"
John Wycliffe and his followers produce full English versions of the Old and New Testament in the late 14th century. At the same period the Czechs have their own vernacular Bible, subsequently much improved by John Huss.
These translations are part of the radical impulse for reform within the church. Indeed the issue of vernacular Bibles becomes one of the contentious themes of the Reformation.
A complaint by an English contemporary of Wycliffe, the chronicler Henry Knighton, is a measure of how far the church of Rome has swung on this issue since Jerome's campaign against 'ignorance of scripture'. Knighton rejects translation of the Bible on the grounds that by this means 'the jewel of the church is turned into the common sport of the people'.
Erasmus, Luther and Tyndale: 1516-1536
By the 16th century the view is gaining ground that a personal knowledge of scripture is precisely what ordinary people most need for their own spiritual good. Erasmus, though he himself translates the New Testament only from Greek into Latin, expresses in his preface of 1516 the wish that the holy text should be in every language - so that even Scots and Irishmen might read it.
In the next decade this wish becomes a central demand of the Reformation. Fortunately writers with a vigorous style undertake the task. Notable among them are Luther and Tyndale. At a time of increasing literacy, their phrases have a profound influence on German and English literature.
Luther's interest in translating the New Testament from the original Greek into German has been stimulated, in 1518, by the arrival in Wittenberg of a new young professor, Philip Melanchthon. His lectures on Homer inspire Luther to study Greek. Melanchthon - soon to become Luther's lieutenant in the Reformation - gives advice on Luther's first efforts at translation.
Luther revives the task in the Wartburg. His New Testament is ready for publication in September 1522 (it becomes known as the September Bible). Luther's complete Bible, with the Old Testament translated from the Hebrew, is published in 1534.
Soon after the publication of Luther's New Testament an English scholar, William Tyndale, is studying in Wittenberg - where he probably matriculates in May 1524. Tyndale begins a translation of the New Testament from Greek into English. His version is printed at Worms in 1526 in 3000 copies. When they reach England, the bishop of London seizes every copy that his agents can lay their hands on.
The offending texts are burnt at St Paul's Cross, a gathering place in the precincts of the cathedral. So effective are the bishop's methods that today only two copies of the original 3000 survive.
Tyndale continues with his dangerous work (his life demonstrates the benefit to Luther of a strong protector, Frederick the Wise). By 1535 he has translated the first half of the Old Testament. In that year, living inconspicuously among English merchants in Antwerp, his identity is betrayed to the authorities. This city is in the Spanish empire, so Tyndale is unmistakably a heretic. He is executed at the stake in 1536.
In spite of the destruction of printed copies, Tyndale's words survive in a living form. His texts become the source to which subsequent translators regularly return once it has been decided - by Henry VIII in 1534 - that there shall be an official English Bible.
The first authorized translation in England is that of Miles Coverdale, whose Bible of 1535 is dedicated to Henry VIII. Soon Henry commissions another version, edited under the supervision of Coverdale, with the intention that every church in the land shall possess a copy. This is the Great Bible, the saga of which from 1539 provides an intriguing insight into the politics of reform.
The translation which becomes central to English culture, as Luther's is to German, is the King James Bible (also called the Authorized Version). Edited by forty-seven scholars between 1604 and 1611, it aims to take the best from all earlier translations. By far its major source is Tyndale."
Read more:
http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ac66#ixzz7Lk4v3r3a
