History Of The Holy Bible

A Total Of 50 Entries (58 page revisions).
Updated 02-06-2024. Info from Wikipedia.

Hello and welcome to our History of the Holy Bible Page, here at R.E. White Consulting, it is a tremendous honor to have you with us sir or ma’am, it brings us great joy to know you have an interest in the written word, and more specifically the written word of God! Have you ever wondered about your own language, where it originated from, the meaning behind certain words, and how they are currently used? We know this feeling! This page is about the Holy Bible, and our goal is education, so after you spend time here you will come away with a better understanding of Father God Abba Yahweh, His only begotten son Jesus Christ, the Gospel of Jesus, and the amazing Holy Spirit. While on earth as a man, Jesus taught about love and forgiveness, always being kind, and leading others to God. Scientists believe the oldest written words in human history, ever discovered, are Sumerian texts from Abu Salabikh, including the Instructions of Shuruppak and the Kesh temple hymn, from 2600 BC (4,622 years ago in the year 2023 AD). “The earliest literary author known by name in world history is 𒂗𒃶𒌌𒀭𒈾 pronounced en-hu-dwa-na (Enheduanna, a Sumerian priestess and public figure) dating to ca. 2400 BC”. WOW!! What a distinction to have!? Enjoy your visit here, and please let us know if you have any questions, we love talking about the Holy Bible!!

“Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) – are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world’s most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the original Anno Domini (AD) and Before Christ (BC) notations used for the same calendar era. The two notation systems are numerically equivalent: “2023 CE” and “AD 2023” each describe the current year; “400 BCE” and “400 BC” are the same year. The Date of Birth of Jesus is not stated in the gospels or in any historical sources, but most biblical scholars generally accept a date of birth between 6 BC and 4 BC, the year in which King Herod died.[1][2][3] The historical evidence is too incomplete to allow a definitive dating,[4] but the year is estimated through three different approaches: analysing references to known historical events mentioned in the nativity accounts in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, working backward from the estimation of the start of the ministry of Jesus,[5][2] and astrological or astronomical alignments.”

4,000 BC ~ “Birth of Adam Father of Human Race & Eve Mother of Human Race (there are no known original writings of Adam or Eve although some people believe they did write things) – Within the biblical framework and chronology, various dates have been proposed for the date of creation since ancient times, to more recent periods. The Bible begins with the Book of Genesis, in which God creates the Earth, the rest of the Universe, and the Earth’s plants and animals, including the first humans, in six days. A second narrative begins with the first human pair, Adam and Eve, and goes on to list many of their descendants, in many cases giving the ages at which they had children and died. If these events and ages are interpreted literally throughout and the genealogies are considered closed, it is possible to build up a chronology in which many of the events of the Old Testament are dated to an estimated number of years after creation. Some biblical scholars have gone further, attempting to harmonise this biblical chronology with that of recorded history, thus establishing a date for creation in a modern calendar. Since the biblical story lacks chronology for some periods, the duration of events has been subject to interpretation in many different ways, resulting in a variety of estimates of the date of creation. Numerous efforts have been made to determine the biblical date of creation, yielding varying results. Besides differences in interpretation, the use of different versions of the Bible can also affect the result. Two dominant dates for creation using such models exist, about 5500 BC and about 4000 BC. These were calculated from the genealogies in two versions of the Bible, with most of the difference arising from two versions of Genesis. The older dates stem from the Greek Septuagint.[55] The later dates are based on the Hebrew Masoretic text.[56] The patriarchs from Adam to Terah, the father of Abraham, were often 100 years older when they begat their named son in the Septuagint than they were in the Hebrew or the Vulgate (Genesis 5, 11). The net difference between the two genealogies of Genesis amounts to 1466 years (ignoring the “second year after the flood” ambiguity), which accounts for virtually all of the 1500-year difference between 5500 BC and 4000 BC. For example, the period from the creation to the Flood derives from the genealogical table of the ten patriarchs listed in Genesis 5, and 7:6, called the generations of Adam. According to the Masoretic Text, this period consists of 1,656 years, and Western Christian Bibles deriving from the Latin Vulgate also follow this dating. However, the Samaritan texts give an equivalent period of 1,307 years, and according to the Septuagint (Codex Alexandrinus, Elizabeth Bible) it is 2,262 years.[57] James Ussher agrees with the dating until the birth of Abraham, which he argues took place when Terah was 130, and not 70 as is the direct reading of Genesis 11:26, thus adding 60 years to his chronology for events postdating Abraham.”

