brew Bible in this period was the Antwerp Polyglot
(1568–73) printed by PLANTIN.
The edition of ERASMUS(1516), with a parallel Latin
translation by the editor, was the first published Greek
text of the New Testament. Subsequent editions (1519,
1522) made considerable improvements and were used as
the bases of LUTHER’s and TYNDALE’s translations respec-
tively. The first attempt at a really critical text of the New
Testament appeared in 1534, but it was not until the
Stephanus folio New Testament (1550) (see ESTIENNE
PRESS) that a text appeared based on the collation of a large
number of manuscripts.
Scholars also addressed the problem of a reliable text
of the Vulgate. The Stephanus editions from 1528 onwards
represented a major advance but were rejected by the
Catholic authorities. The text finally accepted by the
Church was the Sistine-Clementine version, first pub-
lished (1590) under Pope SIXTUS Vand reissued (1592)
with extensive correction under CLEMENT VIII.
Further reading: Jerry H. Bentley, Humanists and Holy
Writ: New Testament Scholarship in the Renaissance
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983).
Bible, translations of Translations of the Scriptures go
back to the third century BCEwhen the Septuagint was
produced to satisfy the needs of Greek-speaking Jews in
Alexandria. St. Jerome in the fourth century CEproduced,
in the Vulgate, a Latin translation which catered for the
Western Church and became the Bible of the Middle Ages.
The impetus to translate the Bible into vernacular lan-
guages was part of the general reform movement that
spread through northern Europe in the 15th and 16th cen-
turies, and these translations were often made with a
polemical purpose. For English speakers the first impor-
tant name is that of John WYCLIF, whose translation, based
on the Vulgate, first appeared in the 1380s; the fact that
nearly 200 manuscripts survive, containing all or a sub-
stantial part of the Scriptures, shows the wide diffusion of
this work. Wyclif’s translation was used to support a chal-
lenge to Church authority (see LOLLARDS) and Archbishop
Thomas Arundel tried to suppress it. A similar series of
events led LUTHERto the production of his German Bible
(New Testament 1522, Old Testament 1523–32, complete
text 1534), which had an immense impact not only upon
the religious debate but also upon the GERMAN LANGUAGE.
(Although by far the most famous, Luther’s was certainly
not the first German translation of the Bible; there had
been no fewer than 18 earlier versions, with the earliest
printed version appearing in 1466.)
Wyclif’s work circulated in England in manuscript;
even so it reached a wide audience and traveled as far as
Bohemia where it influenced the HUSSITEmovement. The
invention of printing had a profound impact on Bible
translation, enabling new versions to gain currency with
unprecedented speed. The study of Greek, encouraged by
Florentine humanism, led to the study of the New Testa-
ment in the original language and eventually to transla-
tions from Greek rather than from Jerome’s Latin version.
William TYNDALE was the first to produce an English
translation from Greek (1525). Religious pressures forced
Tyndale out of England and the work was printed at
Cologne. It received hostile treatment from the govern-
ment, Sir Thomas MOREbeing particularly opposed to it.
Tyndale’s work was the basis for the translation (1535) by
Miles Coverdale (1488–1568), a version that circulated in
England with government approval as a consequence of
the changed political climate. The edition known as
Matthew’s Bible (1537) combines the work of Tyndale and
Coverdale. Coverdale also edited the large format Great
Bible (1539), designed to be read aloud from church
lecterns. The Geneva Bible (1560) was the work of Protes-
tant exiles on the Continent during the reign of Mary I,
but its extreme Puritan marginalia made it unacceptable to
the moderate Elizabethan Church, which countered with
the Bishops’ Bible (1568). English Protestant translations
of the Bible in this period culminated in the Authorized
Version of 1611 (also known as the King James Bible),
which became the standard English Bible until the Revised
Version of 1885.
The Reformation forced the Roman Church to pro-
duce its own vernacular translations of the Scriptures.
One of the earliest was the German version by Hierony-
mus EMSER(1527). An English Bible was published at
Reims (New Testament 1582) and Douai (Old Testament
1609). The Douai-Reims text, with its strongly Latinate
language, followed the Vulgate minutely, even to the point
of reproducing nonsense, but nonetheless became the ac-
cepted version for the English Catholic community. The
Polish Catholic Bible (1599) of the Jesuit scholar Bishop
Jakub Wiyek (1541–97) has greatly influenced the Polish
vernacular.
Following Luther’s example, Protestant scholars all
over Europe translated the Scriptures into their native
tongues. An early Lutheran New Testament was published
in Sweden in 1526; it was associated with Olaus PETRI,
who also worked on the complete Gustavus Vasa Bible
of 1541. Another Lutheran New Testament was that
published in 1529 by the Dane Christiern Pedersen
(c. 1480–1554), who later collaborated on the socalled
Christian III Bible (1550). In France LEFÈVRE D’ÉTAPLES
made a translation of the New Testament from the Vulgate
(1523); his French Old Testament appeared five years
later. OLIVETAN, whose Bible was published in 1535, made
the first French translation of the Old Testament direct
from the Hebrew, but his New Testament is merely a revi-
sion of Lefèvre’s. ENZINAS(Dryander) published El Nuevo
Testamento in Antwerp in 1543, and a complete Spanish
version by the friar turned Protestant, Casiodoro de Reina
(died c. 1581), appeared at Basle in 1569. A Bible in LatinBBiibbllee,, ttrraannssllaattiioonnss ooff 5555