Dr. Daniell's "Bible in English:" Coverdale's 1535 Bible

Daniell, David. The Bible in English: Its History and Influence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003. http://www.amazon.com/The-Bible-English-History-Influence/dp/0300099304/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385668294&sr=8-1&keywords=david+daniell+english+bible

Thus far.

PART 1: BEFORE PRINTING: (1) Bible in Britain to AD 850, (2) Anglo-Saxon Bibles, (3) Wycliff (“Lollard”) Bibles and (4) Anglo-Italian repressions—14th-15th centuries.

PART 2: AFTER PRINTING: (1) Erasmus’ Greek NT and those proliferating “pestiferous” and “poisonous” vernaculars that induce “heresy,” (2) the English Reformation (3) William Tyndale, the “arch-heretic,” (4) Continued Anglo-Italian opposition from Henry VIII, Parliament, Canterbury, London and elsewhere despite the growingly influential reformist movement, and (5) Coverdale’s Bible, 1535.

Here at Chapter 11: Coverdale’s Bible, 1535, pages 173-189, our notes on Prof. Daniell’s comments with interpolated musings.

1000s of copies of Tyndale’s NT had an “eager reception” and the “mood was changing.” The Anglo-Italian bishops were “seriously alarmed” (173). “Heresy was abroad and spreading” being conducted by a “gang of organized, professional malcontents…plotting outside England…using the latest technology” (173). Stephen Gardiner, Winchester, wrote in 1546, “…each man with an English Bible to be a church alone.” Or, Richard Nix of Norwich, complaining of the NT readers, “…if they continue any time I think they shall undo us all” (173). Vernacular Bibles—verboten.

Yet, Foxe reprinted a 1531 note by Tyndale that couldn’t be starker or more vivid in contrast to the Anglo-Italian policy:

“Of these foresaid authorities it is proved lawful, that both men and women lawfully may read and write God’s law in their mother-tongue, and they that forfend [= avert, keep away, prevent as cautionary measures] this…they show themselves…the very disciples of Antichrist…in stopping and perverting of God’s law…” (170).

Christ v. Antichrist? Both sides believed they were on Christ’s side and the other side, well, as for Tyndale, from the Anglo-Italian viewpoint, he was a “son of perdition” meriting the purgative flames. Rome won the battle but lost—big time—in the war. Before the funeral-pyres in 1536, however, Tyndale returns the attribution: the Anglo-Italian bishops are “disciples of Antichrist.” Strong stuff! GAME ON!

In Chapter 10, we noted Cranmer’s effort for the “Bishops’ Bishop,” 1534. He met with stonewalling and, in one instance (Stokesley of London), an outright and in-your-face rebuttal. They were busy, you know, with other things. It reminds us of Tunstall’s famed claim in 1524ish that there “was no room in the palace [=Lambeth] for a Bible translation.” No room at the Bethlehem Inn for Jesus.

By 1542, Richard Grafton wrote to Cromwell about the alleged promise by the bishops to produce a corrected version of Tyndale. (We also cited Cranmer’s letter of resignation in 1537 to Cromwell that he expected action from the Bishops a day after doomsday.) Grafton writes, “…it is now seven years, since the Bishops promised to translate and set forth the Bible, and as of yet they have no leisure” (173). The Anglo-Italian bishops were going nowhere fast and they liked it that way. If they had their way, they would put it in reverse. But the printing juggernaut was still rolling...hot and productive presses including Coverdale’s 1535 Bible, the first Bible in its entirety in English.

THE FIRST COMPLETE PRINTED BIBLE IN ENGLISH, 174.

Coverdale labored abroad. His Bible was the first complete Bible in English. It contained the OT, NT and, in between, the Apocrypha. It had 2 columns, light annotations, and 150 illustrations. It became the “head” of a stream—no, a flood—of versions to come in the 16th and 17th centuries…into the Great Bible of 1539, the Genevan versions, the Bishops’ Bible, and the KJV.

The second half of the OT was Coverdale’s, the books that Tyndale had not completed. Remember, Tyndale was arrested in spring 1535. He was in jail until his death by burning on 6 OCT 1536. Fortunately, the OT workups had been in John Roger’s hands while the Imperialists arrested Tyndale and confiscated Tyndale’s property, books and papers in Antwerp. The relationship between what Rogers held and what Coverdale produced is not entirely clear. But, Coverdale presses forward. While Tyndale was in jail, the first English Bible was rolling off the presses in 1535. So far as we know, he never saw a Coverdale Bible.

