life application bible for students the living bible

No wonder when a new translation was proposed to King James I in 1604, Bishop Richard Bancroft commented that “if every man’s humour were followed, there would be no end of translating.” 1 James, however, was intrigued by the proposal from Puritan John Reynolds, especially because the translation would not have notes. The English Bible had seen at least 278 settings and printings in 75 years. No fewer than 10 translations of the English Bible appeared between Tyndale’s New Testament of 1525 and the turn of the century. Here it is thought proper, not to enter into any controversy upon that subject, as the inventors of the fancies have been already answered, and fully refuted by many controvertists.” The Rheims New Testament also shot back at Protestants and their translations, explaining that it had been developed “with the object of healthfully counteracting the corruptions whereby the heretics have so long lamentably deluded almost the whole of our countrymen.” Small wonder that the first English translation by Roman Catholics, the Rheims New Testament of 1582, would seem somewhat defensive at this point: “Others have explained these locusts, in a most absurd, fanciful, and ridiculous manner: they make Abaddon the Pope, and the locusts to be friars mendicant, etc. At Revelation 9:11 “the Angel of the bottomless pit” is identified as “Antichrist the Pope, king of hypocrites and Satan’s ambassador.” The Geneva Bible of 1560, for example, promoted the Reformed doctrines of John Calvin and criticized all contrary systems.

This pattern continued in all Protestant Bible translations of the sixteenth century. William Tyndale was strangled to death and burned at the stake for the crimes of translating the Bible into English and of challenging the teachings of the Roman Catholic church in his notes. These early study materials were often as polemic as informative. They also wanted to provide guidance to their readers with explanatory notes and cross references. They wanted to take the text from the tight grip of academics and clerics and put it in the language of the people. Translators sought to create a version that could be studied by the masses. The first English translations were study Bibles in both senses. The Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries More often, however, it refers to a translation plus a set of features designed to help one read and study the text. In some contexts it refers to the translation itself, to a version of the Bible suitable for study. The designation “study Bible” can refer to two things. Overwhelmed by the number of choices in today’s glutted study Bible market? Let an expert on the subject guide you through the maze.

For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal, click here. This article first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, Winter, 1996.

Life application bible for students the living bible