“1391 BC – “The Ten Commandments (no original copy has yet been discovered) ~ (Biblical Hebrew עשרת הדברים \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים, aséret ha-dvarím, lit. The Decalogue, The Ten Words, cf. Mishnaic Hebrew עשרת הדיברות \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְּרוֹת, aséret ha-dibrót, lit. The Decalogue, The Ten Words) are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship that play a fundamental role in Judaism and Christianity. The text of the Ten Commandments appears twice in the Hebrew Bible: at Exodus 20:2–17 and Deuteronomy 5:6–21. According to the Book of Exodus in the Torah, the Ten Commandments were revealed to Moses at Mount Sinai and inscribed by the finger of God on two tablets of stone kept in the Ark of the Covenant.[1] Scholars disagree about when the Ten Commandments were written and by whom, with some modern scholars suggesting that they were likely modeled on Hittite and Mesopotamian laws and treaties. Holy Bible book of Exodus Chapter 20, “And God spake all these words, saying, 2 I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 #1 Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 4 #2 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. 7 #3 Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. 8 #4 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. 12 #5 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. 13 #6 Thou shalt not kill. 14 #7 Thou shalt not commit adultery. 15 #8 Thou shalt not steal. 16 #9 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. 17 #10 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s. 18 And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.”

1,350 BC ~ “The Book of Psalms (no original copy has yet been discovered) (/sɑː(l)mz/SAH(L)MZ[2] or /sɔː(l)mz/SAW(L)MZ; Hebrew: תְּהִלִּים, Tehillim, lit. “praises”), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the Ketuvim (“Writings”), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament.[3] According to Jewish tradition, the Book of Psalms was composed by the First Man (Adam), Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Heman, Jeduthun, Asaph, and the three sons of Korah.[27][28]. According to Abraham ibn Ezra, the final redaction of the book was made by the Men of the Great Assembly.[29]Since the time of Moses and before, the Psalms have been written. The title is derived from the Greek translation, ψαλμοί (psalmoi), meaning “instrumental music” and, by extension, “the words accompanying the music”.[4] The book is an anthology of individual Hebrew religious hymns, with 150 in the Jewish and Western Christian tradition and more in the Eastern Christian churches.[5][6] Many are linked to the name of David, but modern mainstream scholarship rejects his authorship, instead attributing the composition of the psalms to various authors writing between the 9th and 5th centuries BC.[6] In the Quran, the Arabic word ‘Zabur’ is used for the Psalms of David in the Hebrew Bible.[7]” One of the oldest books we have here at the Wilma Lucille White Holy Bible Collection is a Book of Psalms printed in 1582 by the famous Protestant printer John Daye.

516 BC ~ “The Great Assembly (there are no known original writings or copies yet discovered written by The Great Assembly) – According to Jewish tradition the Men of the Great Assembly (Hebrew: כְּנֶסֶת הַגְּדוֹלָה) or Anshei Knesset HaGedolah (אַנְשֵׁי כְּנֶסֶת הַגְּדוֹלָה‎, “The Men of the Great Assembly”), also known as the Great Synagogue, or Synod, was an assembly of 120 scribes, sages, and prophets, in the period from the end of the biblical prophets since the early Second Temple period (which started around 516 BCE) to the early Hellenistic period (which began with Alexander’s conquests of 333–332 BCE). It comprised such prophets as Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi (who is identified with Ezra), Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah, Nehemiah b. Hachaliah, Mordechai and Zerubbabel b. Shealtiel, among others.[1] Sometimes, the Great Assembly is simply designated as “Ezra and his court of law” (Beit Din).[2] Among the developments in Judaism that are attributed to them are the fixing of the Jewish biblical canon, including the Book of Ezekiel, Daniel, Esther, and the Twelve Minor Prophets; the introduction of the Feast of Purim; and the institution of the prayer known as the “Shemoneh ‘Esreh” as well as the synagogal prayers, rituals, and benedictions. Some modern scholars question whether the Great Assembly ever existed as an institution as such. Louis Jacobs, while not endorsing this view, remarks that “references in the [later] Rabbinic literature to the Men of the Great Synagogue can be taken to mean that ideas, rules, and prayers, seen to be pre-Rabbinic but post-biblical, were often fathered upon them”.

