The English Bible: History and Translations

by

Brady Beard

• LAST MODIFIED: 23 September 2024
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195393361-0334

Introduction

Far from an innocuous task, the translation of the Bible into vernacular English generates a history of politics, personalities, printings, and complex translation practices. Spanning nearly 1,100 years, the conversation and desire among academics and church leaders to translate the Bible into English is vast and contains a veritable who’s who of monarchs, politicians, philosophers, theologians, priests, mystics, and laypersons from the English-speaking world. The study of the Bible in English depends on historical, literary, biblical, sociological, and bibliographic methods. Aside from linguistic tools, knowledge of biblical studies, and translation theory, researchers must seek to understand the production of the Bible in English as it was shaped by the geopolitical and socioreligious realities governing England, the Americas, and the British Empire.

General Works

Many classic studies of the English Bible can be found before the year 2000, including Bruce 1978, which provides an accessible and general overview. Hammond 1983 focuses on translation issues rather than offering a historical survey. Westcott 1916 locates the English Bible within a broad tradition of English language going back to the Venerable Bede. The now classic introduction to the English Bible is Daniell 2003. Bobrick 2001 provides an overview of the English Bible within English history. Marsden 2012 provides a more concise, yet dense, introduction to the medieval English Bible. Ellingworth 2007 and Ferrell 2008, though at times inaccurate, offer accessible introductions that frame the English translation of the Bible through large chronological periods and offer the reader a high-altitude survey. For a thorough treatment of the role of the Bible in English culture, readers should turn to Katz 2004. Norton 2000 examines the English Bible as a feature of English literature.

• Bobrick, Benson. Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.

  Bobrick’s account is as entertaining and accessible as it is informative. He locates it within the confines of English history and delves into the publication of the various translations. The story of the English Bible is told in this work through the lives of the early translators: Wycliffe, Tyndale, and Coverdale. The work concludes by arguing that the English Bible played a significant role in English revolutions.

• Bruce, F. F. History of the Bible in English: From the Earliest Versions. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

  Provides an orientation to the English Bible and to many of the most significant translations that make up its history. Also defines the English Bible as not only the Bible as used in England and its surrounds, but as the Bible in the English language.

• Daniell, David. The Bible in English: Its History and Influence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003.

  DOI: 10.12987/9780300183894

  Presents the story of the Bible in English from the manuscripts to the twentieth century. Each chapter focuses on a specific translation (e.g., chapter 17, “The Geneva Bible, 1560”) or topic of great importance (e.g., Chapter 35, “Mathew Carey and the American Bible Flood”). A deeply theological work, The Bible in English provides an important and enlightening survey of the impact of the English Bible.

• Ellingworth, Paul. “From Martin Luther to the English Revised Version.” In A History of Bible Translation. Edited by Philip A. Noss, 105–139. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2007.

  Ellingworth’s essay situates the translation of the Bible into English within the historical context of four periods: 1517–1600, 1600–1700, 1700–1804, and 1804–1885. Throughout these periods, he outlines the translation and printing of the Bible throughout Europe generally and with respect to the various missionary organizations beyond Europe. In this essay, readers can readily sense the rapidity and controversy that accompanied the translation of the Bible into English compared with other translations and printings.

• Ferrell, Lori Anne. The Bible and the People. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.

  Ferrell provides an accessible introduction to the history of the English Bible. The work is divided into various eras, beginning with 1066 and ending with the twentieth century, with two chapters covering thematic material. Ferrell troubles the assumption that the Bible before vernacular translations was unknown to the illiterate public. Rather, she argues that the Bible was known through a variety of means, of which translation was only one. Ferrell focuses on the question, “What makes a Bible a Bible?” (p. 191).

• Hammond, Gerald. The Making of the English Bible. New York: Philosophical Library, 1983.

  Compares the literary qualities, especially the syntactical decisions, of English translations from Tyndale to the Authorized Version. The work is not intended as a historical survey but as an analysis of the translation decisions of various works. Most examples come from the Hebrew Bible. Hammond discusses translation decisions with reference to the relevant Hebrew and Greek texts.

• Katz, David S. God’s Last Words: Reading the English Bible from the Reformation to Fundamentalism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.

  Understands the English Bible, and its reception, as the central piece of English culture.

• Marsden, Richard. “The Bible in English.” In The New Cambridge History of the Bible. Vol. 2. Edited by Richard Marsden and E. Ann Matter, 217–238. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

  Provides an overview of the English translations of the Bible beginning with the period from 600–1000 CE. Marsden discusses Bede’s paraphrases as well as the Old English Hexateuch and Heptateuch. The majority of the chapter focuses on the Wycliffite Bible.

• Norton, David. A History of the English Bible as Literature. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

  DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511612251

  Attempts to understand the Bible as literature, even if such a designation would be anathema to the earliest English translators. Corrects many misconceptions about the history of the English Bible, including that the 1611 Authorized Version was an immediate success. Provides the necessary social—including print culture—and political context to demonstrate the complexity of the history of translating the Bible in English.

• Westcott, Brooke Foss. A General View of the History of the English Bible. Rev. ed. Edited by William Aldis Wright. New York: Macmillan, 1916.

  This classic study of the history of the English Bible begins with Bede, Alfred, and the early versions before turning to the Wycliffite Bible, Tyndale’s Bible, and the other major English translation that preceded the King James Bible. Each chapter covers a particular version—chapter 9 covers the Rheims and Douay versions, for instance—and the third part discusses the textual details of each version. Though revised in the early twentieth century, the volume does not include a study of the Revised Standard Version.