copied by pirating
Dutch printers. It
had been made clear
to the
Archbishop that
since the power of
the presses could
not be stopped,
they could be
controlled. Armed
with this "Thomas
Matthew Bible", he
wrote on August
fourth, 1535 to
Cromwell, who was
then Prime Minister,
to show it to King
Henry VIII to induce
him to sign the
enclosed edict,
"and procure the
King's Licence for
its being read and
sold by all without
any danger from any
acts, ordinances, or
proclamations to the
contrary
- - - -" The
Archbishop gave his
judgement of the
version as being
very
well done, and
requested that it be
put in force "until
the Bishops should
put forth their own
translation". The
Royal Decree was
granted August
13th of that year.
Thus, by a strange
quirk of fate,
Tyndale's Bible
(Matthews) with all
its Prologues,
Prefaces and notes
against the Papal
Church was legally
sanctioned by the
King. The ban that
had held for one
hundred and
thirty-five years
against reading the
Bible was lifted.
But the Catholic
Archbishop's real
purpose in getting
the decree granted
was, through
the last clause of
the above instrument,
to place the Bible
henceforth
under complete
control of the
Bishops of the
Church, and so it
stands
to this day.
THE CENSORED
VERSION
Archbishop Cranmer's
next move was to
employ the
translator Myles
Coverdale, who had
his Latin and
English
translation printed
in Paris and had
skillfully kept his
head from the
guillotine by
catering to the
wishes of whoever
was in power, to
remove
Tyndale's Index;
Table of Principal
matters (a
concordance); all of
his
heretical Prefaces,
and Notes after
every chapter. He
removed
Tyndale's
translation from the
Greek New Testament
and substituted it
for his own English
translation from the
Latin text he had
printed
previously at Paris.
This new Bible
called "The Great
Bible", the
Archibishop
published under his
own name in 1539.
This translation was
REVISED by
Archbishop Parker as
the "BISHOP'S BIBLE",
1568, and again
by the Bishops in
1611 as the King
James Royal Bible.
The revisions were
made to conform to
the language shift
but the text always
remained the
same: an English
version of the Latin
Vulgate, instead of
the text of the
Greek Church brought
into Europe by
fleeing priests at
the fall of
Istambul into the
hands of the Turks.
(from the
book New Light in an
Old Lamp, 1963, by
Joseph C. Bonner,
who was a bible
student in search of
the origins of the
bible versions).
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