450 BC ~ “The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (no original copy has yet been discovered) (/tɑːˈnɑːx/;[1] Hebrew: תָּנָ״ךְ‎ Tānāḵh), also known in Hebrew as Miqra (/miːˈkrɑː/;[1] Hebrew: מִקְרָא‎ Mīqrā), is the canonical collection of Hebrew scriptures, including the Torah, the Nevi’im, and the Ketuvim. Different branches of Judaism and Samaritanism have maintained different versions of the canon, including the 3rd-century Septuagint text used by Second-Temple Judaism, the Syriac language Peshitta, the Samaritan Torah, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and most recently the 10th century medieval Masoretic text created by the Masoretes currently used in modern Rabbinic Judaism. The terms “Hebrew Bible” or “Hebrew Canon” are frequently confused with the Masoretic text, however, this is a medieval version and one of several texts considered authoritative by different types of Judaism throughout history.[2] The modern Masoretic text is mostly in Biblical Hebrew, with a few passages in Biblical Aramaic (in the books of Daniel and Ezra, and the verse Jeremiah 10:11). There is no scholarly consensus as to when the Hebrew Bible canon was fixed: some scholars argue that it was fixed by the Hasmonean dynasty,[20] while others argue it was not fixed until the second century CE or even later.[21] According to Louis Ginzberg‘s Legends of the Jews, the twenty-four book canon of the Hebrew Bible was fixed by Ezra and the scribes in the Second Temple period. According to the Talmud, much of the Tanakh was compiled by the men of the Great Assembly (Anshei K’nesset HaGedolah), a task completed in 450 BCE, and it has remained unchanged ever since. The 24-book canon is mentioned in the Midrash Koheleth 12:12: Whoever brings together in his house more than twenty four books brings confusion.”

300 BC ~ “The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) – are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. Dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE,[1] the Dead Sea Scrolls are considered to be a keystone in the history of archaeology with great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the oldest surviving manuscripts of entire books later included in the biblical canons, along with deuterocanonical and extra-biblical manuscripts which preserve evidence of the diversity of religious thought in late Second Temple Judaism. At the same time they cast new light on the emergence of Christianity and of Rabbinic Judaism.[2] Most of the scrolls are held by Israel in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum, but their ownership is disputed by Jordan due to the Qumran Caves’ history: following the End of the British Mandate for Palestine in 1947, Jordan occupied the area in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and Israel captured both the area and several Scrolls from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War.[3] However, some of the scrolls are still in Jordan and are now displayed at The Jordan Museum in Amman. Ownership of the scrolls is also contested by the State of Palestine.[4]“

285 BC ~ The Septuagint (/ˈsɛptjuədʒɪnt/),[1] (sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy, often abbreviated as LXX)[2] is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Hebrew. The full title (Ancient Greek: Ἡ μετάφρασις τῶν Ἑβδομήκοντα, lit. ‘The Translation of the Seventy’) derives from the story recorded in the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates that “the laws of the Jews” were translated into the Greek language at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–247 BCE) by seventy-two Jewish translators—six from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Biblical scholars agree that the first five books of the Hebrew Bible were translated from Biblical Hebrew into Koine Greek by Jews living in the Ptolemaic Kingdom, probably in the early or middle part of the third century BCE.[8] The remaining books were presumably translated in the 2nd century BCE. Some targumim translating or paraphrasing the Bible into Aramaic were also made during the Second Temple period.”

100 BC ~ “A Targum (Imperial Aramaic: תרגום ‘interpretation, translation, version’) was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible (also called the Tanakh) that a professional translator (מְתוּרגְמָן mǝturgǝmān) would give in the common language of the listeners when that was not Hebrew. This had become necessary near the end of the first century BC, as the common language was Aramaic and Hebrew was used for little more than schooling and worship.[1] The translator frequently expanded his translation with paraphrases, explanations and examples, so it became a kind of sermon. Writing down the targum was initially prohibited; nevertheless, some targumitic writings appeared as early as the middle of the first century AD.[1] They were not then recognized as authoritative by the religious leaders.[1] Some subsequent Jewish traditions (beginning with the Babylonian Jews) accepted the written targumim as authoritative translations of the Hebrew scriptures into Aramaic. Today, the common meaning of targum is a written Aramaic translation of the Bible. Only Yemenite Jews continue to use the targumim liturgically.”

