Tag Archives: William Tyndale

The Table of Principal Matters in the Matthew Bible

Posted on by Posted in Principal Matters Series

“As the bees diligently do gather together sweet flowers, to make by natural craft the sweet honey, so have I done with the principal topics contained in the Bible.” (John Rogers, introduction to the Table of Principal Matters, 1537 Matthew Bible)

This is an introduction to the blog series, Principal Matters from the 1537 Matthew Bible. The purpose of the series is to make people familiar with the Table of Principal Matters in the Matthew Bible and to learn from the English Reformers. It will be a great series for bible study groups to follow topic by topic each month, or for sermon outlines, to preach from the Scriptures.

  • What was the Table of Principal Matters?
  • What are the topics of the Table?
  • Seven foundational points
  • A picture of the first page of the Table, including the short, original introduction

What was the Table of Principal Matters?

The Table of Principal Matters was one of the features of the 1537 Matthew Bible that made it the world’s first English study bible. It was a lengthy concordance, set at the beginning of the bible, which reviewed topics of the faith in alphabetical order. Under each topic were short statements of doctrine with verses for further study. A lot of care, thought, and labour went into its preparation.

The Englishman John Rogers compiled and published the Matthew Bible, which was so-called because it was presented to King Henry VIII as translated by “Thomas Matthew.” This was a pseudonym to conceal William Tyndale’s involvement in the translation, because the king had banned all Tyndale’s work. The real translators of the Matthew Bible were William Tyndale and Myles Coverdale. Rogers collated the work of these two men, added over 2,000 expository notes, and then put a church calendar, a review of the age of the earth, other notices, and the Table of Principal Matters, at the beginning of his amazing work.

The Table was not Rogers’ original work, but was taken and translated from the 1535 French bible of Pierre Olivetan.

At our website, NewMatthewBible.org, is information about the Matthew Bible, about our project to update it, and a variety of interesting articles.

What are the topics of the Table of Principal Matters?

Some of the topics reviewed in the Table are Abomination … Abstinence … Adultery … Angels … Anointing … Antichrist … Beatitudes, or Blessedness …… Born Again … Character or Mark (of Antichrist) … The Coming of Christ in the Flesh … The Coming of Christ unto Us … Free Choice or Free Will … Gifts … Hatred … Innocency … Kingdom … The General Judgment … Human Judgment … Providence … Prudence … Tribulation … The Word of God … Wrath or passion of man … Zeal.

This is just a small sampling; the Table had 237 topical entries in all. This series will review most of them, topic by topic, in alphabetical order following the Table. With 1-2 posts per month, it will be good for years to come (God willing). I’ll enhance each study by setting out the bible verses referred to, taken from the Matthew Bible. It is great food for the soul for those who love God’s word.

Seven foundational points

To properly understand the Table of Principal Matters, we need to appreciate that the Matthew Bible is amillennial and non-dispensational.[1] It is therefore premised on the following foundational beliefs concerning the New Covenant and the kingdom of Christ:

(1) Jesus’ kingdom is now; his marvelous kingdom has come. There is no promise of a worldly kingdom yet to come in a future millennium (as many interpret Revelation 20 nowadays). The Lord’s kingdom came in power at Pentecost. It is spiritual and heavenly, in spirit and in truth in the power of the Holy Spirit. In his kingdom, Jesus reigns in the hearts and consciences of his people. Rogers wrote in his note on John 18:36, where Jesus said that his kingdom is not of this world:

That is, my kingdom is not a worldly kingdom, which consists in strength, in armour, in men, in the sword, and in taking dominion over things of this material or worldly realm. But my kingdom is spiritual, and is in the hearts of the faithful, who are ruled not by the sword, but by the gospel.

(2) Under the New Covenant, the “people of God” means all believing people, Jew and Gentile. We are both as one in Christ Jesus because the middle wall of partition has been broken down (Eph. 2:14). There is no longer any difference Jew and Gentile, nor a special, favoured place for Israel:

Now there is neither Jew nor Gentile, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither man nor woman, but you are all one thing in Christ Jesus. (Gal. 3:28)

One of the first Principal Matters topics is “Accepcyon” (that is, “Acception,” an obsolete word meaning “Partiality”). This entry shows how God is not partial to any man or nation, with Scriptures in support from both the Old and New Testaments.

But people may object that, under the Old Testament, the Jews had a special place and special promises. Indeed, but this was by way of example (1 Cor. 10:6,11), and to accomplish his purposes through them, but not out of partiality. For though he set his affection upon them, yet many were overthrown in the wilderness (1Cor. 10:5, Heb. 3:17). Rogers shows under the topic “Abrogation” how it was for its futility that the Old Covenant was abrogated; that is, completely done away with. It is written in Hebrews 7:18,  “The previous commandment is abrogated because of its weakness and unprofitableness.”