THE TITLE PAGE, 174-176

The Coverdale Bible was big, weighty, in folio-form and with black letters. Tyndale’s NTs as well as books had been pocket-size, handy and portable—and easy to smuggle into ports and hide in bales of hay. This volume, however, was big.

The title page carried an iconic picture by Hans Holbein. It featured Henry VIII as a “powerful Reformation monarch” (175), precisely what he was not. Henry was a 2.0 version of Anglicanism—Anglo-Italianism but without a Pope.

We have 5 versions for the 16th century Church of England:

• 1.0 version = Anglo-Italian with a Pope (Henrician),

• 2.0 version = Anglo-Italian without a Pope but undergoing changes that give rise to the 3.0 version (Henrician),

• 3.0 version = Anglo-Reformational and Reformed (Edwardian-Cranmerian),

• 4.0 version = Anglo-Italian with a Pope Again, a reiteration of 1.0 (Marian), and

• 5.0 = Anglo-Reformational (Elizabethan).

Henry may have tossed the Pope, but he was still an Anglo-Italian on other essentials of Rome like many neo-Anglo-Italian Tractarians of the 19th century.

But, this iconic title page may have represented some hopeful wishing. Or, perhaps flattery. Or, perhaps, an effort at persuasion. It would have played to Henry’s England-sized ego of about 58,000 square miles. And, later, similar appeals to Elizabeth’s and James’s egos and sense of royalist entitlement, features of Tudor and Stuart kings.

COVERDALE’S EARLIER LIFE, 176-178

He was born in York, c. 1488. He was Cranmer’s junior by five years and Tyndale’s senior by six years. He was ordained in Norwich. He became an Augustinian friar and went to the Augustinian house at Cambridge [obviously they didn’t teach the friars Greek and Hebrew, because Coverdale never learned them…he was no Tyndale].

Coverdale came under the influence of Robert Barnes (later burned). Barnes “read openly in the house Paul’s Epistles” (176). Coverdale was “converted wholly unto Christ.” (Also, of note, Coverdale did take a degree from Cambridge.) Barnes preached in London, Christmas Eve, 1525. He was arrested by Wolsey, an Anglo-Italian Cardinal. Coverdale heard the sermon and participated in Barnes’ defense.

Clearly, Coverdale was, without changes, headed for conflict with the Anglo-Italians.

As for the overview for Coverdale’s life, John Bale, the English historian, wrote 20 years after Coverdale’s life at Cambridge:

“Under the mastership of Robert Barnes he drank in good learning with a burning thirst. He was a young man of friendly and upright nature and a very gentle spirit, and when the church of England revived, he was one of the first to make a pure profession of Christ…; he gave himself wholly to propagating the truth of Jesus Christ’s gospel and manifesting his glory…the spirit [sic] of God…is in some a vehement wind, overturning mountains and rocks, but in him it is a still small voice comforting wavering hearts. His style is charming and gentle, flowing limpidly along: it moves and instructs and delights” (177).

In 1527, he appears to still be in England. He writes Cromwell that he wants more books oriented to Scriptures. New winds were blowing in the universities; as previously noted, the English Reformation was initially powered by university men along with the recovery of the Scriptures. Coverdale reflects that shift. Tyndale, 1528, writing from the Continent, Obedience of the Christian Man, gave his scathing remarks about the absence of Biblical studies in the theological curricula at Oxford “without even a glimpse of even a word of Scripture” (reflecting his experience 10 years before Coverdale’s).

1528 is not clear. He preached a sermon in Lent, 1528, “in the habit of a secular priest” (meaning he had left the Augustinian house), and preached against transubstantiation, image-worship and auricular confession. By 1528, he also fled overseas. He’s 40 years old at this point, a mature man; Cranmer is 45.

1528—1535. The events are not clear, but he was on the Continent, away from the persecutions of Anglo-Romanists. Foxe in his Acts and Monuments puts him in Hamburg, 1529, at Tyndale’s invitation to assist his work on the Pentateuch.

During this period, we get Foxe’s rehearsal of Tyndale’s shipwreck off the coast of Holland in transit from Hamburg to Antwerp. He lost all his academic work, but not his life. Tyndale had to start over with the Pentateuch.