1 AD ~ “Jesus Christ of Nazareth Son of God Father Abba Yahweh[d] (c. 4 BC – AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader;[10] he is the central figure of Christianity, the world’s largest religion. Most Christians believe he is the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited Messiah (the Christ) prophesied in the Hebrew Bible. Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically.[e] Research into the historical Jesus has yielded some uncertainty on the historical reliability of the Gospels and on how closely the Jesus portrayed in the New Testament reflects the historical Jesus, as the only detailed records of Jesus’ life are contained in the Gospels.[18][f] Jesus was a Galilean Jew who was circumcised, was baptized by John the Baptist, began his own ministry,[10] and was often referred to as “rabbi“.[21] Jesus debated with fellow Jews on how to best follow God, engaged in healings, taught in parables, and gathered followers.[22][23] He was arrested and tried by the Jewish authorities,[24] turned over to the Roman government, and crucified on the order of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect of Jerusalem. After his death, his followers believed he rose from the dead, and the community they formed eventually became the early Christian Church.[25] Accounts of his teachings and life were initially conserved by oral transmission, which was the source of the written Gospels.[26]“

55 AD ~ The Pauline Epistles (no original copy has yet been discovered) – also known as Epistles of Paul or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen books of the New Testament attributed to Paul the Apostle, although the authorship of some is in dispute. Among these epistles are some of the earliest extant Christian documents. They provide an insight into the beliefs and controversies of early Christianity. As part of the canon of the New Testament, they are foundational texts for both Christian theology and ethics. Most scholars believe that Paul actually wrote seven of the Pauline epistles (Galatians, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philemon, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians), while three of the epistles in Paul’s name are widely seen as pseudepigraphic (First Timothy, Second Timothy, and Titus).[1] Whether Paul wrote the three other epistles in his name (2 Thessalonians, Ephesians and Colossians) is widely debated.[1] According to some scholars, Paul wrote the questionable letters with the help of a secretary, or amanuensis,[2] who would have influenced their style, if not their theological content. The Epistle to the Hebrews, although it does not bear his name, was traditionally considered Pauline (although Origen, Tertullian and Hippolytus amongst others, questioned its authorship), but from the 16th century onwards opinion steadily moved against Pauline authorship and few scholars now ascribe it to Paul, mostly because it does not read like any of his other epistles in style and content and because the epistle does not indicate that Paul is the author, unlike the others.[3] The Pauline epistles are usually placed between the Acts of the Apostles and the catholic epistles in modern editions. Most Greek manuscripts place the general epistles first,[4] and a few minuscules (175, 325, 336, and 1424) place the Pauline epistles at the end of the New Testament.”

210 AD ~ The En-Gedi Scroll is an ancient Hebrew parchment found in 1970 at Ein Gedi, Israel. Radiocarbon testing dates the scroll to the third or fourth century CE (210–390 CE), although paleographical considerations suggest that the scrolls may date back to the first or second century CE.[1][2] This scroll was discovered to contain a portion of the biblical Book of Leviticus, making it the earliest copy of a Pentateuchal book ever found in a Holy Ark. The deciphered text fragment is identical to what was to become, during the Middle Ages, the standard text of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Masoretic Text, which it precedes by several centuries, and constitutes the earliest evidence of this authoritative text version. Damaged by a fire in approximately 600 CE, the scroll is badly charred and fragmented and required noninvasive scientific and computational techniques to virtually unwrap and read, which was completed in 2015 by a team led by Prof. Seales of the University of Kentucky.[3]

