The Books of the New Testament | Page 5

have come into common use. All these versions or partial versions in
the English language were made from the Latin. But after the Turks

captured Constantinople from the Greeks in 1453, a number of learned
Greeks fled for refuge to the west of Europe. The result was that Greek
books began to be studied again, and the New Testament began to be
read once more in the original language. Three important editions were
printed in 1514, 1516, and 1550 respectively. The first was printed
under the direction of the Spanish Cardinal Ximenes, but owing to
various causes was not published until 1522. The edition of 1516 was
printed under the direction of the great Dutch scholar Erasmus. That of
1550 is important as being substantially the "received text" which has
appeared in the ordinary Greek Testaments printed in England until the
present day, and as being the foundation of our English Authorised
Version. This "received text" was printed by Robert Estienne (or
Stephanus), a great printer of Paris. About the same time a desire for a
reformation of abuses in the Church caused a deeper interest to be
taken in the Word of God. The first English translation of the New
Testament shows a desire for a reformation of a somewhat extreme
kind. It was the version of William Tyndale, which was printed at
Worms in Germany, in 1525. In 1534 the Convocation or Church
Parliament of England made a petition to King Henry VIII. to allow a
better version to be made. The work of translation was interrupted by
an order to have an English Bible in every church. As the Church
version was not completed, a version made in 1535 by Miles Coverdale
had to be used instead. Two other versions, also somewhat inferior,
appeared in 1537 and 1539, and then a slightly improved version called
the Great Bible appeared in April, 1539. It is {7} also called Cranmer's
Bible, because Archbishop Cranmer wrote a preface to the second
edition. Three other important versions were published before the end
of the 16th century. The Calvinists, who were the predecessors of the
modern Presbyterians, published a New Testament at Geneva in 1557,
followed by the whole Bible in 1560. The English bishops published
what is called the Bishops' Bible in 1568, and the Roman Catholics
published an English New Testament at Rheims in France, in 1582. We
cannot fail to be impressed by the eager desire felt at that time by the
people of Great Britain, of all religious parties, to study the Holy
Scriptures, a desire to which these various translations bear witness.
All previous English versions were thrown into the shade by the

brilliant Authorised Version, which was commenced in 1604 and
published in 1611. Its beauty and accuracy are so great that even the
Presbyterians, both in England and Scotland, gradually gave up the use
of their Genevan Bible in favour of this translation. But since 1611
hundreds of manuscripts have been discovered and examined. "Textual
criticism," by which an endeavour is made to discover the precise
words written by the writers of the New Testament, where
discrepancies exist in the manuscripts, has become a science. Many
results of this criticism have been embodied in the Revised Version,
published in 1881. The English of the Revised Version is not so musical
as that of the Authorised Version, and it seems probable that a deeper
knowledge of the ancient versions will before long enable us to
advance even beyond the verbal accuracy attained in 1881. But at the
same time we know that both our modern English versions give us a
noble and trustworthy interpretation of the Greek. And criticism has
made it certain that the earliest Greek manuscripts are essentially the
same as the original books written by the apostles and their companions.
The manuscripts are almost utterly free from wilful corruptions. And
concerning the small variations which they contain, we {8} can fitly
quote the words of a fine old English scholar, Bentley: "Even put them
into the hands of a knave or a fool, and yet with the most sinistrous and
absurd choice, he shall not extinguish the light of any one chapter, nor
so disguise Christianity but that every feature of it will still be the
same."
For the sake of space the works of the evangelists are often referred to
in an abbreviated form; e.g. "Matt." has been written for "the Gospel
according to St. Matthew," and "Mark" for "the Gospel according to St.
Mark." But when the writers themselves are mentioned, their names are
usually given in full, with the title which Christian reverence has
bestowed upon these "holy men of old."

[1] See Mr. C. H. Turner, Journal of Theological Studies, July, 1900.

{9}

CHAPTER II
THE GOSPELS
[Sidenote: Their Name.]