Paul addressed the question of the preferment of the Jews in Romans 3:

What preferment, then, has the Jew? Or what advantage from circumcision?  Surely very much. The word of God was committed first to them. What, then, if some of them did not believe? Does their unbelief make the promise of God without effect? God forbid. Let God be true and all men liars, as it is written: That you may be justified in your words, and should overcome when you are judged…. For we have already established that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin, as it is written: There is none righteous, no, not one…. Without doubt, the righteousness which is good before God comes by the faith of Jesus Christ, to all and upon all who believe. There is no difference. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Ro. 3:1-4, 9-10, 22-23)

(3) In the Bible, the “last days” (or “latter days”) generally refers to the entire period from Christ’s first to second coming. Rogers clarified this point several times in his expository notes. Many Scriptures support this. Peter said at Pentecost that the pouring out of the Spirit indicated that the last days had then arrived, pursuant to Old Testament prophecies (Acts 2:17). In Hebrews, also written in the first century, we are told that “in these last days” God has spoken to us by his Son. Therefore, the things of the last days are now, and they include not only Christ’s kingdom, but also the kingdom of Antichrist and tribulation. “Tribulation” is one of the topics of the Table that we will see.

(4) I would add my own point (which I have not seen addressed in the notes of the Matthew Bible nor in the Table of Principal Matters), which is that most amillennialists believe the 1,000-year millennium of Revelation 20 is the “last days.” The number 1,000 simply signifies a very long period of time. In the Hebrew tongue, numbers were often used symbolically (as, for example, the number ‘7’ symbolizes fullness or completeness). Another way to put it is, the 1,000 years signify God’s patience.

(5) I would add also that, in Jesus’ kingdom, the first resurrection mentioned in Revelation 20 is the resurrection of the soul when the people of God pass from death to life upon hearing the gospel and believing on Jesus. The second, general resurrection is the raising up of the bodies of all people from their graves, and will take place at the second coming. For believers, who are blessed to have part in the first resurrection (Rev. 20:6), the second resurrection, with union of soul and body and the promise of the entrance into the eternal life, is their hope. However, the hope for a future earthly dispensation when the Jewish nation will be exalted is the hope of Judaism.

(6) When Jesus returns, it will mark the end of his present kingdom in this earth and the end of time. It will bring the judgment, and the new heavens and earth will be ushered in, which will never pass away. Revelation 10:6 in Tyndale’s New Testament says that when Jesus returns, “there should be no longer time”; that is, time will be no more. The KJV has, “there should be time no longer.” In other words, time will not be for one minute longer, let alone a thousand years.

But many modern Bibles changed the translation. In the NIV, Revelation 10:6 reads, “There will be no more delay!” This is ambiguous. It could mean, no more delay till the end of the world. But it obviously (and more easily) supports the hope of a new age during which time will continue.

(7) The Reformers called the belief in a future, utopian, earthly kingdom a “Jewish dotage,” being derived from Judaic doctrine. In the 1553 Articles of Religion of the Church of England, Thomas Cranmer wrote about “Millenarii” (those who believe in a future millennial kingdom):

Heretics called Millenarii: They that go about to renew the fable of heretics, called Millenarii, [are] repugnant to Holy Scripture, and cast themselves headlong into a Jewish dotage.[2] 

A gospel that promises another kingdom, one other than the present kingdom of Christ, really is another gospel (2 Cor. 11:4, Gal. 1:6-8). It denigrates from the greatness, reality, power, and wonder of Christ’s reign now – as all “other gospels” will do. It fractures our singular focus on the spiritual kingdom and its promises, to turn our eyes to another kingdom – a political one, so to speak – and to other promises.

When a person becomes familiar with the Matthew Bible, it washes the mind of the taint of strange doctrines. Over the years, many changes have been introduced to the original Scripture translations of William Tyndale and Myles Coverdale. These subtly or overtly contribute to weakening the truth that was purely set forth in the blood-bought Matthew Bible. Many of these are discussed in Part 2 of the Story of the Matthew Bible.

The first page of the Table, including the short, original introduction

Below is an image of the first page of the Table of Principal Matters in the 1537 Matthew Bible, including the introduction “To the Christen Readers.” This is a scan of my Hendrickson facsimile. The red numbers are my own, which I inserted for reference. Rogers also took the introduction from Pierre Olivetan’s 1535 Bible and translated it from the French.

The first page of the Table of Principal Matters in the 1537 Matthew Bible, with the introduction at the top.

Ruth Magnusson Davis, June 2022

________________________

Endnotes:

[1] Issues of the millennium are covered in more detail in chapter 27 of Part 2 of The Story of the Matthew Bible. See also my paper Christian Zionism: Rebuilding Jericho.

[2] Article XLI of the 1553 Articles of Religion was removed in 1563. Both pre- and postmillennialism have roots in Judaism. The concept of a future millennium is tied to a rabbinical interpretation of the creation week. The Jewish belief was that, after the fall, the world would continue for 6,000 years, and then there would be a millennium of rest, or Sabbatical millennium – a kind of earthly utopia. A Christianized form of this doctrine was known in the early Church as chiliasm, from the Greek chiliad or ‘thousand.’ Its adherents were called Chiliasts; they believed Christ would return and reign with the saints on earth for a thousand years. Some well-known Chiliasts were Irenaeus and Tertullian. Chiliasm was identified as a “Jewish fable” and put to rest in the 4th century, but was revived by the Anabaptists during the Reformation.

