B I B 
for publilhing it in England by the favour of archbiihop 
Cranmer and the bi/hops Latimer and Shaxton. 
The firft Bible that was printed by authority in England, 
and publicly read in churches, was the fame Tindal’s ver- 
(ion, revifed, compared with the Hebrew, and in many 
places amended, by Miles Coverdale, afterwards bithop of 
Exeter ; and examined after him by archbiihop Cranmer, 
who added a preface to it: whence this was called Crcin- 
mer's Bible. It was printed by Grafton, of the larged vo¬ 
lume, and publifhed in 1540 ; and, by a royal proclama¬ 
tion, every parilh was obliged to let one of the copies in 
their church, under the penalty of forty (hillings a-month ; 
yet, two years after, the popilh bilhops obtained its fup- 
preflion of the king. It was reftored under Edward VI. 
fupprefTed again under queen Mary, and reftored again in 
the firft year of queen Elizabeth, and a new edition of it 
given in 1562. Certain eminent Englifli exiles at Geneva, 
in queen Mary’s reign, Coverdale, Goodman, Gilbie, 
Sampfon, Cole, Whittingham, and Knox, made a new 
tranllation, printed there in 1560, the New' Teftament 
having been printed in 1557 ■ hence called the Geneva 
Bible-, containing the variations of readings, marginal an¬ 
notations, &c. on account of which it was much valued 
by the puritan party in that and the following reigns. At 
length archbifhop Parker refolved on a new tranllation for 
the public ufe of the church, and engaged the bifhops and 
other learned men to take a part in it. Printed with Ihort 
annotations in 1568, in a large folio, it made what was 
afterwards called the Great Engli/h Bible, or more commonly 
the Bijkops' Bible. The following year it was alfo pub¬ 
lifhed in Svo, in a fmall but line black letter : and here 
the chapters were divided into verfes ; but without any 
breaks for them, in which the method of the Geneva Bi¬ 
ble was followed, which was the firft Englifli Bible where 
any diftinflion of verfes was made. It was afterwards 
printed in large folio, with corrections, and feveral pro¬ 
legomena, in 1572: this is called Matthew Parker's Bible. 
The initial letters of each tranflator’s name were put at 
the end of his part : e. gr. at the end of the Pentateuch, 
\V. E. for William Exon ; that is, William bifhop of 
Exeter, whofe allotment ended there : at the end of Sa¬ 
muel, R. M. for Richard Menevenfis, or bifhop of St. 
David’s, to whom the fecond allotment fell : and the like 
of the reft. The archbifhop fuperintended, examined, 
and finifhed, the whole. This tranflation was ufed in the 
churches for forty years; though the Geneva Bible was 
more read in private families, being printed above thirty 
times in as many years. King James bore it an inveterate 
hatred on account of the notes ; which at the Hampton- 
court conference he charged as partial, untrue, feditious, 
&c. The Bifhops’ Bible too had its faults. The king 
frankly owned he had yet feen no good tranflation of the 
Bible in Englifli ; but he thought that of Geneva the 
word of all. 
After this tranflation of the Bible by the bifhops, two 
other private verlions were made of the New Teftament : 
the firft by Lawrence Thomfon, made from Beza’s Latin 
edition, together with the notes of Beza, publifhed in 1582, 
in quarto, and afterwards in 1589, varying very little from 
the Geneva Bible ; the fecond edited by the Roman ca¬ 
tholics at Rheims in 1584, called the Rhemifh Bible, or Rlte- 
mijh Travjlation. Thefe, finding it impoflibie to keep the. 
people from having the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, 
refolved to give a verlion of their own as favourable to 
their caufe as might be. It was printed on a brge paper, 
with a fair letter and margin. One complaint againft it 
was its retaining a multitude of Hebrew and Greek words 
untranllated, for want, as the editors exprefs it, of proper 
and adequate terms in the Englifli to render them by; as 
the words azymes, tunike, rational, holocavjl, prepuce, pafche, 
&c. However, many of the copies were feized by the 
queen’s fearchers and confifcated ; and Tli. Cartwright 
was folicited by fecretary Wallingham to refute it: but, 
after a good progrefs had been made, archbifhop Whitgift 
prohibited his further proceeding in it, as judging it im- 
L E. , 5 
proper the doctrine of the church of England.fliould be 
committed to the defence of a puritan, and appointed Dr. 