COVERDALE IN ANTWERP, 179-181

Coverdale is in Antwerp in the first part of the 1530s. Tyndale had been in or around Antwerp from 1528ish to 1535. Martin de Keyser was his printer in a city full of successful printers. On 1 street, there were 60 printers. Fine Dutch and French Bibles were being produced. So was Tyndale’s NTs and books. After Tyndale’s demise, Coverdale’s 1535 Bible, Antwerp is the city whence John Roger’s made the “Thomas Matthew’s Bible” in 1537. The latter was a renaming of the Tyndale-Coverdale work—they were heretics, so an innocuous title, “Thomas Matthew’s Bible” (after two NT disciples) was picked.

Coverdale’s Bible, 1535, was definitely printed in Antwerp. Tyndale was arrested and in jail by spring 1535. Coverdale, apparently, was also doing work as a “proof-reader” as well.

The whole Bible was printed 4 OCT 1535 while Tyndale languished in the Vilvoorde prison, outside Brussels.

The whole Bible in English. This is what all the European reformers advocated. “All the reformers across Europe, insisted that the Scriptures should be taken whole, not in measured droplets” (180). They were not cherry-pickers.

While this went to press, one must not lose sight of the on-going prints of the English NT. It was dominating the markets. Between 1537 and 1540, notwithstanding all the opposition from the Anglo-Italians on the home turf, the NT was printed 9 times by 3 different printers. Henry and his bishops could stomp their feet as much as they liked. They were being purchased and read on the home turf.

The ethos and spirit of the entire movement was summarized by Coverdale in his dedicatory epistle:

“Go to now, most dear reader, and sit thee down at the Lord’s feet and read his words, and…take them into thine heart, and let thy talking and communication be of them when thou sittest in thy house, or goest by the way, when thou liest down and when thou risest up…in whom [God] if thou put thy trust, and be an unfeigned reader or heart of his word with thy heart, thou shalt find sweetness therein and spy wondrous things to thy understanding, to the avoiding of all seditious sects, to the abhorring of thy old sinful life, and to the establishing of thy godly conversations” (188).

Martin Holt Dotterweich commented on Coverdale’s new annotations in the 1537 NT (again, printed abroad and imported to England):

“While Tyndale and Rogers [in Matthew’s Bible] especially have been accused of writing polemical notes, a reading of their margins displays few such annotations; rather, the notes consist primarily of lexical explanations or comparison of a difficult passage to others which explain it, albeit with an identifiably Protestant slant. The same is entirely true of Coverdale…[who] took about half his notes from Luther’s 1536 Bible, usually translating them straight into English…The other half are difficult to identify, and many probably come from Coverdale’s own hand as he attempted to anticipate the points over which his readers might stumble” (189).

It seems like Henry VIII was channeling the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar’s persistent obtuseness. The Babylonian king learned of God’s sovereignty amongst men and nations, to wit, that no one can stop or stay God’s hand. Nebster had to learn the hard way.

Daniel 4.34-35: “And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation: and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?”

The Anglo-Italians had issued their views, books and proclamations, including old Henry.

God plans were different. God's, of course, prevailed.

Dr. Daniell's "Bible in English:" Ch. 8--English Reformation

Daniell, David.  The Bible in English: Its History and Influence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003. http://www.amazon.com/The-Bible-English-History-Influence/dp/0300099304/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385668294&sr=8-1&keywords=david+daniell+english+bible

 

          A long post, but worth digesting.  The cumulative force of the Professor's arguments are stunning and staggering. We bring notes with our musings. We'll give his conclusion first. The conclusion to the chapter is this: “The loss to understanding the English Reformation is great” (132).  Indeed, Professor, indeed.

Chapter 8: “The Reformation in England,” pages 120-132: An Extraordinary Chapter

Mr. Daniel had addressed the “pre-printing era” in English life: (1) the Bible in Britain to AD 850, (2) the Anglo-Saxon Bible in “glosses,” in limited regions and for Latin-illiterate audiences, (3) the extent of Wycliffism and his Bibles, (4) and the general environment of the 14^th and 15^th centuries around Wyclif.

Mr. Daniel then moves to the “print era.”  As noted in Chapter 7, Erasmus’ NT was the motor of reform issuing in a Continent-wide rush of vernacular Bibles in England, Germany, the Low Countries, French, Sweden, and Denmark.  England was awash in English Bibles after Queen Mary 1. Or, to switch the metaphor, once Erasmus squeezed the toothpaste from the tube, it couldn’t be put back.

