Internal History. Chap. iii. another'. Thus in these, as in the New Testaments themselves, there is a double revision; and there is nothing to shew that Tyndale bestowed less care upon the lessons from the Apocrypha than on those from the Canonical books". Tyndale's influence in Bible. This patience of laborious emendation completes the ur English picture of the great translator. In the conception and style of his renderings he had nothing to modify or amend. Throughout all his revisions he preserved intact the characteristics of his first work. Before he began he had prepared himself for a task of which he could apprehend the full difficulty. He had rightly measured the momentous issues of a vernacular version of the Holy Scriptures, and determined once for all the principles on which it must be made. His later efforts were directed simply to the nearer attainment of his ideal. To gain this end he availed himself of the best help which lay within his reach, but he used it as a master and not as a disciple. In this work alone he felt that substantial independence was essential to success. In exposition or exhortation he might borrow freely the language or the thought which seemed suited to his purpose, but in rendering the sacred text he remained throughout faithful to the instincts of a scholar. From first to last his style and his interpretation are his own, and in the originality of Tyndale is included in a large measure the 1 For example, in Is. liii. 6, went astray (1534): went all of us astray (1535): 8, when he is taken (1534): though he be taken (1535): 12, of the rich (1534): of the mighty (1535). The last Epistle (for St Catharine's day) is wrongly given in 1534, Ecclus. li. 9-12. The right lesson is substituted in 1535, Ecclus. li. 1—8. Two most surprising misprints of 1534 are also corrected in 1535: Gen. xxxvii. 20, a sand pit (some pit 1535). Is. liii. came up as a sparowe (as a spray 1535). For example, in Ecclus. xxiv. 17-22 the following corrections occur: 18, of greatness and of holy hope (1534): of knowledge of holy hope (1535): 20, than honey or honeycomb (1534): than honey and mine inheritance passeth honey or honeycomb (1535). originality of our English Version. For not only did Tyndale contribute to it directly the substantial basis of half of the Old Testament (in all probability) and of the whole of the New, but he established a standard of Biblical translation which others followed. It is even of less moment that by far the greater part of his translation remains intact in our present Bibles', than that his spirit animates the whole. He toiled faithfully himself, and where he failed he left to those who should come after the secret of success. The achievement was not for one but for many; but he fixed the type according to which the later labourers worked. His influence decided that our Bible should be popular and not literary, speaking in a simple dialect, and that so by its simplicity it should be endowed with permanence. He felt by a happy instinct the potential affinity between Hebrew and English idioms, and enriched our language and thought for ever with the characteristics of the Semitic mind2. 1 To take two examples: about nine-tenths of the authorised version of the first Epistle of St John, and five-sixths of the Epistle to the Ephe sians (which is extremely difficult) are retained from Tyndale. 2 The order of the Books in Tyndale's N.T. is worth recording:The four Gospels 1. 2 Peter This order exactly coincides with Acts Note to p. 151. In the following Table I have given the most important variations between the editions of 1535 and 1534 in a considerable number of books. The readings adopted in Matthew, 1537, are marked M. In making the table I have had the advantage of using a collation Chap. iii. Chap. iii. Coverdale's Bible a secondary translation. § 2. COVERDALE, The contrast between Tyndale and Coverdale has been already pointed out; and in spite of all that has been written to the contrary it is impossible to grant to Coverdale's Bible a place among independent translations. In fact Coverdale distinctly disavows the claim for himself. I have,' he writes to the king in his dedication, with a clear conscience purely and faithfully 'translated this out of five sundry interpreters, having 'only the manifest truth of the Scripture before mine 'eyes..." 'To help me herein,' he informs 'the Chris'tian reader,' I have had sundry translations, not only in 'Latin but also of the Dutch [German] interpreters, 'whom, because of their singular gifts and special dili'gence in the Bible, I have been the more glad to follow for the most part, according as I was required?.' 'Lowly 'and faithfully,' he adds, 'have I followed mine interpre'ters and that under correction". And so it was that the title-page of his Bible which was printed with it In connexion with this edition Mr F. Fry has made a very remarkable discovery. He has found substantially the same text in an edition dated 1534 with the letters G. H. in the border of the second title, no one of the four copies which he has examined having the first title. Out of 113 readings marked as characteristic of the edition 'finished 1535' he found 102 in this edition of 1534, while it agreed only in the II remaining places with M. Emperour's edition of 1534. It seems to follow certainly from this fact that the revision was printed in the spring of 1535, i.e. before March 25. Thus finished 1535' would be reconcileable with the existence of an edition dated 1534 in the other reckoning. At present it must remain doubtful whether the edition of 1534 (G. H.) or that 'finished 1535' was the origi nal. Happily this uncertainty does not affect the text which they present in common, which is the true standard of Tyndale's completed work. [I learn from Mr Demaus that there is a mutilated copy of the edition of 1535 in the British Museum, and that he has ascertained with tolerable certainty that it was printed by Vors termann of Antwerp: Demaus, Life of Tyndale, p. 500.] 1 Remains, p. 11. |