THE ENGLISH BIBLE.
The first translation of any part of the Holy Scriptures into English that was committed to the press, wasThe New Testament, translated from the Greek, by William Tyndale, with theassistance of John Foye and William Roye, and printed first in 1526, in octavo.
Tyndale published afterwards, in 1530, a translation of theFive Books of Moses, and ofJonah, in 1531, in octavo. An English translation of thePsalter, done from the Latin of Martin Bucer, was also published at Strasburgh in 1530, by Francis Foye, octavo. And the same book together withJeremiah, and theSong of Moses, were likewise published in 1534, in duodecimo, by George Joye, sometime fellow of Peter-House in Cambridge.
The first timethe whole Bibleappeared in English, was in the year 1535 in folio. The translator and publisher was Miles Coverdale, afterwards Bishop of Exeter, who revised Tyndale’s version, compared it with the original, and supplied what had been left untranslated by Tyndale. It was printed at Zurich, and dedicated to King Henry the Eighth. This was the Bible, which by Cromwell’s injunction of September, 1536,was ordered to be laid in Churches.