Mr. Daniel turns to a quick 13-page overview of the English Reformation discussing: (1) Bible-based Protestant belief, (2) revisionist denials in the academic community [think Tractarians, anti-Reformationists like the ACNA, Romanist scholars, and secularists with one fear or another], (3) wider Reformation studies to include archives in eastern Europe (closed off during the Cold War, but opened up due to advances in digitalization and electronics), (4) the release of literary and cultural energies [think Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Bunyan and more], (5) the extensive publications of the English Bible, (6) Protestantism as expressed by the Bible, (7) the disappearance of the discussion of the Bible’s impact in courses on the Early Modern Period, and (8) English Reformation essentials.  As can be seen, Mr. Daniell offers a full course meal from 30,000 feet in the air.

Bible-based Popular Belief.  There was a “massive impact” after the 1^st complete translation of Tyndale’s NT in 1526.  We know that (Bp.) Fisher was reviling Luther, an episcopal voice for Henry VIII.  We know Cranmer was ensconced in his cozy and quiet academic life at Cambridge, trying to sort things out. But, “the Bible was leaking” into the nation and the Romanist ship was, in time, to list and sink in the English Channel—to the bottom.  Mr. Daniell points out the sheer numbers of print runs (120).  From 1520 to 1640, a mere 115 years, modest estimates based on official records indicate that 2 million were produced.  By comparison to any other print run, the classics, Ovid, Plutarch, Augustine or others—no comparison.  Put simply, “demand was high.”

The Bible was being read by individuals in homes, local gatherings and was “clearly and comprehensibly read in the services of the new Church of England” (121).  One charming story: an illiterate father has a literate son; he enjoins his son to read the Bible to him in the evenings; the father grows with substantial literacy, thought, and analysis, a simple man, but one brought face-to-face with the Triune God by God’s Self-Disclosure.  Stories could be replicated.  Though not all could read, the NT was read “clearly and loudly” in the churches three times per year (later reduced to two times per year).  The OT was read “loudly and clearly” once per year in the 9000 parishes of England (some, but few, dissenting). The Psalms were said or sung in English once per month.  A few contrasts suggest the impact.

Throughout the nation in the pre-Reformation period, the parishioner would hear a priest “murmuring in Latin at a distant altar [DPV: throw in a rood screen to keep the raffish lot enthralled and fenced out] with his back to the people” (121).  By contrast, in post-Reformation England, the minister faced the congregation, addressed them in English, read 3ish lessons from the English Bible, said or sang English Psalms, and, in their close midst, delivered an English sermon—while the people prayed together in the English Collects, the English Lord’s Prayer, the English versicles and canticles, and confessed their common faith in the English Creeds.  Quite a contrast.

Or, the poor chaps in the parishes of pre-Reformation England would hear their cleric say, Petite et dabitur vobis; querite et invenetis; pulsate et aperiteur vobis.  By contrast, the parishes in post-Reformation England heard in a ringing, loud and clear voice: “Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.”  Significant on a national, or, macroscopic, level.  England would be awash with English Bibles. Even more remotely, but indicatively, ships in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy, during Raleigh’s and Drake’s travels would have two divine services per Sabbath—with the old English BCP, Bible lections and Psalm-singing.  Yet, many modern historians appear to not be concerned about these matters.  What’s up with that?

Revisionist denials.  Mr. Daniell complains of the decades before 2000 (is if something must have happened since then?).  He claims that Catholic (his term for Romanist) historians “dominated the field” (121). They offered up “as new” an old argument of “Catholic continuity.” To them, the national courts of Tudor England “barely touched the English population” which was “overwhelmingly Catholic” (121).  Gone were the older explanations of a real Reformation in England. It came from the “political bullying” by some figures in the courts of Henry VIII and Edward VI.

Students, he tells us, in these decades were taught that the English Reformation “was a failure” (122). One could only write about the Reformation after “many attempted reformations.” This was held and advocated in spite of powerful objections. 

Objections to Roman and Tractarian revisionists.

1.      These tend to view the Reformation through a political lens. We’ve observed this with Tractaholics in particular.

2.      There is a failure to compare and contrast the two centuries: hostile repressions in the 15^th century (previously elaborated) by Rome and Canterbury compared to the dominance of English Protestantism by the close of the 16^th century.

3.      Failure to fully account for the new print culture: England was awash with English services and Bibles.

4.      Failure to account for the “new thinking” in the two universities of Oxbridge. Failure to account for the 100s of new volumes coming to the press.