Dispensationalism began in early 19th-century England. It divides human history into seven dispensations or eras, from the era of innocence before Adam’s fall, through to Christ’s reign in a messianic kingdom during a future seventh and final age. The period from Moses to Jesus is considered the dispensation of Mosaic law.

 

Christ Our Sin Offering and Passover Lamb: The Matthew Bible vs. the Geneva Bible

Posted on by Posted in Compare

It is almost Easter in the church calendar, and time for the remembrance of how our Lord was offered up upon the cross for us. Here we see how the 1537 Matthew Bible taught this remembrance at 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Romans 8:3, and contrast it with the different teaching in the Geneva Bible on these same verses. The difference arose in part from the Geneva re-interpretation of Paul’s mysterious saying, “Christ was made sin for us.”

2 Corinthians 5:21 – Christ was made sin for us (or, became sin for us)

In the Incarnation, God the Word took on flesh. This was a unique, momentous event in the history of the world and the universe. Now there was born the only one, the Messiah and Saviour, who could be the spotless lamb and acceptable offering to God to atone for the sin of man. Jesus was thus born the Christ, both Son of God and Son of man. For God ordained that, to save us from his eternal wrath for sin, the Messiah must be made man in the flesh and must bear our punishment in his flesh. Christ was thus born to offer himself the holy, fleshly sacrifice to atone for sin – a sin offering, as graphically foreshadowed by the fleshly sacrifices of the Old Testament.

Paul taught about Christ as the divine sin offering at 2 Corinthians 5:21, which says Christ was “made to be sin for us.” However, we cannot understand this unless we first understand the Hebrew idiom that Paul employed.

An idiom is a word used in a non-standard way – that is, idiomatically – in contexts where it takes a unique, figurative meaning.[1] Idioms can be impossible for people who are not native speakers of a language, or well advanced in it, to understand.[2] William Tyndale explained in several notes in his 1534 New Testament that, in Hebrew, sometimes the word “sin” was used idiomatically to mean a “sacrifice for sin” or a “sin offering.” This odd idiom was one of many that found its way into the Greek of the New Testament. Hebrew idioms adopted into Greek or other languages are called Hebraisms.

In the 1537 Matthew Bible, John Rogers added a note explaining the Hebraism “sin” as Paul used it in 2 Corinthians:

2 Corinthians 5:21, Matthew Bible: For he hath made him *to be sin for us, which knew no sin, that we by his means should be that righteousness which before God is allowed.

MB note: To be sin for us: that is to say, to be the sacrifice for our sins. “Sin” in the Scripture is sometimes taken for the sacrifice of sin.

In other words, Christ, who was without sin, was for our sakes made a sacrifice for sin and a sin offering.

The Matthew Bible interpretation of the idiom “sin” is orthodox and traditional. In the 5th century, St. Augustine wrote that in the Bible, “sacrifices for sins are named ‘sins,’ and the punishments of sins are sometimes called ‘sins.’”[3] It seems that in the early Reformation this idiom was well understood in English circles; I chanced, while writing this, to read the work of the little-known Reformer Richard Brightwell, an associate of John Frith, who noted that “sin [means] a sacrifice for our sin, and so is ‘sin’ taken in many places of the two Testaments.”[4] In more recent times, Bible commentator Adam Clarke confirmed that this Hebraism occurs in “a multitude” of places in the Scripture.[5]

Romans 8:3

Paul also used “sin” idiomatically in Romans 8:3. Here Rogers added another explanatory note, which he took from Tyndale’s 1534 New Testament:

Romans 8:3, Matthew Bible: For what the law could not do, inasmuch as it was weak because of the flesh, that performed God, and sent his son in the similitude of sinful flesh, and by *sin damned [punished] sin in the flesh …

MB note: Sin is taken here for a sin offering, after the use of the Hebrew tongue.

Therefore, fully translated and updated, Romans 8:3 means:

For what the law could not do inasmuch as it was weak because of the flesh, that God performed, and sent his Son in the similitude of sinful flesh, and by a sin offering punished sin in the flesh …

At Romans 8:3, Tyndale used the verb “damned” emphasizing chiefly the sense “punished.” In Early Modern English, the word “damned” took the sense condemned or sentenced to punishment, just as today we would speak of someone’s “damnation” meaning his eternal punishment. The idea of punishment was, therefore, an important component of the meaning. We might say that the divine sin offering was a punishment of sin sufficient for all eternity. Galatians 3:15, where Paul wrote that Christ was made accursed for us, is sometimes associated with the idea that Christ became sin for us, and in a note on verse 15 Tyndale explained that the meaning is, “he was punished and slain for our sins.”

Thus it was that Jesus was made sin for us: through the terrible punishment he took in his own flesh, he was made the holy sin offering foreshadowed in the Passover supper and temple sacrifices. (As he himself said, “This is my body, given for you.” Lu. 22:19, 1Co. 11:24.) This explanation is simple, clear, and manifestly biblical. It does not require tortuous mental gymnastics to understand. It is also the essential gospel.

