Geneva Bible

1. Considers alleged deficiencies of William Tyndale and Myles Coverdale’s Scripture translations.
2. The Geneva Bible claim (in the preface) that William Tyndale neglected Hebraisms is proven false.
3. The Matthew Bible treatment of Hebraisms is compared with the 1599 Geneva Bible. Approx. 62% of the time, Geneva changed the teaching or interpretation.

In this paper I expand on my work in The Dog in the Dickensian Imagination to argue that the empathetic depiction of dogs that established itself in literature and painting in the late eighteenth century, and continued to develop, represented less a new departure in cultural perceptions of the dog than a return to those that had subsisted before the appearance in England in 1576 of the mechanically-printed, mass-produced and many times reissued Geneva Bible, the Bible Shakespeare read. As the Victorian biblical scholar H.B. Tristram pointed out, ‘the dog is mentioned nearly forty times in Scripture, [but] there is scarcely a single instance in which it is not spoken of with more or less of contempt or aversion’. I draw on texts and images to support my belief that in late medieval and early modern England the stance towards the dog was markedly unbiblical, while the authoritatively expressed ‘contempt or aversion’ made familiar through the Geneva Bible significantly influenced society’s attitudes to dogs in Protestant Britain. From the outset, the adverse effect conflicted with an established and persisting association of the dog with fidelity. The idea of fidelity assumes a connection with us. From the abiding and revivified recognition of this connection evolved the inclination to observe dogs closely, both as a species and as individuals. It is on the association between the ways in which the nature of that connection (or the betrayal of it) are presented before and after the advent of the Geneva Bible that this paper focuses.

Literary translation is a love affair. Depending on the context, it could be love at first sight or hot pursuits of a lover’s elusive nodding approval. In other instances it could be unrequited love, and still others a test of devotion and faith. Or an eclectic combination of any of these events. Translation involves artistic creativity, not a workshop of equivalences.

To think of translation as a love affair does not eliminate the hierarchies that are part of the historical reality. In terms of its symbolic and cultural capital, literary translations always reflect the global order of the centre and the peripheral. Shakespeare remains the most canonical of canonical authors in a language that is now the global lingua franca.

Contradictory to the purists’ anxiety that the proliferation of Shakespeare in translation, whether in modern English or foreign languages, will spell the demise of Shakespeare’s oeuvre, the rise of a global industry of translation speaks to the power of Shakespeare’s words—not bound within the limit of one language and historical period but open to a wide spectrum of interpretive possibilities, a common feature shared by great works of art.

>Brief background of the puritan dispute with the Reformation CofE, Thomas Cranmer, and William Tyndale over ceremonies and song.
>Compares translations and notes from the Psalms in the1537 Matthew Bible and the Geneva Bible.
>Shows the excellent spirit of John Rogers' notes in the Matthew Bible.
>Shows the ideological motivation of the puritan Bible, and how zealously they  wished to suppress ceremonies, songs, and musical instruments in the Church.

Martin Luther and John Calvin contradicted each other on the fundamentals of the New Covenant. The teaching of the 1537 Matthew Bible agreed with Luther, but the Geneva Bible followed Calvin. Quotations from the two men and the two Bibles are set out here, so readers can see the differences and judge for themselves

This book examines John Calvin’s sense of vocation.

1) It begins with an analysis of thinking on prophecy in early, medieval, and Reformation theology.

2) It finds Calvin within a non-mystical, non-apocalyptic prophetic tradition that focused on scriptural interpretation.

3) It argues Calvin believed his prophetic authority was the same as Isaiah and Jeremiah, and suggests that he may have held himself to be infallible in matters related to Christian doctrine.

4) It argues that starting from about 1555, Calvin began to conceive the idea of encouraging one of the French 'lesser magistrates' (the princes of the blood royal) to rise up in armed conflict against the sitting French king with the aim of taking the throne.

5) Thus, it argues that when that did happen in 1562 when Louis of Condé gathered troops in Orléans and declared their intentions to liberate King Charles IX from the evil councillors surrounding him, this had Calvin's fingerprints on it -- Calvin was to a significant degree responsible for this turn of events.

6) Calvin pursued this plan, I argue, as one of a number of approaches to winning France for the gospel. In this way, the volume explores Calvin's sense of vocation and the impact this had on his political thought.

Looks at The Tyndale/Matthew Bible translation of Exodus 21:1-11, especially 7-11 on female servants, how the Geneva Bible changed it, and what the Hebrew says. Considers the rabbinical and modern treatment of the passage as dealing with concubines and "slave-wives" vs. Tyndale's treatment. The implications are profound.

A comparison of English Bibles from 1537 to today, and how they chose between the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint to translate key passages in the Old Testament. Also considers the Orthodox Study Bible, which is translated from the Septuagint.

In discussing the Advent of Christ, Calvin emphasized the term “manifest.” This led to changes in the Scripture translation of William Tyndale, whose work was used as the base for the Geneva Bible. E.g., 1 John 3:5 was changed from “he appeared to take away our sins” to “he was made manifest, that he might take away our sins.” The new word and the passive voice were unnecessary – unless they were meant to convey new doctrine, which was in fact the case.

This is a hard-to-find document: the full dedication to Queen Elizabeth as set forth in the 1560 Geneva Bible. The spelling has been modernized and there are brief commentaries by Ruth Magnusson Davis to put some of the more puzzling statements into context. The reader will realize why Queen Elizabeth and King James did not like the Geneva Bible.