5.      Serious evidence that the revisionists are selective and “cherry pick” the evidence.  For example, Eamon Duffy’s Stripping of the Altars studied some congregations in East Anglia, committed to Recusancy, and extrapolated his findings to an entire nation.  Surely, there were Recusancy hold-outs, notably in the remote districts in the north.  Of course, committed Recusants existed.  No surprises there. Nonetheless, 9000 churches as we’ve previously noted with English services, an English Bible, an English BCP, English and Calvinistic Articles, and English sermons including English Homilies.  

6.      Failure to answer one big question by the historian, Patrick Collinson: how did England, so strongly under the Italian bishop [think the 1401 Act of De Haeretico Comburendo, the 1407 Provincial Council of Oxford, the 1409 Canterbury Constitutions and the Council of Constance] become so permanently Protestant?

7.      Furthermore, how does one explain basically the Protestant Wars of Religion in the 17^th century, ones in which England was thoroughly Protestant?  Protestant v. Protestant?

8.      Furthermore, how does one explain the “enormous bulk of literature” that was “officially, aggressively and massively Protestant” (122)?

9.      Some background and then a question.  The Italian bishop, Gregory XIII, excommunicated Queen Elizabeth 1 in the 1570s. Jesuit priests, like Campion, were “smuggled in” and held Latin Masses in barns and some homes, some well attended, especially, in remote areas in the northwest.  Question: what about 9000 parishes with English Bibles, English services, printed Prayer Books with Calvinistic Articles, and the Homilies?  If we assume 100 Prayer Books per parish, this indicates 900,000 printed Prayer Books.  We believe this is low; we would like statistics here. There were 500,000 English Bibles in Elizabeth’s reign.

10.  Furthermore, what was the national response to the massacres of St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1572?

11.  Furthermore, what was the response to the murderous behaviors of the Spanish King, Philip II, in the Low Countries?  Think 1566 while Elizabethan minds were still freshing "grieving as nation" about the Marian burnings. These things were known in England.

12.  Furthermore, what do the Henrician, Marian and Elizabethan Injunctions teach?  Show? Especially, the Elizabethan Injunctions; one thing clearly emerges: Roman doctrine had no place in England, period.

13.  How does one account for the massive popularity of Foxe’s Acts and Monuments?  Extensive print runs? High demand?

14.  What does Mr. (Dr. Prof.) Diarmaid MacCulloch mean when he says that the English Reformation was a “howling success” by the end of Elizabeth’s reign?

15.  How do the revisionists deny reports “from the ground” described by William Tyndale or Simon Fish?  Or Chaucer and William Langland? Chaucer’s Summoner or Pardoner are replete with descriptions of corrupt ecclesiastics. Or, even reports by the Pope in the 1520s or, later, Bellarmine that the church was corrupt, top to bottom?  More on that one later from Charles Hardwick's History of the Articles.

16.  Furthermore, why do the revisionists fail to account for the Bibles—widely bought and used—in the Reformation?  Failure to account for this point alone indicates “perversity” if not a “hilarious perversity” (124).  Revisionists seem to sweep the Bible out of the narrative. It was more than a movement foisted on a nation by “Protestant guerillas,” but was a “massive, complex, successful and deeply rooted movement” (124).

Protestant Beliefs, page 125.

1.      It was not a “watered-down version” of Christianity.  Protestantism, contrary to what the ever-facile-REC-Chameleon-Forked-Tongue-Ray Sutton would have it, was not “Catholic Christianity gone wrong” (125).  Rather, it was a clean-up operation.

2.      Gone was purgatory, the cult of the saints, mandatory and auricular confession, mandatory priestly celibacy, justification by complexes of works of various sorts, necromancy and invocation of saints, invocation of and attribution of divine attributes to Mary the Queen of heaven…gone was bread-worship, cannibalism and Ubiquitarianism…gone were indulgences, meritorious pilgrimages, and meritorious and propitiatory Masses for the living and the dead. Gone.  Gone was Petrine supremacy. This was not some “nibbling at the edges of Christian practice” (125). As Tyndale noted in The Obedience of the Christian Man (1528), “The pope’s Church sold for money what Christ gave freely.”

Energy and Cultural Achievements, 125-126.

1.      The released energies “were colossal” (125). A new nation emerged as a consequence of Protestant forces: the USA, for one, in a further effort at freedom. It was distinctively Protestant in large measure.

2.      If one looks at the Geneva presses themselves, a beehive of activity for scholars, a flood of books were “edited, translated and printed” by scholars in the new University of Geneva, founded for theology and classical studies.  There was a widening internationalization of studies. Poor Laud would (repeatedly, aggressively, and with hostility) whine like a howling French poodle, or childish imperialist, or sick narcissist about Reformed theology in England;  he wasn’t half the man of any of the Reformed scholars; Tractarians still howl about this influence from the Continent.