But if we do not understand how Christ was made sin for us, we lose the gospel. And because this Hebraism is indeed not well understood today, we have lost the gospel at 2 Corinthians 5:21 and at Romans 8:3. This is partly due to the new translations and interpretations introduced in the Geneva Bible, particularly the 1599 edition.

The new Geneva commentaries on how Christ was made sin for us

The New Testament of the 1560 Geneva Bible was the work of the English Puritan William Whittingham. However, it was not his original work; Whittingham took William Tyndale’s translation and, under John Calvin’s oversight, revised it and added new commentaries, often bringing new teaching.[6] The 1599 Geneva Bible used Tomson’s revised New Testament,[7] being a later revision of Whittingham’s work, and brought more new teaching. 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Romans 8:3 are examples of how, step by step, different doctrine was introduced, so that by 1599 the knowledge of the Hebraism “sin” was lost:

2 Corinthians 5:21 in the 1560 & 1599 Geneva Bible:  For he hath made him to be *sin for us, which knew no sin, that we should be made the righteousness of God in him.

1560 note: That is, a sacrifice for sin.

1599 note: A sinner, not in himself, but by imputation of the guilt of all our sins to him.

Obviously the 1560 note agrees with Tyndale, though the translation was changed. However, in 1599 an entirely new commentary was introduced. A similar thing happened at Romans 8:3 (note, the brackets are original in the Geneva revision below):

Romans 8:3 in the 1560 & 1599 Geneva Bible: For (that that was impossible to the Law, inasmuch as it was weak, because of the flesh) God sending his own Son, in the similitude of (4)sinful flesh, and *for (5)sin, (6)condemned sin in the flesh  …

1560 note: *or, by sin.

1599 note 4: Of man’s nature which was corrupt through sin until he sanctified it.

1599 note 5: To abolish sin in our flesh.

1599 note 6: Showed that sin hath no right in us.

Much could be said on this, but I limit my comments to the six points below:

(1) Whittingham changed the preposition of agency (by sin) to a preposition of service (for sin). This made it difficult to understand that by a sin offering, sin was punished in the flesh, though the 1560 marginal note helped. (Modern Bibles handle this in a variety of ways.)

(2) Whittingham changed “damned” to “condemned.” This contributed to losing the sense “punished.”

(3) The editors of the 1599 Geneva Bible apparently rejected the traditional understanding of the Hebrew idiom – rejected it completely, deliberately, and silently. They did not openly refute it, nor mention it as an alternate interpretation. I have not seen where, in any other place in the 1599 Geneva version, the meaning of the Hebraism “sin” was acknowledged or taught. (If anyone finds it, please let me know.)

(4) Of particular concern, the 1599 GNV notes misrepresent the accomplishment and work of the cross. Especially, note 5 says Christ came to abolish sin in our flesh rather than to take our punishment for sin in his flesh. Among other problems – including the novel idea that sin can be eradicated from the flesh[8] – this confuses the offices of Christ and of the Holy Spirit; in particular, it confuses the propitiating work of Christ with the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. On the cross, Jesus took our punishment in his flesh to appease the wrath of God and reconcile us to God: his work there was to take on himself the punishment of sin, not to sanctify us from sin. Sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit, which follows after salvation and faith. Thus the Geneva Bible confused and even falsified the work and offices of the Persons of the Trinity – and in so doing, it manifestly changed the gospel.[9]

(5) Note 6 in the 1599 GNV twists the cross into a metaphor: the Lamb, his flesh torn and bleeding, dying as he hung on the cross to atone for our sins, was no sin sacrifice, but was showing that sin has “no right” in us. Again, this denies Christ’s sacrificial work on the cross, and it suppresses the meaning and significance of his self-offering. This flows from rejecting the traditional understanding of the Hebraism “sin.”

(6) It is very subtle, but note 6 also undermines the biblical understanding of the law, which says the disobedience of our first parents did indeed give sin “right” in us (to use the strange GNV terminology). Sin, and therefore death, were our parents’ due for their disobedience to God’s law and commandment, and are our due under the law as their heirs; thus sin does have “right” in us (though again, this is a strange way to speak about it). That is why we needed a saviour born under the law, who could redeem us from the law (Gal. 4:3-5). Therefore, note 6 is based on a premise that again changes the gospel, in that it changes the purpose and significance of Christ’s coming and work on the cross.

The last three points should cause any objective and biblically literate reader to wonder about the doctrine of the Geneva Bible. Indeed, a careful examination of the notes reveals that, in many essential respects, the Puritan commentaries, especially in 1599, taught another gospel than that taught in the Matthew Bible – so different, and in so many points, they cannot be reconciled. This is amply demonstrated in my new release, The Story of the Matthew Bible: Part 2, The Scriptures Then and Now, which looks at the different Geneva treatment of the New Covenant, the miracles of Christ and his other works, the church, and more. I have also blogged about the significant Geneva revisions to 1 Peter 1:13 here, which revisions led to the destruction of the doctrine of the revelation of Christ through preaching. God willing, I will also blog soon about how the Geneva Bible lost the gospel in the book of Job.

