AUTHOR'S PREFACE

PREVIOUS text-books in this series have supplied introductions to the Old and New Testaments respectively, dealing with such questions as the writers and the contents of the various books. The following pages are an attempt to tell the story of our own English version, and to indicate the many ages and workers that have had a share in perfecting it as a translation of the sacred text. Such an inquiry is naturally connected with much in the general history of our country and of its language and literature which, in the prescribed limits of space, it has been impossible to notice. The author trusts, however, that enough has been said to arouse the interest of those to whom the subject is new, and to stimulate them to further researches on their own behalf. To aid them in this he has appended a list of the books which, with others mentioned in the footnotes, he has himself found most useful. But above all he would recommend the consulting, wherever it is at all practicable, of the various editions of the

Bible itself, as accessible in the British Museum, the Euing collection of Bibles in the University of Glasgow, and other great libraries. "Nowhere

else," it has been truly said, "does the maxim verify your references' apply with greater force."

The author desires further to express his indebtedness to the Rev. W. F. Moulton, D.D., Cambridge, for many acts of personal kindness connected with his work, and to the Rev. Professor Cowan, D.D., of Aberdeen, the Rev. A. Irvine Robertson, B.D., of Clackmannan, and the Editors of the series, for assistance in the revision of the proof-sheets.

Happy, and thrice happy, hath our English nation bene, since God hath given learned translators to expresse in our mother tongue the heavenly mysteries of His Holy Word, delivered to His Church in the Hebrew and Greeke languages; who although they have, in some matters of no importance unto salvation, as men bene deceived; yet have they faithfully delivered the whole substance of the heavenly doctrine conteyned in the Holy Scriptures, without any hereticale translations or wilfull corruptions."

FULKE, Defence of Sincere and True

Translations.

THE ENGLISH BIBLE

CHAPTER I

THE EARLY PARAPHRASTS

1. Anglo-Saxon paraphrasts-Cadmon.

2. Bede. 3.

King Alfred. 4. Elfric. 5. Anglo-Norman ver

sions-Rolle.

ΟΝ

N the title-page of our English Bible there appears frequently the following note: "Translated out of the original tongues, and with the former translations diligently compared and revised by His Majesty's special command." We shall see the full force of these words when we come to the history of our Authorised Version, but in the meantime they may remind us of a fact too often forgotten, that the English Bible, as we have it to-day, did not spring into existence all at once. It is the result of a long and continuous growth, and to those who know its history bears traces of the many ages and the many hands which have combined in producing it. To sketch that history in what at best must be imperfect outline is the aim of this text-book.

In commencing to do so the first thing that strikes us is a feeling of wonder that, long though the history of the English Bible has been, it has not been still longer. For it is a remarkable fact that Christianity and Christian ordinances had been introduced into our island for many hundreds of years before the people possessed the sacred Scriptures in a language which they could understand. To all but the priests, and the