Fulke in his place, who refuted the Rheimifts with great 
fpirit and learning. Cartwright’s refutation was alio after¬ 
wards publi111ed in 1618, under archbifhop Abbot. About 
thirty years after their New Teftament, the Roman catho¬ 
lics publifhed a tranflation of the Old at Douay, 1609 and 
1610,. from the Vulgate, with annotations; fo that the 
Englifli Roman Catholics have now the whole Bible in 
their mother-tongue ; though it is to be obf'erved they 
are forbidden to read it without fpecial perm fli in from 
their clergy. 
Tiie laft Englifli Bible was that which proceeded from 
the Hampton-court conference in 1603, where, many ex¬ 
ceptions being made to the Bifhop’s Bible, king James 
gave order for a new one; not, as the preface exprefles 
it, for a tranflation altogether new, nor yet to make of a 
bad one a good one, but to make a good one better, or of 
many good ones one beft. Fifty-four learned perfons were 
appointed for this office by the king, as appears' by his 
letter to the archbifhop, dated in 1604; which being three 
years before the tranflation was entered open, it is proba¬ 
ble feven of them were either dead or had declined the 
talk, fince Fuller’s lift of the mandators makes but fortv- 
feven ; who, being ranged under fix divifions, entered on 
their tafk in 1607. It was publifhed in 1613, with a dedi¬ 
cation to James, and a learned preface, and is commonly 
called King James's Bible. After this all the other verlions 
dropped and fell intodifufe, except the Epiftles and Gof- 
pels in the Common Prayer Book, which were ftill conti¬ 
nued, according to the Bifhops’ tranflation, till the altera¬ 
tion of the liturgy in 1661, and the Pfalms and Hymns, 
which are to this day continued as in the old verlion. The 
judicious Selden, in his Table Talk, (peaking of the Bi¬ 
ble, fays, “ The Englifli tranflation of the Bible is the 
beft tranflation in the world, and renders the fenfe of the 
original beft, taking in for the Englifli tranflation the Bi- 
fliops’ Bible, as well as King James’s. The tranflaters in 
king James’s time took an excellent method : that part 
of the bible was given to him who was 1110ft excellent in 
fucli a tongue, (as the Apocrypha to Andrew Downs,) 
and then they met together, and one read the tranflation, 
the reft holding in their hands fome Bible either of the 
learned tongues, or French Spanifti, Italian, &c. If they 
found any fault, they fpoke ; if not, he read on.” Ac¬ 
cordingly king James’s Bible is that now read by authority 
in all the churches in Great Britain. 
Welsh Bibles. There was a Wei fli tranflation of the 
Bible, made from the original, in the time of queen Eliza¬ 
beth, in conleqnence of a bill brought into the houfe of 
commons for that purpofe in 1563. It was printed in folio 
in 1588. Another verfion, which is tiie ftandard tranfla¬ 
tion for that language, was printed in 1620. It is called 
Parry's Bible. An impreflion of this was printed in 1690, 
called Bijhop Lloyd's Bible. Thefewere in folio. The firft 
oiftavo impreflion of the Welfh Bible was made in the 
year 1630. 
Irish Bible. About the middle of the fixteenth cen¬ 
tury, Bedell bifhop of Kilmore let on foot a tranflation of 
the Old Teftament into the Irifti language; the New Tef¬ 
tament and the Liturgy having been before tranftated into 
that language. The bifhop appointed one King to execute 
this work, who, not underftanding the oriental languages, 
was obliged to tranflate it from the Englifli. This work 
was received by Bedell, who, after having compared the . 
Irifti tranllation with the Englifli,- compared the latter with 
the Hebrew, the I.XX, and the Italian verlion of Diodati. 
When this work was finifhed, the bifhop would have been 
himfelf at the charge of the impreflion, but bis defign was 
flopped upon advice, given to the lord-lieutenant apd the 
archbifhop of Canterbury, that it would feem a fhameful 
tiling for a nation to publifh a Bible tranftated by fucli a 
defpicable hand as .King. However, the manufeript was 
not loft, for it went to prefs in the year 1685, and was.; 
afterwards publifhed. 
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