After I (R.M.D.) became aware that most moderns do not understand the Hebraism “Christ was made sin for us,” I emended later editions of the October Testament to give the idiomatic meaning plainly in the biblical text at 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Romans 8:3. It needs to be clear in the text, not tucked away in a note. Some other modern Bibles have done the same, including the NASB and Christian Standard Bible; however, they kept the word “condemned” at Romans 8:3, which, in my view, muddies the water. The CSB has “He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering.”

The final revision of Romans 8:3-4 in the October Testament (New Matthew Bible) is,

3For what the law could not do, inasmuch as it was weak because of the flesh, God has performed. He sent his Son in the similitude of sinful flesh, and by a sin offering punished sin in the flesh, 4so that the righteousness required by the law may be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.

With the benefit of hindsight, Tyndale’s literal translations of the Hebraism “sin” were not the best choice. As he himself once wrote, “Words that are not understood, profit not.”

Ruth Magnusson Davis, blog post April 1 2021: William Tyndale on How Christ Was Made Sin for Us. The Matthew Bible vs. the Geneva Bible.

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[1] An idiom can be a word or a saying. Here we are dealing with just the word “sin” used idiomatically.

[2] I can testify to the difficulty of idioms for non-native speakers of a language. I studied civil law in Québec, Canada. I passed my days studying in the French language and I wrote exams in French. This was only a little more difficult for me than studying in English. However, if I went to a coffee shop I would be lucky to understand half of the conversation there. The difference was the local idioms, which I did not know. The French in my university environment was standard, international French.

[3]Augustine of Hippo, Against Lying: To Consentius, trans. Rev. H. Browne., ed. Philip Schaff (Charleston USA: no pub., facsimile, 2015), 40.

[4] Richard Brightwell, “A Pistle to the Christen Reader,” contained in The Revelation of Antichrist in The Works of the English Reformers: William Tyndale and John Frith, editor Thomas Russell, Vol. III (London: Ebenezer Palmer, 1831), 460.

[5] Adam Clarke wrote on Romans 8:3 that God in Christ “did that which the law could not do; i.e. purchased pardon for the sinner, and brought every believer into the favor of God. And this is effected by the incarnation of Christ: He, in whom dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily, took upon him the likeness of sinful flesh, that is, a human body like ours, but not sinful as ours; and for sin, και περι ἁμαρτιας, and as a Sacrifice for Sin, (this is the sense of the word in a multitude of places), condemned sin in the flesh – condemned that to death and destruction which had condemned us to both.” (https://www.studylight.org/commentary/romans/8-3.html#verse-acc, accessed March 29, 2021.)

[6] The dramatic nature of the new commentaries in the Geneva Bible, both in 1560 and in 1599, is shown at length in Part 2 of The Story of the Matthew Bible: The Scriptures Then and Now.

[7] See the Tolle Lege edition of the 1599 Geneva Bible at page xxiv. No additional information about Tomson is given there. According to a Wikipedia article, he was Laurence Tomson, an English Calvinist, who published his first revision of the Geneva New Testament in 1576. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Tomson, accessed March 29, 2021.)

[8] The Bible does not say sin can be abolished in the flesh, but that the flesh is in its very nature irremediably corrupt, and we must die to put on the incorruptible (1 Cor. 15:53). Further, it is not our flesh that is sanctified after salvation, but our life, spirit, and conscience. The flesh remains the flesh, and lusts against the spirit, as Paul said at Galatians 5:17. This is acknowledged in the 1599 GNV note on Galatians 5:17, which sets up an internal inconsistency in the commentaries.

[9] See also my paper, Christ Manifest vs. Christ Incarnate, in which I show how Calvin’s doctrine of the manifestation of Christ (as opposed to the Incarnation of Christ) changed the traditional understanding of Jesus’ office and work. Also, Calvin’s characterization of the Mosaic sacrifices as “shadowy observances” rather than “observances that foreshadowed” was one of several new interpretations that severed the all-important conceptual link between the Old Testament sacrifices and the sacrifice of the Son of God under the New Testament.

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KP. Christ was made sin for us, Christ became sin for us

Tyndale: Don’t Tamper with My Translation and Call It a “Diligent Correction”

Posted on by Posted in History MB

William Tyndale was a humble man. He always wanted to do better and he welcomed sound criticism. But he had a message for people who took his translations, changed them, and then promoted their work as a “diligent correction.” With a moment’s thought, we will realize that to do such a thing to another man’s work, no matter what it might be, is the height of effrontery and offense. But when it came to God’s word, which Tyndale loved as gold, and over which he laboured painstakingly to make true and faithful, he had every right to be indignant.

There were a few offenders, and they are discussed in Part 2 of The Story of the Matthew Bible. Here is a brief review of just two instances of people unilaterally, without permission, taking and changing Tyndale’s work.

