III. THE LATIN VULGATE

Jerome, the greatest biblical scholar of ancient times, devoted a large portion of his life to the revision of the Latin Bible. At first he made a revision of the Italian Latin version used in Rome. He revised the Psalter, and it was used in the Roman churches in Venice until recent times. It is still used in Milan as the Roman Psalter. He made a second revision, which has been used in the Church of France as the Gallican Psalter. He finally undertook to make a new translation from the Hebrew text under the help of Bar Anina, a learned Jew. The Greek versions, especially that of Symmachus, were kept in view. The Hebrew text used by him was the text of the Sopherim. The version was begun in 390 and completed in 405 A.D. The version of Jerome supplanted the older Latin versions; but not without mixture with them in the ecclesiastical manuscripts which have come down to us in the uses of the Latin Church. He did not translate the Apocrypha. These came from the old versions.

The earliest manuscript of the Vulgate is the Codex Amiatinus, prepared shortly before 716 A.D.,1 in the Laurentian Library, Florence. The Codex Toletanus at Toledo is said to belong to the eighth century. The Codex Fuldensis of the New Testament, in the abbey of Fuldo, dates from 546.2 The Vulgate was first printed in 1450 at Mainz, and in many subsequent incunabula editions, said to be more than two hundred in number, before 1517 A.D. The first critical edition is in the Complutensian Polyglot, 1517. Protestant editions were issued by Andreas Osiander in 1522, and by Robert Stephens at Paris, 1523 seq., and much improved in 1540. The Tridentine Council, in 1546, declared the Vulgate to be the official text of the Bible. Efforts were then made to prepare an official text. The Sixtine edition was issued in 1590, under the patronage of Pope Sixtus V., as the official edition. This was withdrawn after the death of the pope, and a new text undertaken under the advice of Bellarmin, and issued in 1592 as the Clementine

1 See Studia Biblica, II. pp. 273, 324.

2 Schaff, Companion to the Greek Testament, p. 151.

text under Clement VIII., and again in 1593, and finally in a more correct form in 1598.

A modern edition of the Vulgate was published in 1822 by Leander Van Ess, who devoted many years to a critical study of it.1

IV. THE ARABIC VERSION

The Arabic version was made in the tenth century from the Hebrew text of the Old Testament by Rabbi Saadia ha Gaon (942). The author was a fine Hebrew and Arabic scholar, and his translation is excellent. At times it paraphrases after the manner of the Targums.2

V. A PERSIAN VERSION

A Persian version of the Law was made from the Massoretic Hebrew text in the first half of the sixteenth century by Rabbi Jacob Tawus. It is literal and follows closely the revisions of Aquila and Saadia. It is in the London Polyglot.

VI. ENGLISH VERSIONS

The Anglo-Saxon versions and the early English versions of Wicklif and the Poor Friars were made from the Latin Vulgate; but during the period of the Reformation, the English Protestant Reformer, William Tyndale, translated from the Massoretic Hebrew text and the Greek New Testament. He translated the New Testament in 1524-1525. He then translated the Law, which was published in 1530, and the book of Joshua in 1531. He probably translated other portions of the Old Testament also before his death, but they were not published. Miles Coverdale translated the whole Bible from the Latin,

1 Van Ess, Pragm. Krit. Gesch. d. Vulg., Tübingen, 1824; Kaulen, Gesch. der Vulg., Mainz, 1868.

2 Another Arabic version was made in the eleventh century, but it has been interpolated from the Syriac by a Christian hand. It has been preserved only in the book of Joshua and 1 K. 12 to 2 K. 1216, and Neh. 1-927. How much more of it there was we know not. There is also a translation of the Law by an African Jew of the thirteenth century, published by Erpenius in 1622.

the German of Luther, and the Zurich Bible, under the authority of Cromwell, and it was published in 1535.

John Rogers (pseudo-Thomas Matthew) was the literary executor of Tyndale. He published a folio edition of the Bible in 1537. He used Tyndale for the Pentateuch, and Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and 1 Chronicles, and for the New Testament; but the rest of the Bible was Coverdale's.

Richard Taverner, under the advice of Cromwell, undertook to revise the English Bible, which he did in 1539. He returns to the Vulgate in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament he is more faithful to the original Greek.

Coverdale, under the instruction of Cromwell, undertook another revision and produced what is known as the Great Bible, which was published in 1539. The second edition, 1540, had a preface by Cranmer. This became the authorized version and remained such for twenty-eight years. The larger part of the Scriptures in the Prayer Book of 1549-1552 are from this Bible.

