Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Welcome back to week 9 of our class on the Bible.

Let’s pray and then we’ll begin.

Pray

So we’ve been talking about the Bible in this class.

And I’ve said in the past that we basically are dividing up this quarter into three segments.

Our first segment was on the doctrine of the Bible - revelation, inspiration, inerrancy and the canon.

The second segment of our class, which we in right now, is about the history of the Bible.

So we talked about the preservation of the Bible over time (from the manuscripts to our modern-day Bibles), last week we talked about Martin Luther, and his view of Scripture.

In our class we have covered:

Revelation

Inspiration

Inerrancy

The Canon

Translation

Preservation

Sola Scriptura (a summary of Martin Luther’s view on Scripture)

I find all of this to be very interesting.

I don’t know about you, but I love learning about how our Bible was made, and how God has preserved it over time to us.

Today, we are going to talk about the history of the English Bible.

But before we get into today’s lesson, I just want to show you a really cool short video clip that is related to the preservation of the Bible.

We’ve already talked about the Dead Sea Scrolls.

But there was another very cool bit of manuscript news that made headlines last year, in 2016.

(I may have shown this video to some of you already in a previous class.

Forgive me, I can’t remember).

But there was a tiny scroll that was discovered in 1970, that was burned and charred so badly that they couldn’t unwap it without destroying it.

Well, the owners of the scroll kept it, hoping that some day, technology would advance to such a degree that they might be able to finally figure out what was on the scroll.

And just last year, technology finally was able to do this.

Check this out:

Ed gedi scroll video

Isn’t that cool?

I just think that is amazing.

And this scroll is dated between 200-300 AD.

And it contains the earliest copy of verses from chapters 1 and 2 of Leviticus.

That’s cool.

So just remember, the work of manuscript discovery continues.

Who knows what else will be found in our lifetime?

But moving on to today - we are going to talk about our English Bible, and specifically how we got from the first translations in English to today’s versions.

Then, next week, we will begin our third and final segment, which will last until the end of the quarter, on how to study the Bible.

So that’s what the remainder of our class looks like.

Today will be our last lesson in the ‘history’ section of our class.

Then, next week, we will begin our third and final segment, which will last until the end of the quarter, on how to study the Bible.

So far, we’ve talked about a lot of subjects related to the Bible.

And as I’ve said in the past - our class has basically babout the doctrine of the Bible - revelation, inspiration, the canon, preservation, and more.

But for today, I want to talk about the history of the English Bible.

Let’s start our lesson with a review of translation.

Review: The Problem of Translation

All translation is interpretation.

There is no perfect way to translate the Bible from one language to another.

In one sense, only the original autographs (in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic) are absolutely perfect.

Muslims have a similar view of their Scriptures - In their view, the only true Koran is the one in Arabic.

Muslims have a similar view of their Scriptures - In their view, the only true Koran is the one in Arabic.

Nevertheless, translation is necessary, for without it, we wouldn’t be able to understand the Word of God.

Because language changes over time, new translations are also necessary over time.

One English translation will not suffice for all time.

For example, words fall out of common use such as ‘Thou’ and ‘Thee’.

We don’t use those words in normal conversation any longer.

And there are other words that have their primary meaning change over time.

A few weeks ago, we gave the King James example of ‘suffer the little children come to me’.

In that context, ‘suffer’ means allow.

But that’s not its primary meaning any longer.

In addition, the word ‘gay’ has changed meanings.

Now, we have already talked about ‘Translation’ in a dedicated lesson a few weeks ago.

In that lesson we talked about the different types of translations, from ‘literal, word-for-word’ translations like the NASB and ESV to ‘dynamic equivalence’ translations like the NIV, all the way to modern paraphrases like the New Living Translation.

Today I’d like to not so much talk about the philosophy of translation, like we did then, but rather, cover the history of English translations, and the interesting stories around the English Bibles through the centuries.

The First Translations into English

Who is often credited with the first translation of the Bible into English?

John Wycliffe

Actually, Wycliffe didn’t do this work alone.

It is commonly thought that he only did part of the New Testament, and his followers did the rest.

And it is also commonly accepted that one of his associates, Nicholas of Herford, translated the Old Testament.

But the person who initiated all of this was John Wycliffe.

And he lived from 1320-1384.

While he and his followers made a complete translation of the Bible, several smaller portions of the Bible in English had translated into English many years before.

When did the English language begin?

Around 600 AD

According to Wikipedia,

The earliest form of English is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon (c.

550–1066 CE).

Old English developed from a set of North Sea Germanic dialects originally spoken along the coasts of Frisia, Lower Saxony, Jutland, and Southern Sweden by Germanic tribes known as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.

In the fifth century, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain as the Roman economy and administration collapsed.

By the seventh century, the Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in Britain, replacing the languages of Roman Britain (43–409 CE): Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, and Latin, brought to Britain by the Roman occupation.

England and English (originally Ænglaland and Ænglisc) are named after the Angles.

Before Wycliffe, only partial translations of the Bible (Exodus, the Psalms, the Gospels, and other small portions) were completed.

None of these were ever mass-produced for widespread use in the home or for corporate worship.

In 735, Saint Bede, an English monk, on his dying day, completed his translation of John’s Gospel.

Then about 165 years later, around 890 AD, King Alfred the Great issued a book of laws that included English translations of the 10 Commandments, a few chapters from Exodus, and .

A few others during this period translated the Gospels or the Psalms, and little else.

Some Problems with the earliest English translations:

They were incomplete.

They were translated from the Latin Vulgate, not the original Greek and Hebrew texts.

Not only were these translations incomplete, but there were three other problems with them: (1) they were all translations from the Latin Vulgate, rather than from the original Greek and Hebrew texts; (2) they were not very good translations; and (3) for the most part, they were not accessible to lay folks, but were “translation ponies” to help the priests understand the Latin Vulgate better.

They were not very good translations.

They were not accessible to the average Christian.

For over 300 years, no Bible translation into English was done, as far as we know.

The Norman Invasion of 1066 was the fundamental reason: for the next three centuries English was only infrequently used for any written documents.

Noblemen wrote in French—the language of the elite—and official church documents were in Latin.

English was for peasants.

Wycliffe’s Bible

This brings us to Wycliffe’s Bible.