250 AD ~ The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri – or simply the Chester Beatty Papyri are a group of early papyrus manuscripts of biblical texts. The manuscripts are in Greek and are of Christian origin. There are eleven manuscripts in the group, seven consisting of portions of Old Testament books, three consisting of portions of the New Testament (Gregory-Aland no. 𝔓45, 𝔓46, and 𝔓47), and one consisting of portions of the Book of Enoch and an unidentified Christian homily.[1]: 113  Most are dated to the 3rd century.[2] They are housed in part at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, Ireland, and in part at the University of Michigan, among a few other locations.[3]: 118,  [1]: 113  The papyri were most likely first obtained by dealers in illegal antiquities. Because of this, the exact circumstances of the find are not clear. One account states that the manuscripts were in jars in a Coptic graveyard near the ruins of the ancient city of Aphroditopolis. Other theories have proposed that the collection was found near the Fayum instead of Aphroditopolis, or that the location was a Christian church or monastery instead of a graveyard.[4] Most of the papyri were bought from a dealer by Alfred Chester Beatty, after whom the manuscripts are named, although some leaves and fragments were acquired by the University of Michigan and a few other collectors and institutions.”

303 AD ~ “The Diocletianic or Great Persecution – was the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire.[1] In 303, the emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding Christians’ legal rights and demanding that they comply with traditional religious practices. Later edicts targeted the clergy and demanded universal sacrifice, ordering all inhabitants to sacrifice to the gods. The persecution varied in intensity across the empire—weakest in Gaul and Britain, where only the first edict was applied, and strongest in the Eastern provinces. Persecutory laws were nullified by different emperors (Galerius with the Edict of Serdica in 311) at different times, but Constantine and Licinius‘ Edict of Milan in 313 has traditionally marked the end of the persecution. Christians had been subject to intermittent local discrimination in the empire, but emperors prior to Diocletian were reluctant to issue general laws against the religious group. In the 250s, under the reigns of Decius and Valerian, Roman subjects including Christians were compelled to sacrifice to Roman gods or face imprisonment and execution, but there is no evidence that these edicts were specifically intended to attack Christianity.[2] After Gallienus‘s accession in 260, these laws went into abeyance. Diocletian’s assumption of power in 284 did not mark an immediate reversal of imperial inattention to Christianity, but it did herald a gradual shift in official attitudes toward religious minorities. In the first fifteen years of his rule, Diocletian purged the army of Christians, condemned Manicheans to death, and surrounded himself with public opponents of Christianity. Diocletian’s preference for activist government, combined with his self-image as a restorer of past Roman glory, foreboded the most pervasive persecution in Roman history. In the winter of 302, Galerius urged Diocletian to begin a general persecution of the Christians. Diocletian was wary and asked the oracle at Didyma for guidance. The oracle’s reply was read as an endorsement of Galerius’s position, and a general persecution was called on February 23, 303. Persecutory policies varied in intensity across the empire. Whereas Galerius and Diocletian were avid persecutors, Constantius was unenthusiastic. Later persecutory edicts, including the calls for universal sacrifice, were not applied in his domain. His son, Constantine, on taking the imperial office in 306, restored Christians to full legal equality and returned property that had been confiscated during the persecution. In Italy in 306, the usurper Maxentius ousted Maximian’s successor Severus, promising full religious toleration. Galerius ended the persecution in the East in 311, but it was resumed in Egypt, Palestine, and Asia Minor by his successor, Maximinus. Constantine and Licinius, Severus’s successor, signed the Edict of Milan in 313, which offered a more comprehensive acceptance of Christianity than Galerius’s edict had provided. Licinius ousted Maximinus in 313, bringing an end to persecution in the East. The persecution failed to check the rise of the Church. By 324, Constantine was sole ruler of the empire, and Christianity had become his favored religion. Although the persecution resulted in death, torture, imprisonment, or dislocation for many Christians, the majority of the empire’s Christians avoided punishment. The persecution did, however, cause many churches to split between those who had complied with imperial authority (the traditores), and those who had remained “pure”. Certain schisms, like those of the Donatists in North Africa and the Melitians in Egypt, persisted long after the persecutions. The Donatists would not be reconciled to the Church until after 411. Some historians consider that, in the centuries that followed the persecutory era, Christians created a “cult of the martyrs” and exaggerated the barbarity of the persecutions. Other historians using texts and archeological evidence from the period assert that this position is in error. Christian accounts were criticized during the Enlightenment and afterwards, most notably by Edward Gibbon. This can be attributed to the political anticlerical and secular tenor of that period. Modern historians, such as G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, have attempted to determine whether Christian sources exaggerated the scope of the Diocletianic persecution, but disagreements continue.”