3.      Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, complains about the cultural disaster.  Revisionists act like the Reformation was “quite an unheralded bolt out of the blue” (126).  We’ll say more about this later.

4.      Sacred art flourished with the Drurers and Cranachs in Germany or Hans Holbein in England.  We will continue to review this front in other places.

5.      Musical influences were influenced too. Psalm-singing was widely popular. Think Handel in a later period, English Bible, while the Romanists were still putting Latin services forward—until 1965ish in America.  Think JFK’s funeral service.

6.      Mr. Daniell reminds us of the rise of a supreme literature of poets and prose writers, e.g. Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton and others.  It was a golden period.  This is Mr. Daniell’s area of expertise as a Ph.D. in English literature.

English Bibles, 126.  10 new English versions of the entire Bible or NT were issued from Tyndale’s work until the 1611 KJV.  To the Romanists, this would be a “cultural disaster.” To Protestant and Reformed Churchmen, yeah Americans of any stripe, this was 180 degrees out from the Romanist putdowns of "heretical translations." Again, 500,000 copies sold during Elizabeth’s 42-year reign.

Protestantism and the Bible, 127-128. The Reformation is a wide and complex movement, trans-national in reach and consequences. Luther’s 95 Theses in 1517, attacking indulgences, leading to his excommunication in 1521, set the Romanist barn on fire. Luther’s German Bible in 1522 had huge sales. The complex intersection of Lutheranism, the Church of England, the Swiss Churches, and the Dutch Churches is that—complex.

Seven issues emerged:

1.      Canonical issues.

2.      The establishment of Hebrew and Greek texts.

3.      The inspiration and authority of the Scriptures.

4.      Exegesis, especially of “the hard places” (127).  While the perspicuity, clarity and sufficiency of the Scriptures was held forth [think Cranmer’s Preface to the “Great Bible”], extraordinary efforts ensued to expound the Scriptures, e.g. the complex and detailed notes in the Geneva Bibles, largely lexical, translational and, at points, doctrinal.  Also, think too of this as a period of Grand Protestant Creedalism and Confessionalism throughout the nations: Scots, French, Belgic, Swiss and English.

5.      Vernacular Bibles everywhere; this cannot be under-estimated; this would be one major contrast between Latin Masses versus Protestant vernacular services.

6.      Printed Bibles for all churches.  This remains a concern for Wycliffe Bible Translators.  There are 6000 languages in the world.

7.      A hefty and large industry of scholarship and circulation of aids to Bible study, prefaces, marginal notes, concordances not just of the vernaculars but the original languages, encyclopedias, atlases, Psalters, hymns, Prayer Books and sermonic materials.  The Reformation unleashed a reformation in Biblical studies.

Disappearance, 128—130.

1.      The influence of the English Bible has “disappeared from the sight of scholars of Early Modern History” (128).  There is an occasional remark that the “Geneva Bible failed” because the “notes were objectionably Calvinistic” (128).  This was not true until Mr. (Canterbury) Bancroft’s time in 1604, but that’s another story. The Geneva Bible had a 100-year run in England and a longer one in the US. Even Lancelot Andrewes, the darling of Laudians, used it for his sermons.

2.      Sometimes “major textbooks about the English Reformation fail to mention the English Bible at all” (128).  This surely needs further review and testing. We would believe it is mentioned, but not developed. We will be on the lookout to test this proposition.

3.      Mr. Daniell argues that the English Bible is “privatized and fenced off” in Early Modern History studies with “acres out of bounds” along with the typical wave-off that the English Reformation from 1530-1600 was “all top down” (128).  Bye, bye English Bible. We’ve heard that too, but largely from Tractaholics grousing about Protestant bullies and guerillas…as if Tractarians weren’t that themselves.  More generally, we’ve seen that this subject is little discussed.  Yet, it fails to account for the widely printed, reprinted, used and read Geneva Bibles and Foxe’s Acts and Monuments. More narrowly, we are reminded of two situations. (1) The poor English sheriff of a shire upon his initial acquaintance with the English Bible and 1 Cor. 9.5.  He learned that the apostles were married men. He exclaimed, “The Bible is heresy.”  Earthly “purging” (“purgatory” and “refining fires” on earth through Biblical exposition) was on-going with exposure to the Bible. (2) Poor Queen Bess probably never, on our view, quite acclimated herself to 1 Cor. 9.5.  Although the Bible was the clear Bible on this issue, she tolerated married Bishops and Presbyters, but she was a tad rude to Mrs. Grindal, the wife of her second Canterbury.  Our theory?  Poor Bess was psychologically affected—adversely—by the grievous matrimonial resume of her despotic father, the murder of her mother, and the persistent insistences that she be turned into a “Royal breeding mare” for dynastic purposes, but we digress.