The English exiles at Geneva, William Whittingham, Thomas Sampson, Anthony Gilby, and others, made the so-called Geneva Version. The New Testament was translated from the original Greek by Whittingham in 1557. It is a revision of Tyndale under the influence of Beza. The Old Testament was translated from the Hebrew by Sampson, Gilby, and others, and was published in 1560. This became the standard Bible for the Puritan ministers of England until the version of King James took its place.

Archbishop Parker undertook a new revision, and the work was distributed among a number of bishops, deans, and scholars. It was at last finished and published in 1568. It was revised again in 1572, and became known as the Bishops' Bible.

The Roman Catholics undertook an English version based on the Vulgate but keeping the other versions in view. The New Testament appeared in 1582 at Rheims, the Old Testament in 1609 at Douay.

And so three great parties in England were represented by three English versions of the Bible.

King James, in accordance with the petition of the Puritans at the Hampton Court Conference in 1604, authorized a new version. Fifty-four scholars were appointed, divided into six companies, to do the work. Bilson, Bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Miles Smith were the final revisers. It was published in 1611, and eventually drove all the Protestant versions from the field. They used Beza's Greek Testament of 1589. It remains the common version of the English-speaking Protestants until the present time.1

An Anglo-American revision was made by a large company of scholars representing the different Protestant religious bodies of Great Britain and America. It was completed and published, the New Testament in 1881, the Old Testament in 1884. The New Testament revision was based on the use of all the resources of modern Textual Criticism. The Old Testament revision was based on the currently used Massoretic text, without any attempt to use the resources of the modern Textual Criticism of the Old Testament. It is satisfying neither to the people, who are attached to the common version and see no sufficient reason for abandoning it, nor to scholars, who are displeased with the excessive conservatism and pedantry which characterize it, especially in the Old Testament. It is very desirable that, when the next revision takes place, Roman Catholics and Protestants may unite in it.

VII. OTHER VERSIONS

(1) The German Bible.

German Bibles were among the first books to appear from the press after the invention of printing. Fourteen editions of the High German Bible appeared between 1466 and 1518, besides four editions of the Low German Bible. These were all translations from the Latin Vulgate. Martin Luther made. the Bible used by the German people since the Reformation. He issued the New Testament in 1522, the Pentateuch in 1523, and finally completed the Bible in 1534. Many subsequent editions were revised by him, until the tenth, 1544-1545. Luther

1 Schaff, Companion to the Greek Testament, pp. 312 seq.

translated from the Hebrew Old Testament, using the text of Brescia, and from the Greek New Testament, using the edition of Erasmus of 1519.1 The Roman Catholics issued several rival German Bibles: Emser, in 1527; Eck, in 1537; and the Dominican, Dietenberger, in 1534. This edition was subsequently revised by Ulenberg, in 1630, and at Mainz in 1662, and became the German Catholic Bible. In 1863, at Eisenach, the Evangelical Church Diet appointed a Commission for the revision of Luther's Bible. The New Testament appeared at Halle in 1867, the revised edition in 1870. The Probebibel was published in 1883, the revision was finished in 1892. The best German translation of the New Testament is that of Weizsäcker. Kautzsch has recently issued an excellent translation of the Old Testament with critical notes, 2te Aufl., 1896. (2) French Versions.

Lefèvre d'Etaples made a French Protestant version of the Bible, which was published at Antwerp in 1530; but the version of Olivetan, published in 1535 at Neufchâtel and corrected by Calvin, obtained wider recognition. Under the influence of Calvin, the pastors of Geneva undertook a revision under the leadership of Beza, and in 1588 issued a version which maintained its place until the present day. But it is well-nigh supplanted now by a new translation from the original Greek and Hebrew by Dr. Louis Segond. The Old Testament was published in 1874, the New Testament in 1879.

(3) Dutch Versions.

A Dutch translation from Luther and the Cologne Bible was issued in 1526 by Jacob van Liesveldt. Van Uttenhove made a new translation from Luther's Bible with the help of Olivetan's, and published it in 1556. The States-General of Holland authorized a new translation in 1624, which was completed and published in 1637. It was called the States Bible, and has held its place until the present time. The new translation authorized by the General Synod in 1854, and published so far as the New Testament is concerned in 1867, has not displaced it. (4) Other Translations.

The Bible was also translated into Italian, Danish, Swedish,

1 See pp. 186, 206.