The Matthew Bible

From Textus Receptus

1380 Wyclif's Bible
1526 Tyndale Bible
1535 Coverdale Bible
1537 The Matthew Bible
1539 Taverner's Bible
1539 The Great Bible
1560 The Geneva Bible
1568 The Bishops' Bible
1610 Douay-Rheims Bible
1611 King James Version
1833 Websters Bible
1881 Revised Version
1898 Young's Literal Translation
1952 Revised Standard Version
1971 King James II Version of the Bible
1971 New American Standard Bible
1973 New International Version
1982 New King James Version
1991 21st Century King James Version
1999 Modern King James Version
1999 American King James Version
2000 Updated King James Version
2001 English Standard Version
2001 Holy Scriptures Version
2005 New Cambridge Paragraph Bible
2005 Today's New International Version
2006 Authorized Version Update
2006 AV7 (New Authorized Version)
2014 Modern English Version
2016 King James Version 2016 Edition
2023 King James Version 2023 Edition buy the revised and updated printed 2023 Edition New Testament here

The Matthew Bible, also known as Matthew's Bible, was first published in 1537 under the pseudonym "Thomas Matthew". It combined Coverdale's work with the maximum of Tyndale's, and thus began the main sequence of English Bible translations.

Translation

Matthew's Bible was the combined work of three individuals, working from numerous sources in at least five different languages.

The Pentateuch, the Books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, First and Second Samuel, First and Second Kings, and First and Second Chronicles—as well as the entire New Testament first published in 1526 and later revised—were the work of William Tyndale. Tyndale worked directly from the Hebrew and Greek, occasionally consulting the Vulgate and Erasmus’s Latin version, and referencing Luther's Bible for the prefaces and marginal notes. The use of the pseudonym "Thomas Matthew" resulted from the need to conceal from Henry VIII the participation of Tyndale in the translation.

The remaining books of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha were the work of Myles Coverdale. Coverdale translated primarily from German and Latin sources (see Coverdale Bible).

The Prayer of Manasses was the work of John Rogers. Rogers translated from a French Bible printed two years earlier (in 1535). Rogers compiled the completed work and added the preface, some marginal notes, a calendar and almanac.

Of the three translators, two were burned at the stake. Tyndale was burned on 6 October 1536 in Vilvoorde, Belgium at the instigation of agents of Henry VIII and the Anglican Church. John Rogers was "tested by fire" on 4 February 1554/55 at Smithfield, England; the first to meet this fate under Mary I of England. Myles Coverdale was employed by Cromwell to work on the Great Bible of 1539, the first officially authorized English translation of the Bible.

Historians often tend to treat Coverdale and Tyndale like competitors in a race to complete the monumental and arduous task of translating the biblical text. One is often credited to the exclusion of the other. In reality they knew each other and occasionally worked together. Foxe states that they were in Hamburg translating the Pentateuch together as early at 1529.

Time and extensive scholastic scrutiny have judged Tyndale the most gifted of the three translators. Dr Westcott in his History of the English Bible states that "The history of our English Bible begins with the work of Tyndale and not with that of Wycliffe." The quality of his translations has also stood the test of time, coming relatively intact even into modern versions of the Bible.

Printing

It is not known who printed the Matthew Bible (Herbert #34); it may have been Jacobus van Meteren in Antwerp. Later editions were printed in London; the last of four appeared in 1551 (Herbert #92).

Van Meteren's son, Emanuel stated in an affidavit dated 28 May 1609 that his father was "a furtherer of reformed religion, and he that caused the first Bible at his costes to be Englisshed by Mr Myles Coverdal in Andwarp, the w’h his father, with Mr Edward Whytchurch, printed both in Paris and London." Coverdale was employed as a translator by Jacobus van Meteren. Rogers began assisting the work around 1535, and married J. van Meteren's niece Adriana in the same year that the Matthew Bible was published (1537).

References

A. S. Herbert, Historical Catalogue of Printed Editions of the English Bible 1525–1961, London: British and Foreign Bible Society; New York: American Bible Society, 1968. SBN 564-00130-9.

External links

Online version of Sir Frederic G. Kenyon’s article in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, 1909.
Books Fatal to Their Authors, by P. H. Ditchfield, 1894.
Wikipedia Article on the Matthew Bible

The King James Version 2023 Edition New Testament is now complete and in print format here.

Internal Links

Old Testament - New Testament KJV 1900

New Testament KJV 2016

Scrivener's 1894 Textus Receptus

2016 Urdu New Testament (TR Based)

Russian Synodal Version (TR Based)

Reina Valera Gómez Spanish (TR Based)

Marginal Notes in the 1611 Authorized Version

Ephesians 3:9

Why We Should Not Passover Easter 1, 2, & 3

Will Kinney

List of TR/KJV based foreign bibles

List of New Testament minuscules

List of New Testament lectionaries

^{List of New Testament Papyri}

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