4.      Mr. Daniell repeats the claim, warranting appreciation: “For the English Bible was formidably present” (129). 10 new translations of the Bible, by contrast, while a few fresh translations of Ovid, Plutarch and Augustine. 211 English Bibles or New Testaments were “freshly edited and produced” during Shakespeare’s 52-year life. We are not sure how Mr. Daniell is using his numbers 10 or 211. But this will more fully develop: Tyndale, Coverdale, 3 Geneva Bibles, Great Bible, Bishops’ Bible, and more.

5.      Mr. Daniell affords some comparisons between Germany and England. Between 1517—1520, Luther’s publications “sold well over 300,000” works.  Some of those got to Cambridge’s White Horse Inn, Henry VIII, and Bp. Fisher. By 1522, Luther’s “September Bible” sold 5000 copies in the first weeks of publication. Now, who bought those?  What were the effects of that? By 1572, Luther’s main publisher, Hans Lufft of Wittenberg, retired after printing 100, 000 Germany Bibles.  Same questions.  Influences? Who and where?  Meanwhile, Rome was grousing and whining…and conducting Latin Masses for Latin-illiterate throngs.  Yet, England had far more vernacular Bibles in print that Germany.  No one doubts there was a Reformation in Germany with vernacular Bibles; nor should it be denied in England. 500,000 Bible were circulating in Shakespeare’s lifetime.  “Geneva Bibles in particular gripped the nation” (129). This was the Bible of the poet and prose writers into the 17^th century. The analogy of “airbrushing” this history “is particularly apt here” (129).  The Victorian so-called “High Churchmen,” whatever that was and whoever they were, Mr. Daniell reports, disliked the Geneva Bible.  (We wonder about Dean Burgon or Bp. Westcott, both High Churchmen.) There were 274 editions of the Psalter before 1616—Steinhold and Hopkins. Again, 9000 English parishes were using English services, Bibles and were singing Psalms.  The failure to deal with this subject—academically—“beggars belief” (129).

English Reformation Essentials, 130-132.

1.      The Protestant mind “thought, wrote, and spoke English” (130). There was an “overwhelming” body of “printed matter in English.” Latin plays remained at Cambridge and Oxford—150 were performed between 1550 and 1650.  Latin services were authorized for collegiate and Cathedral churches for the Latin-literate, but this was the exception and not the rule.  Suddenly, England had English literature that was “full and bursting at the seams and overflowing” (131).

2.      Protestant Anglicanism “was an intellectual movement in England” powered by university men.  New historical and Protestant studies emerged in “huge volumes” (131).  Raphael Holinshed and Edward Hall’s Chronicles alongside Foxe’s Acts were found in many homes, giving an account of the upheavals in England and Europe. Foxe’s books had huge sales and had high demand. There was also a serious uptick of volumes of the Latin and Greek Churchmen during Elizabeth’s reign. One is reminded of John Jewel’s patristic learning or William Whittaker’s at Cambridge. There were 2 editions of Foxe, 1563 and 1570, consisting of 28,000 pages.  A significant number were purchased and “chained in churches” (131). Many passages were used in English sermons and lectures. Drake, floating around the Spanish naval assets, would capture Spaniards and read passages of Foxe to them. Yet, Early Modern syllabi and courses lament a handful of Jesuit priests put to death during Elizabeth’s reign while failing to account for the 100s of murdered Lollards or English Reformers…matters that were fresh to “Elizabethan and Jacobean minds” (131).  We would add that these fears were strongly stoked when James II, a devout Romanist, was on the throne in the late 17^th century. 

3.      There was a new sense of “liberty.”  Elizabeth had her censors, but, Mr. Daniell argues, this was more about sedition than heresy (this is unconvincing actually).  Rather than being a “cultural disaster,” English plays were being put on and attended, afternoon by afternoon, in “state-of-the-art theaters.”

4.      Upshot: English Bibles were everywhere and English worship services were conducted nationwide. "For the English Bible was formidably present."

The Puzzle, 132.