George Joye

George Joye was a scholar who had an interest in bible translation. In the 1530s, he was employed as a proofreader and corrector for a printer in Antwerp when that printer happened to be working on a new edition of Tyndale’s New Testament.  Without Tyndale’s knowledge or consent, Joye revised the text. In particular, he changed the word ‘resurrection,’ because he had his own unique ideas about it. At the close of the book was the statement:

Here endeth the new Testament diligently ouersene and corrected, and prynted now agayn at Antwerpe … In the yere of oure Lord m.cccc. and xxxiiij. in August.[1]

Tyndale complained:

[Some]one brought me a copy and shewed me so many places, in such wise altered, that I was astonished and wondered not a little what fury had driven him to make such change and to call it a diligent correction. For throughout Matthew, Mark and Luke perpetually: and oft in the Acts, and sometimes in John and also in Hebrews, where he findeth this word ‘resurrection,’ he changeth it into ‘the life after this life,’ or ‘very life,’ and such like, as one that abhorred the name of the resurrection. …[2]

Tyndale did not want people taking and changing his work to suit their own ideas.

William Whittingham and the Geneva Bible

The Geneva Bible was the work of Puritans living in Geneva during the Marian exile, after Tyndale’s death. The English Puritan William Whittingham first revised Tyndale’s New Testament in 1557, and then the whole Bible followed in 1560. In their preface to the whole Bible, the Geneva revisers claimed, among other things, to have received a new, clear revelation of light from God. Further, though Coverdale and Tyndale were of the same generation, the revisers characterized their work as “from the infancy of those times” and as needing greatly to be “perused and reformed” – that is, reviewed and corrected by them:

Preface, 1560 Geneva Bible: We thought that we should bestow our labours and study in nothing which could be more acceptable to God and conformable to his Church than in the translating of the Holy Scriptures into our native tongue; the which thing, albeit that divers heretofore have endeavoured to achieve [i.e. Tyndale and Coverdale], yet considering the infancy of those times and imperfect knowledge of the tongues, in respect of this ripe age and clear light which God hath now revealed, the translations required greatly to be perused and reformed.[3]

The Puritans then went on to revise the Scriptures and promote it as a corrected Bible.

Tyndale: Play fair

Tyndale protested that if anyone want to make a Bible, he should translate it for himself. It is not right, he said, to take another man’s work, change it, and promote the revised work as a correction:

It is lawful for who will to translate and show his mind, though a thousand had translated before him. But it is not lawful (thinketh me) nor yet expedient for the edifying of the unity of the faith of Christ, that whosoever desires should by his own authority take another man’s translation, and put out and in, and change at pleasure, and call it a correction.[4]

Many are the difficulties caused by proceeding like this, aside from the offense to the original author. But for Tyndale, the greatest risk was falsifying God’s word. If the text itself is “corrected” to support a false opinion of the “corrector,” there is no way for the sheep to find the truth:

If the text is left uncorrupted, it will purge herself of all manner false glosses, however subtly they be feigned, as a seething pot casteth up her scum. But if the false gloss is made [to be] the text “diligently overseen and corrected”, how then shall we correct false doctrine and defend Christ’s flock from false opinions ?[5]

Don’t touch my translations, he said. Leave them alone. Or if they must steal and change it, then they should call it their own and put their own names to it, and leave him out of it.

But did Tyndale request that his work be corrected?

Four years before the Joye fiasco, Tyndale wrote words that have been misused to justify later revisions. He said in the preface to his 1530 Pentateuch,

Notwithstanding yet I submit this book, and all others that I have either made or translated, or shall in time to come (if it be God’s will that I shall further labour in his harvest), to all who submit themselves to the word of God, to be corrected of [by] them, yea and moreover to be disallowed and also burnt, if it seem worthy when they have examined it with the Hebrew, so that [provided] they first put forth of their own translating another that is more correct.[6]

People have seized on these words to argue that Tyndale would have welcomed the Geneva and KJV “corrections.” But this overlooks his last sentence. Let them correct as they will, he says, but by means of their own translation – and, furthermore, don’t cast his aside until theirs is done. So, Tyndale did not want men tampering with his work.

The silver lining

Truth be told, there are only two true “diligent corrections” of Tyndale’s New Testament. Those are the two he performed himself, one in 1534 and the other in 1535. However, it was no doubt in the providence of God that Tyndale’s work furnished the base of the major English Bibles. Computer studies have shown that over 83% of the KJV New Testament is straight Tyndale. We may thank the Lord for not answering Tyndale’s prayer, however much we know that he would regret many of the changes made. His voice was largely preserved, especially in the New Testament, and has been greatly used by the Holy Spirit.

However, it cannot be said that Tyndale wanted his work to be corrected this way.

To learn about Tyndale’s work with the Scriptures, and the many unauthorized changes that have been made to his translations read The Story of the Matthew Bible, now in 2 Parts.

 

© Ruth Magnusson Davis, October 2018. Minimal revisions June 2021.

Endnotes:

[1] Herbert’s Catalogue of Printed Bibles, page 6.

[2] 2nd foreword to Tyndale’s 1534 New Testament, modern spelling edition by David Daniell, page 13.

[3] Preface to the 1560 Geneva Bible. Reproduced in 1599 Geneva Bible, modern spelling Tolle Lege edition, beginning at p. xxvii.

