JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

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the texts of both the Greek New Testament and the Latin Vulgate,
printed editions of which were prepared by Erasmus. Estienne
(Stephanus) in Paris also published scholarly texts. The
polyglot Bible editions made it easier to compare the ancient
versions. The new (or rediscovered) methodology of textual
criticism demonstrated the importance of basing vernacular
versions on original and not on secondary texts; Reuchlin and
Luther in Germany were pioneers of the new scholarship. A
new theology was to lead, in the reformed churches, to the
recognition that ultimate Christian authority lay in Scripture,
rather than in the tradition of the Church, and conversely,
in the Catholic Church it led to insistence by the Council of
Trent in 1546 on the “authentic” quality of the Latin Vulgate,
notwithstanding the possibly greater accuracy of contemporary
Latin versions of the Bible. Finally, the period – which
embraces the age of Shakespeare – witnessed the spectacular
advance of the English language as a literary medium.
TYNDALE AND HIS SUCCESSORS. It is primarily to William
Tyndale (1494?–1536) that the English-speaking world owes
its Bible. He was educated at Oxford, and subsequently at
Cambridge, where he learned Greek and was influenced by
the writings of Erasmus and, perhaps, by Luther. By the time
his revised New Testament appeared in 1535, Tyndale had already
learned enough Hebrew on the continent to publish the
Pentateuch (1530), followed by Jonah (1531) and further lectionary
Old Testament material (1534); the “historical” books
of Joshua–II Chronicles, left by Tyndale in manuscript, and
somehow preserved after his execution at Antwerp, were
printed in 1537 in the Matthews Bible, edited by Tyndale’s disciple
John Rogers but pseudonymously named after two of the
New Testament disciples, Thomas and Matthew.
Tyndale’s great contribution, along with his impeccable
learning, was to create a new and supple English, with a Saxon
diction and clarity that encouraged reading aloud. Over twothirds
of the King James Version (properly, of the books he
translated), and thus of the English-speaking world’s historical
experience of much of the Bible, comes from his hand, despite
his remove at several generations from the later classic. His ear
was unerring, and even those immortal phrases coined by the
King James committee, such as “a still small voice” (I Kings
19:12), often owe something to his creativity (in this case, “a
small still voice”). It should be noted that, through the medium
of the 1917 JPS translation, which is basically the King
James-based Revised Version of 1885 in Jewish garb, Tyndale
has strongly influenced the ways in which English-speaking
Jews have experienced the Torah and Former Prophets, up to
the appearance of the NJV (“New JPS Version”) in 1962.
An illustration of Tyndale’s way with language, in modern
spelling, may be seen in his rendering of Ex. 4:10–16:
And Moses said unto the Lord: Oh my Lord, I am not eloquent,
no not in times past and namely since thou hast spoken unto
thy servant: but I am slow mouthed and slow tongued. And the
Lord said: who hath made man’s mouth, or who hath made the
dumb or the deaf, the seeing or the blind? Have not I the Lord?
Go therefore and I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what
thou shalt say. And he said: Oh my Lord, send I pray thee whom
thou wilt. And the Lord was angry with Moses and said: I know
Aaron thy brother the Levite that he can speak. And moreover
behold, he cometh out against thee, and when he seeth thee, he
will be glad in his heart. And thou shalt speak to him and put
the words in his mouth, and I will be with thy mouth and with
his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do. And he shall
be thy spokesman unto the people: he shall be thy mouth, and
thou shalt be his God….
The King James translators follow the Hebrew structure a bit
more closely, in such passages as, “neither heretofore, nor since
thou hast spoken” (Tyndale: “no not in times past and namely
since thou hast spoken”), “send, I pray thee, by the hand of
him whom thou wilt send” (Tyndale: “send I pray whom thou
wilt”), and “he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a
mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of a god” (Tyndale:
“he shall be thy mouth, and thou shalt be his God”). Yet Tyndale’s
natural directness of language is winning, and illustrates
his stated goal of helping even the “boy that driveth the plow”
to understand the Bible, without sacrificing elegance. It is astonishing
that the English of 1530 should be clear and readable
basically half a millennium later, yet that is precisely the case
with this first “modern” English translation of the Bible.
Tyndale’s Bible, a factor in promoting the English Reformation,
raised hostility less by its content than by its Lutherinspired
prefaces and provocative notes, a number of which
rail against popes and monks. Ironically, within a year of Tyndale’s
martyrdom, his famous prayer at the stake – “Lord, open
the King of England’s eyes” – was answered when Henry VIII
broke definitively with the Church of Rome. In 1535 Miles
Coverdale, Tyndale’s assistant, produced an English Bible under
royal auspices, which was actually a private enterprise, and
was based not on the original texts but on the Vulgate, together
with Pagninus’ literal Latin rendering of the Old Testament,
and other versions including those of Luther and Erasmus. It
was followed by the aforementioned Matthew’s Bible of 1537,
in which the remaining books were the work of Coverdale
himself. This in turn was the basis of the “Great” Bible (so
called because of its size, appropriate for public reading) of
1539, known also as Cranmer’s from the preface to the 1540
edition, which Henry VIII had ordered to be placed in every
parish church. Coverdale was editor, but some of his earlier
provocative inclusions were dropped, and although surplus
words found in the Vulgate Latin were rendered into English,
they were typographically distinguished. Some Latinisms of
diction crept in. The translation of the Old Testament was
improved by reference to *Muenster’s Hebrew-Latin Bible of
1535. This edition’s Psalter is the one that has been retained
ever since in Anglican church usage.
ANGLICAN, CALVINIST, AND CATHOLIC BIBLES, 1560–1610.
In spite of the radicalism of his ecclesiastical politics,
Henry VIII was doctrinally a moderate conservative; the
successors of his “Great” Bible, produced under Elizabeth I
612 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3