Again, Mr. Daniell draws a comparison between Germany and England.  Germany had just a few different editions of the vernacular German Bible between 1565 and 1616. England had 211 different and revised editions in that period.  Yet, for Mr. Daniell (and us), the silence amongst academics is “puzzling.” Mr. Daniell offers some theories.  (1) Academic timidity at the thought of the daunting task needed for a careful analysis of 211 different editions, a warrantable timidity given the voluminous English efforts and concerns. (2) Or, there are “fears” or “embarrassments” about being called a “Bible thumper.”  (3) Or, calling attention to these varied facts would imply that Bible reading “has been too Protestant a thing for Catholics to do” (132)

The conclusion to the chapter is this: “The loss of understanding the English Reformation is great” (132).  

Indeed, Professor, indeed.  

Mr. (Dr. Prof.) David Daniell's "The Bible in English:" Outline of a Must-Read

Daniell, David. The Bible in English: Its History and Influence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Bible-English-History-Influence/dp/0300099304/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385668294&sr=8-1&keywords=david+daniell+english+bible

This one is going to be fun.

Prof. David Daniell is Emeritus Professor of English at the University College London. He is an honorary Fellow of Hertford and St. Catherine’s Colleges, Oxford. He has authored articles and books on Shakespeare and the Arden edition of Julius Caesar. He edited the Penguin edition of William Tyndale’s Obedience of a Christian Man. Yale University Press published his editions of Tyndale’s New Testament and Tyndale’s Old Testament. He is also the author of that magnum opus: William Tyndale: A Biography. The latter is a must-read; if you read nothing else on Tyndale, this one is it.

Acknowledgements, x
Preface, xiii

1. Introduction, pages 1ff.

PART 1: BEFORE PRINTING, pages 17ff.

2. The Bible in Britain from the Earliest Times to AD 850, pages 19ff.
3. The Anglo-Saxon Bible, pages 44ff.
4. Romance and Piety, 1066—1350, pages 56ff.
5. The Wycliff (“Lollard”) Bibles, pages 66ff.
6. Before and After Wycliff: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, pages 96ff.

PART 2: AFTER PRINTING, pages 111

7. The Greek New Testament of Erasmus, 1516 and After, pages 113ff.
8. The Reformation in England, pages 120ff.
9. William Tyndale, ?1494—1536, pages 133ff.
10. After Tyndale, pages 160ff.
11. Coverdale’s Bible, 1535, pages 173ff.
12. “Matthew’s” Bible, 1537, pages 190ff.
13. The Great Bible, 1539, pages 198ff.
14. Towards the Reign of Edward VI, 1547—1553, pages 221ff.
15. An English Plain Style, and Bible Reading, pages 248ff.
16. The Geneva New Testament, 1557, pages 275ff.
17. The Geneva Bible, 1560, pages 291ff.
18. Reformation Psalms, pages 320ff.
19. The Bishops’ Bible, pages 338ff.
20. Laurence Tomson and the Revision of the Geneva New Testament, 1576, pages 348ff.
21. The Rheims New Testament, 1582, pages 358ff.
22. “Geneva—Tomson—Junius,” 1599, pages 369ff.
23. Explorers of the Revelation: Spenser and Shakespeare, pages 376ff.
24. The English Bible in America: From the Beginnings to 1640, pages 389ff.
25. The King James Version, 1611, pages 427ff.
26. Printing the King James Bible, pages 451ff.
27. The Bible in England in the Seventeenth Century, pages 461ff.
28. The Consolidation of KJV, 1660—1710, pages 487ff.
29. The Bible in England and Ireland, 1710—1760, pages 499ff.
30. More Psalms and Hymns, pages 518ff.
31. The Bible in America to 1776, pages 539ff.
32. The English Bible Against Fashionable Deism: Handel and Pope as Examples, pages 555ff.
33. The English Bible in America, 1777 to the Early Nineteenth Century, pages 580ff.
34. Towards 1769 and After, pages 604ff.
35. Matthew Carey and the American Bible Flood, pages 624ff.
36. The Nineteenth Century Bible in Britain and Two Artists, pages 659ff.
37. The English Revised Version, 1870—85, pages 683ff.
38. The English Bible in America, 1841—1899, pages 701ff.
39. Bible Translation into English in the Twentieth Century, pages 734ff.
40. Conclusion, pages 769ff.

Appendix, pages 775ff.
Abbreviations, pages 794ff.
Notes, pages 795ff.
Chronological List of Bibles, pages 843ff.
Select Bibliography, pages 852ff.
Index, pages 867ff.
Photograph credits, pages 900ff.