[4] Tyndale, 2nd foreword, 1534, pages 13-14.

[5] Ibid, page 14.

[6] Tyndale, “W.T. to the Reader,” 1530 Pentateuch, David Daniell’s modern spelling edition, pages 5-6.

Obsolete English and punctuation may be silently updated in quotations from the early 16th century.

Comparing Bibles: 1 Peter 1:13, Grace Now or a Future Hope?

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Here we compare translations of 1 Peter 1:13 from Wycliffe in 1380 to the present. William Tyndale’s translation is based on the understanding that we receive grace when we are redeemed through faith, and then we await our entrance into eternal life. Therefore we trust on present grace and hope for the life to come. Eternal life is the object of our hope. Others say we hope for future grace; in particular, we set our hope on grace to come when Jesus returns. Here grace is the object of our hope.

At first I intended this only to be a simple comparison. But it grew into more. I experienced joy in the Holy Spirit studying Tyndale’s translation in The October Testament, as I entered into the mystery of the revelation of Christ that we receive through his word, and what it is to be in him now through faith, in this, the age of grace and fulfilment of prophecy. In the end, I felt obliged to express some concerns about the NIV and Geneva commentaries, which change the message and, at least as far as I am concerned, lose the joy.

Tyndale and the Reformation Bibles: The declaring of Jesus Christ brings grace

At 1 Peter 1:13 in the Matthew Bible, Tyndale had (with context):

13Wherefore gird up the loins of your minds, be sober, and trust perfectly on the grace that is brought unto you by the declaring of Jesus Christ, 14as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves unto your old lusts of ignorance: 15but as he which called you is holy, even so be ye holy.

From this we learn that the grace we are to trust on is brought when Christ is declared; that is, when he is preached. The old English ‘declaring’ was a broad word, and carried the senses of speaking forth, telling, and revealing. When Christ is preached, he is revealed, and we believe, and receive grace now. This is salvation by faith unto eternal life. In his 1534 prologue to 1 Peter, Tyndale summarized the first chapter as follows:

Tyndale: In the first he [Peter] declareth the justifying of faith through Christ’s blood, and comforteth them with the hope of the life to come, and sheweth that we have not deserved it, but that the prophets prophesied it should be given us, and as Christ which redeemed us out of sin and all uncleanness is holy, so he exhorteth to lead an holy conversation [a holy life]: and because we be richly bought and made heirs of a rich inheritance …

By the declaration of Christ, who is the enduring word (1Pe 1:25), he is revealed and comes (or is brought) to those who hear. This is a secret revelation to the elect, for the wind blows unseen where it will (Joh 3:8). The word planted within is an immortal seed (1Pe 1:23), and is the seed of eternal life, which is our “rich inheritance.” Rogers explained in a note on 1 Peter 1:3 that “a living hope is that whereby we are certain of everlasting life.”

Post-Reformation Bibles: The second coming will bring grace

In v.13 in later Bibles, the coming of grace and the revelation of Christ are not through ‘declaring’ him, but will happen at a later time or event. In modern Bibles, this event is identified as the second coming. I compared the NIV Nestle text with Jay Green’s Received Text, and no MS variation explains the difference. It is purely a matter of interpretation. See what happened over the years:

1 Peter 1:13

In Wycliffe 1380 Hope ye into the grace that is proffered to you by the showing of Jesus Christ. [In old English, ‘showing’ = preaching, revealing by telling]

Matthew Bible 1537/1549 Trust perfectly on the grace that is brought unto you by the declaring of Jesus Christ. (Also 1535 Coverdale & 1539 Great Bible)

Geneva 1557 & 1560 Trust perfectly on the grace that is brought unto you, by the revelation of Jesus Christ. (Also Bishops’ Bible 1568)

Rheims 1582 Trust perfectly in that grace which is offered you, in the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Geneva 1599 Trust perfectly on the grace that is brought unto you, in the revelation of Jesus Christ.

KJV 1611 Hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

RV 1895 Set your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (RV Marginal note: Gr. is being brought.)

RSV 1946 Set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Jerusalem Bible 1968 Put your trust in nothing but the grace that will be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Living Bible 1971 So now you can look forward soberly and intelligently to more of God’s kindness to you when Jesus Christ returns.

NKJV 1982  Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

NIV 1984  Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.

NIV 2016 Set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.

ESV 2016 Set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

So then, in later Bibles, we look to the future for grace. In the Living Bible, it is not even grace anymore. As the verse evolved, there was more than a change in verb tense. The preposition ‘by’, which denotes instrumentality, morphed to ‘at’ in the KJV, denoting place, time, or event. Then ‘at’ became ‘when’. Also starting with the KJV, ‘trust’ became ‘hope’. The versions that speak of hoping ‘on’ future grace are a bit confusing, because in English we do not speak of hoping ‘on’ a thing that we trust will be given later. Rather, we hope ‘for’ it. Therefore it is fair to characterize the later versions as saying we are to hope for future grace – which is in fact how the commentators put it below, and explains why some versions changed the wording to ‘set hope on.’

