Brief Survey of the English Bible

The Bible has been translated into the English language on many occasions and exists today in many different versions. John Wycliffe first translated Bible manuscripts into English in the 1380's. With his work, the English Bible and the move to get local language copies instead of the traditional Latin was underway in Europe.

Much later, Willian Tyndale was to print the first English New Testament in 1525 - 1526. One of Tyndale's disciples, Myles Coverdale was to finish the translation work that Tyndale had begun and in 1535 the very first published English Bible was produced and is known as the "Coverdale Bible." John Rodgers, under the pseudonym of Thomas Matthew, was to produce, in 1537, the first English Bible translated from the original Hebrew and Greek known as the "Matthew-Tyndale Bible."

Up until this time, all of the work on the English versions of the Bible had to take place in secret as it was still illegal to translate or to publish the Bible except for in Latin. Even original languages such as Greek and Hebrew were forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1539, King Henry VIII of England authorized Coverdale to produce the first ever legal edition of the English Bible. This official Bible would become known as the "Great Bible" and was to be the official text of the Anglican Church (The Church of England) until 1611.

Another important Bible translation occurred in Geneva, a safe haven for Bible translators during this period, under the guidance of Coverdale and John Foxe. This new Bible was to be the first to incorporate the idea of numbered verses which have become ubiquitous in modern English Bibles. Because of the city that it was produced in, this Bible was to become known as the "Geneva Bible." The Geneva Bible had margin notes (also popular today) that, at the time, were highly controversial. Very quickly, a revision of the Great Bible called the Bishop's Bible was produced for the Church of England in the hopes that it would reduce the popularity of the Geneva Bible but this did not happen. In fact, the Geneva Bible is the English language Bible first brought to the Americas and was the edition used by the Puritans in Massachusetts. The Geneva Bible managed to be the most popular edition of the English language Bible from the time of its creation until near the middle of the 1600's.

In 1604, the Church of England petitioned the King, King James I, to allow a new translation to be made to replace the aging Bishop's Bible (which was 36 years old at the time) as the official text of the Anglican Church in the hopes that a new, fresh translation would reduce the usage of the Geneva Bible outside of the church which the church still felt was overly controversial in its directed attacks at the Roman Catholic Church. The new translation would require the services of approximately fifty researchers and would reference all of the major proceeding versions although it would rely most heavily on the work of the Geneva Bible. (This edition would also, however, take into consideration the text in the Doway/Rheims Bible which was and is known to have been altered by man and is not a direct translation but a modification of the Bible texts.) This Anglican Bible was to become known as the King James Bible or the King's Bible. Its purpose was to supplant the Protestant Geneva Bible but did manage to do so for decades. In the years since that time, the KJV has become the world's most published work even though it is often considered to be a less scholarly imitation of the Geneva Bible that is significantly older.

In 1769 a revision, known as the 1769 Baskerville, was made to bring the KJV a little more up to date. It is this revision that is actually used today and is often known as the original KJV due to the original preface being included.

In the 1880's, the Anglican Church, after 270 years, decided that it was time to update the aged King James Version of the Bible and set about producing the English Revised Version or ERV. This edition is incredibly important in English Bible history as it marks the acknowledgment by the Anglican Church that the KJV Bible needed to be updated and, far more importantly, it marked the first release of the new "reduced" Bible which was lowered, by the Church of England, from 80 books to 66. Up until the late nineteenth century all major English Bibles - including the KJV and Geneva - included what is today called the Apocrypha.

In America in 1901 a nearly identical Bible to the ERV was published: the American Standard Version or the Authorized Standard Version. The ASV, as it is known, was very popular in the US leading to its direct replacement in 1971. The product of that revision was the New American Standard Version or NASB. The NASB is a highly technical translation done at the word level making it very difficult to read and understand. The NASB was updated in 1995 and the Updated NASB is generally used today. It is only a minor update to the original translation making it slightly easier to read and based more on modern vocabulary.

Between the ASV and the NASB came the 1952 Revised Standard Version or RSV which was an update, not a re-translation, of the ASV. However, because the ASV had removed the apocrypha, this could not be updated from the ASV so that portion was updated directly from the 1611 KJV. In 1989 the RSV was updated again to produce the New RSV.

In 1958 the Amplified Bible was translated. This is a translation designed specifically to be used in scriptural research. It is annotated in such a way as to allow for a greater understanding of the original text. It is not designed to be a Bible that is easily readable in modern English.

In 1970 the Roman Catholic Church completed a twenty-five year update its official English text under the guidance of Pope Pius XII. This translation, the New American Bible, stands today as the official, accepted translation for Roman Catholics in the US. The edition is precise and technical but still readable.

In 1973 a tremendous ecumenical project was undertaken to create a new, phrase based translation of the Bible that would be accurate, timely and readable by the average reader. The result was the New International Version which has become the most popular modern language translation. The NIV took eight years and more than one hundred translators to complete. The NIV is also known for the extensive translation notes that are available for it.

In 1975 a new translation designed to be widely readable and accessible to all English speakers was created and known as Today's English Version. This version is very easy to read, includes the Apocrypha and is endorsed by the Roman Catholic Church. Some confusion exists over its name as it was often called the Good News Bible. Today, the name has been changed and it is currently called the Good News Translation.

In 1982, a publisher decided to produce the "New King James Version" which would subtly update the traditional KJV while maintaining the style and flow. However, the subtle changes that they wanted to make were going to be too insignificant to qualify as a new, copyrightable, translation and so additional changes were made. Because of this, this edition is not generally well regarded by scholars.

2002 saw the creation of the English Standard Version, ESV, which was based on the NASB but was designed with readability in mind.

The NIV was updated into Today's New International Version in 2005. This Bible is currently hard to find as it is just beginning to be printed. Although criticism to this version is already beginning to surface.

Today there are many translations of the English Bible available and it can be difficult for someone to choose the translation(s) that are right for them. I encourage you to explore several versions as it is important to not become reliant upon a "translation." Bibles also vary based upon their intended audience. Some are highly technical and designed for scholars while others are highly readable, such as the GNT, The Living Bible, The Message or the New Century Version, to make reading the Bible easier and more enjoyable. Finding the Bible that is right for you can be a challenge.

I hope that this brief and, I hope, relatively accurate picture of the background of the most popular editions of the Bible is helpful. I wanted to make this essay available before looking at my own opinions on translations that I hope to make available very soon.