The Geneva Bible, the product of British Reformed exiles in Geneva, was the first popular printed bible in English. With its explanatory notes, it was the first study bible. Yet these same notes were regarded as a threat by those in power, hence its suppression and eventual supplanting by the 'safer' version commissioned by King James.

The early translation history of 1 Corinthians 13:12, famous for the phrase "through a glass darkly" from the Geneva Bible (by way of the King James Version), shows not only what is lost in that translation, but how it is symptomatic of the decline of the medieval poetics of enigma in the transition to modernity.

Cet article reprend l’argument developpe dans mon livre The Dog in the Dickensian Imagination dans lequel il est demontre que le regard empathique porte sur les chiens tel qu’il apparait dans la litterature et la peinture a partir de la fin du dix-huitieme siecle ne constitue pas un veritable changement de perception mais plutot un retour a une perception anterieure qui avait cours avant la publication en Angleterre de la Bible de Geneve (1576), celle-la meme que lut Shakespeare et qui fut reeditee et reproduite en masse de nombreuses fois grâce a l’imprimerie. Comme le remarque l’historien de la Bible H. B. Tristram, dans cet ecrit « le chien est mentionne une quarantaine de fois dans l’Evangile, [mais] il est rarement evoque sans mepris ou sans aversion ». Partant de cette idee et a travers l’examen d’images et de textes, il s’agit dans cet article de demontrer que dans l’Angleterre medievale puis a l’epoque moderne, l’attitude face au chien etait clairement antibiblique alors meme que la vision officielle defendue par les autorites religieuses et presente dans la Bible de Geneve justifiaient le comportement de l’ensemble de la societe anglaise protestante envers les chiens. Des son origine, ce prejuge negatif entra en conflit avec une vision beaucoup plus ancienne et durable du chien comme symbole de fidelite. C’est cette notion de fidelite chere aux humains et commune aux hommes et aux chiens, qui, etant reconnue et resurgente, fit evoluer le gout d’observer de pres les chiens en tant qu’espece et en tant qu’individu, mettant en avant une communaute d’esprit ou au contraire une dissension importante entre les humains et les chiens dont il est question dans cet article.

Early modern English Bibles are among the most significant texts in western Christianity. They contained the translation of the Bible into English and its authorisation, they facilitated the Protestant Reformation, and their effects on English Christianity and culture are felt vividly to this day. A vital facet of these editions are paratexts: the titles, summaries, glosses, and other non-canonical additions appended to scripture to aid its organisation and interpretation. Though neglected by literary, historical, and theological scholarship, these paratexts comprised huge portions of early modern Bibles and acted as productive vehicles to disseminate politics and theologies. One such form of paratext are the casus summarii, the chapter summaries that precede many chapters in early modern Bibles. In these summaries, significant biblical events or controversial subjects were condensed, omitted, reframed, rephrased, or otherwise represented to suit the editor’s purposes. This article provides the first survey of the chapter summaries in early modern English Bibles, with a table detailing the extent to which they were copied between editions. The article focuses on the Matthew, Geneva, and KJV Bibles, with additional discussion of the Coverdale, Great, and Bishops’ Bibles. The article addresses notable aspects of this material, including practices of translation, representations of Sodom, the anglicisation of names, and the sexualisation of Eve. By explicating the origins and influences of these summaries, this article facilitates the understanding and study of paratexts and demonstrates their importance to scholarship of early modern Christianity.

Hugh Broughton was a controversial biblical scholar who spent much of his life campaigning for a new English Bible. He was one of the sixteenth century’s most profound English critics of vernacular biblical translations, though his most interesting scholarship has been obscured by the tersely-written and contingent, polemical nature of his publications. This paper used a variety of sources, from Broughton’s annotated copy of Estienne’s 1550 New Testament to his manuscript notes on biblical translation, to reconstruct  the reading practices and working methods that lay behind some of his more cryptic criticisms. In doing so it demonstrated how some of Broughton's least philologically sophisticated preoccupations - such as his obsession with typology, prophetic exegesis and the 'perfect coherence' of Scripture - led him to make his most critically astute and historically radical insights into the biblical text.

Link to the article (open access): https://doi.org/10.1093/res/hgx019

Note: Posting a copy of this paper would infringe the copyright. Please access the paper via the link above, which requires no subscription or log-in. If you still cannot gain access, please email me and I will happily send a pdf.

It is well known that the sixteenth century’s surge of vernacular biblical translation was enabled by a greater knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. But by the century’s end, the most exciting work on these languages had far surpassed issues of comprehension. In the chiefly continental, Latinate world of the most advanced biblical scholarship, scholars studied the Semitic influence on New Testament Greek, explained strange features of the Gospels through post-biblical Judaism, and analysed the historical-philological connections between the Testaments. Despite the significant implications such work had for vernacular translation, the relationship between these two fields has rarely been explored. This article will offer a preliminary study by using new evidence relating to the biblical scholarship and translation efforts of the English Hebraist Hugh Broughton (1549–1612). It will demonstrate how the theories and methods he developed in the course of his own research into Apostolic Greek were not only central to his vision of the English Bible, but also affected such details of translation as style and lexical choice. In doing so it argues that, for Broughton, it was within vernacular translation that the implications of the most innovative contemporary biblical scholarship were applied, explored, and developed further.