The Geneva Influence

Though it looks as if the KJV began the shift from present to future grace, in fact, the early English Puritans introduced it in their Bible notes:

1 Peter 1:13 in the 1560 Geneva Bible Wherefore kgird up the loins of your mind: be sober, and trust perfectly on the grace that is brought unto you, by the lrevelation of Jesus Christ.

Note k: Prepare yourselves to the Lord

Note l: Until his second coming.[1]

The 1560 Geneva notes say we are to prepare ourselves for the Lord until the second coming. I do not say this is wrong, but it changes the message. Then the 1599 edition, in a set of six new notes, conflated grace with “full salvation”, such that salvation is not by grace, but is grace, and is the second coming. This is an unbiblical soup. Though the Puritans retained the present perspective in the Scripture, their (muddled) notes put grace in the future:

1 Peter 1:13 in the 1599 Geneva 1Wherefore 2gird up the loins of your mind: be sober, 3and trust 4perfectly on the grace 5that is brought unto you, 6in the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Note 3: He setteth forth very briefly, what manner of hope ours ought to be, to with, continual, until we enjoy the thing we hope for: then, what we have to hope for, to wit, grace (that is, free salvation) revealed to us in the Gospel, and not that, that men do rashly and fondly promise to themselves.

Note 6: He setteth out the end of faith, lest any man should promise himself, either sooner or later that full salvation, to wit, the later coming of Christ: and therewithal warneth us, not to measure the dignity of the Gospel according to the present state, seeing that that which we are now, is not yet revealed. [2] (Emphasis added. Other notes in endnote.)

The Puritans had the earlier Bibles at hand, but for reasons best known to themselves, reinterpreted v.13. It would be interesting to explore this further. Jesus’ first coming was for salvation by grace, which is abundantly testified by many Scriptures, as “The grace of God that brings salvation to all men has appeared” (Tit 2:11). The second coming will be for the final judgment (M’t 25:31-46, etc). Did the Puritans wrongly conflate the two comings at this verse? In any case, they divided the revelation of Christ from present grace, and perhaps due to their influence, the KJV changed v.13 to make grace a future thing.

Modern treatment

Verse 13 gradually evolved, so that the Living Bible boldly changed the Greek to the “return” of Christ. In 2016, the NIV committee added the words “at his coming” to clearly articulate the prevailing interpretation. But what ‘grace’ are they talking about, and what ‘coming’? The NIV Zondervan commentary acknowledges a “beginning of grace” in the present time, but says it is not the main point:

1 Peter 1:13 in the NIV 2016 Set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.

NIV Zondervan commentary: The main emphasis of v.13 is on putting one’s hope wholly in the final consummation of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. At the present time, we enjoy only a beginning of that grace (cf 1Jn 3:2-3). This longing for the unveiling of Jesus at his second coming permeates the NT.[3] (Emphasis added.)

So grace now is not the main thing? We have a “beginning” of it, but not the “abundant grace” that the apostle Paul speaks of everywhere: “Where there was much sin, there was more abundance of grace” (Ro 5:20; see also 5:17)? Nor is there any mention anywhere in the Zondervan notes of eternal life as the substance of our hope. As for the second coming, of course all believers long for it, but by emphasizing it, and making it the time of grace, do we lose the Gospel, and all understanding of the revelation of Christ through the word?

I thank God for Tyndale. His translation and exposition raise no doubts or questions in my mind. He is perfectly consistent with everything the Scriptures say. Needless to say, the New Matthew Bible restored his translation:

1 Peter 1:13 in the NMB 2016 (The October Testament) Trust perfectly on the grace that is brought to you by the declaring of Jesus Christ.

So many issues are raised by this! I wish I could explore more. But space and time are limited. One thing I can say: I thank God for the grace I have received, on which I trust, as I hope for my rich inheritance in Christ, whom I know now by faith.

© Ruth Magnusson Davis, June, 2017

 

Endnotes:

[1] Geneva Bible (1560), 1st printing, 1st edition (Arizona: facsimile by The Bible Museum, 2006). Missing the preface and possibly other preliminary pages, but presumed an accurate facsimile as to the balance.

[2] Geneva Bible (1599), Tolle Lege Press edition (White Hall, WV: Tolle Lege Press, 2006). The full set of notes on 1 Peter, verse 1:13, were:

Note 1: He goeth from faith to hope, which is indeed a companion that cannot be sundered from faith; and he useth an argument taken of comparison: We ought not to be wearied in looking for so excellent a thing, which the very Angels wait for with great desire.

Note 2: This is a borrowed speech, taken of a common usage amongst them: for by reason that they wore long garments, they could not travel unless they girded up themselves: and hence it is that Christ said, Let your loins be girded up.

Note 3: See article.

Note 4: Soundly and sincerely.

Note 5: An argument to stir up our minds, seeing that God doeth not wait till we seek him, but causeth so great a benefit to be brought even unto us. [No need to seek to find?]

Note 6: See article.

[3] Zondervan NIV Bible Commentary: An Abridgment of the Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 1 Old Testament, Vol. 2 New Testament. Consulting Eds. Kenneth L Barker and John R Kohlenberger III, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994), p. 1045.