Featured The Geneva English Bible: The Shocking Truth

Good find. I will have to get on the laptop later and read it again. That page is really hard to read on my cell phone.

I do believe the Geneva Bible is the most under appreciated Bible in English to be produced. It was nearly forgotten from history. I'm a fan of both the 1560 and 1599. I use the 1599 more, just because the font is easier to read. The annotations are so small in the 1560, it can be hard to read at times.

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Thanks for the link

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I have and have read David Daniell's informative book The Bible in English and his book William Tyndale: A Biography. He also edited modern-spelling editions of Tyndale's 1534 New Testament and Tyndale's partial Old Testament.

 

So, would you recommend the book?

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I would recommend Daniell's 900 page book The Bible in English [c2003] and would also recommend his biography of William Tyndale. It would provide a history of our English Bible with informative chapters on each of the pre-1611 English Bibles and several chapters on the KJV although it also includes some chapters on other topics such as a chapter entitled "The Reformation in England" and chapters on the influence of the English Bible on other writers.

In his preface, David Daniel wrote: "This book is about how important the Bible in English has been in the life of Britain and North America" (p. xiii).

I first read it back in 2004, but I have referred back to it many times.

 

There is no official list or record that presents all the men that may have been involved in the translating of the Geneva Bible.

In 1739, John Lewis listed the translators as Miles Coverdale, Christopher Goodman, Anthony Gilby, William Whittingham, Thomas Sampson, and William Cole, and noted that some add John Knox, John Bodleigh, and John Pullain to that list (Complete History of the Several Translations of the Holy Bible, p. 206). At its entry for the Geneva Bible, the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature also numbered the same above first six names as among its translators (p. 1835). Olga Opfell enumerated its translators as Whittingham, Gilby, Sampson, and "possibly William Kethe, William Cole, John Baron, and William Williams" (KJV Translators, p. 22). David Bannerman maintained that William Keith was “one of the translators of the Geneva Bible” (Worship of the Presbyterian Church, p. 36). The Dictionary of National Biography also claimed that William Kethe (?-1608) "acted as one of the translators of the Geneva Bible" (XI, p. 74). This same reference work noted that Cole (?-1600) joined with Coverdale, Whittingham, Gilby, Sampson, and others in producing the Geneva Bible (IV, p. 731). Benjamin Brook maintained that the translators of the Geneva Bible “were Coverdale, Goodman, Gilby, Whittingham, Sampson, Cole, Knox, Bodleigh, and Pullain, all celebrated puritans” (Lives of the Puritans, I, p. 125).

David Daniell included Coverdale, Goodman, Gilby, Sampson, Cole, and Whittingham as its translators, possibly joined in committee by John Knox, and later assisted by Baron, Kethe, Williams, John Pullain, and John Bodley (Bible in English, p. 278). David Cloud noted that “it is even possible that John Knox assisted in the project” (Faith, p. 521). John Strype asserted that John Knox was one of the Geneva translators (Life of Matthew Parker, I, p. 409). Williston Walker also claimed that John Knox “laboured on the Genevan version” (History, pp. 369-370).

In his introduction to a facsimile reprint of the 1560 Geneva Bible, Lloyd Berry noted that “a letter from Miles Coverdale to William Cole in Geneva, dated February 22, 1560, indicates that Gilby, Cole, Kethe, Baron, and Williams had remained with Whittingham to finish the work on the Bible and to see it through the press” (p. 8).

Perhaps one reason some of those that may have been involved in the translating are not known is that the accession of Queen Elizabeth in England permitted some of them to return to England in 1559. Knox and Goodman had been chosen or elected as the pastors of the congregation of English exiles at Geneva. Coverdale, who was godfather to John Knox’s son, became an elder of this congregation. Ken Connolly maintained that Whittingham succeeded Knox as pastor of the English congregation in Geneva in 1559 (Indestructible Book, p. 154). Alan Macgregor asserted that “Knox’s congregation bore the cost of the translation” (400 Years On, p. 284).

 

Danniell's biography of Tyndale is magisterial- simply the best out there.

 

History could have had that as the dominenet version until modern era...
But Kjv had theKing behind theirs!

 

Does your experience prove what you suggest? When you preach and teach from it, do you not interpret and explain your texts that you read in the Geneva Bible?

KJV-only advocates would claim the same thing based on their reading, teaching and preaching of the KJV and its results so would you suggest that proves their KJV-only theory to be true?

Some who preach and teach from other English translations may possibly think the same thing.

 

Most ministers I know still look tot he Greek/Hebrew as final authority, not their english version!

 

Do you understand the consistent application of the concept that you are proclaiming?

You did not deal with or answer the sound point raised by another poster. Would Jehovah Witnesses say that what their New World Translation says doctrinally is the proof that it is correct?

There can be serious problems with the concept that a translation becomes its own proof for its renderings and becomes its own authority in and of itself, making it independent of the authority of the preserved Scriptures in the original languages.

 

To accept that ANY english version is THE perfect one, would have to have accepted a single error free source text, and to assume God inspired the translation team!

The Kjv team never asserted either of those, nor could thegeneva Bible!

 

GenevanBaptist, should English-speaking believers in 1537 have accepted the Matthew's Bible as their final authority?

Should English-speaking believers have assumed that God so protected His word in the 1537 Matthew's Bible so that nothing could have been lost in the translating and so that there could be no errors in it to mislead its readers?

Were English-speaking believers in 1537 supposed to accept and believe every word of their received English Bible that God had provided them as pure, inspired, and perfect?

Since the Matthew's Bible was sufficient for English-speaking believers for at least twenty years, did it supposedly become insufficient in 1560?

If the 1537 Matthew's Bible did not contain all the words of the LORD without error, is it suggested that God made an error in permitting it to be made, published, and received in the first place?

Do Geneva Bible advocates imply that God revoked inspiration at some point in time before 1560 [such as in 1537] and only reinstated it in 1560?

Since God was the same in 1537 as in 1560, according to what scriptural truths can it be implied that the guiding of the Holy Spirit for the translator or translators of the Matthew's Bible was different than the guiding for the translators of the Geneva Bible?

Did some of the textual or translation decisions of the Matthew's Bible translators slip by God?

Does a consistent application of Geneva Bible-only claims suggest or assert that God helped produce an incomplete or fragmented English Bible in 1537?

Since God was just as faithful in 1537 as in 1560, would God bless and use the Matthew's Bible for around twenty years or even for one year if any of its renderings were unacceptable or incorrect words of man and if it was missing any words of God?

 

How about the Bishops Bible, was that not also an English version used by the KJV themselves? Same concerns as with Matthews Bible?