325 AD ~ “The Great Uncial Codices or Four Great Uncials are the only remaining uncial codices that contain (or originally contained) the entire text of the Bible (Old and New Testament) in Greek. They are the Codex Vaticanus in the Vatican Library, the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Alexandrinus in the British Library, and the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. Only four great codices have survived to the present day: Codex Vaticanus (abbreviated: B), Codex Sinaiticus (ℵ), Codex Alexandrinus (A), and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (C).[1] Although discovered at different times and places, they share many similarities. They are written in a certain uncial style of calligraphy using only majuscule letters, written in scriptio continua (meaning without regular gaps between words).[1][2] Though not entirely absent, there are very few divisions between words in these manuscripts. Words do not necessarily end on the same line on which they start. All these manuscripts were made at great expense of material and labour, written on vellum by professional scribes.[3] They seem to have been based on the most accurate texts in their time. All of the great uncials had the leaves arranged in quarto form.[4] The size of the leaves is much larger than in papyrus codices: B: Codex Vaticanus – 27 × 27 cm (10.6 × 10.6 in); c. 325–350. ℵ: Codex Sinaiticus – 38.1 × 34.5 cm (15.0 × 13.6 in); c. 330–360, A: Codex Alexandrinus – 32 × 26 cm (12.6 × 10.4 in); c. 400–440. C: Codex Ephraemi – 33 × 27 cm (13.0 × 10.6 in); c. 450. D: In the 19th century, the Codex Bezae was also included to the group of the great uncials (F. H. A. Scrivener, Dean Burgon).”

350 AD ~ “The Vetus Latina (“Old Latin” in Latin), also known as Vetus Itala (“Old Italian”), Itala (“Italian”) and Old Italic, and denoted by the siglum �, is the collective name given to the Latin translations of biblical texts (both Old Testament and New Testament) that preceded the Vulgate (the Latin translation produced by Jerome in the late 4th century). Note: “The manuscripts apparently do not have a single author, but were written and scribed by various Christians for use in their communities and churches – Marc William White”. “The Vetus Latina translations continued to be used alongside the Vulgate, but eventually the Vulgate became the standard Latin Bible used by the Catholic Church, especially after the Council of Trent (1545–1563) affirmed the Vulgate translation as authoritative for the text of Catholic Bibles. However, the Vetus Latina texts survive in some parts of the liturgy (e.g., the Pater Noster). As the English translation of Vetus Latina is “Old Latin”, they are also sometimes referred to as the Old Latin Bible,[1] although they are written in the form of Latin known as Late Latin, not that known as Old Latin. The Vetus Latina manuscripts that are preserved today are dated from AD 350 to the 13th century.”

382 AD ~ “The Vulgate Bible – (/ˈvʌlɡeɪt, -ɡət/; also called Biblia Vulgata (Bible in common tongue), Latin: [ˈbɪbli.a wʊlˈɡaːta]) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Vetus Latina Gospels used by the Roman Church. Later, on his own initiative, Jerome extended this work of revision and translation to include most of the books of the Bible. The Vulgate became progressively adopted as the Bible text within the Western Church. Over succeeding centuries, it eventually eclipsed the Vetus Latina. By the 13th century it had taken over from the former version the designation versio vulgata[1] (the “version commonly used”) or vulgata for short. The Vulgate also contains some Vetus Latina translations that Jerome did not work on. The Vulgate was to become the Catholic Church‘s officially promulgated Latin version of the Bible as the Sixtine Vulgate (1590), then as the Clementine Vulgate (1592), and then as the Nova Vulgata (1979). The Vulgate is still currently used in the Latin Church. The Catholic Church affirmed the Vulgate as its official Latin Bible at the Council of Trent (1545–1563), though there was no authoritative edition at that time.[2] The Clementine edition of the Vulgate became the standard Bible text of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, and remained so until 1979 when the Nova Vulgata was promulgated.”

476 AD ~ “The Gothic Bible or Wulfila Bible is the Christian Bible in the Gothic language spoken by the Eastern Germanic (Gothic) tribes in the early Middle Ages.[1] The translation was allegedly made by the Arian bishop and missionary Wulfila in the fourth century. Recent scholarly opinion, based on analyzing the linguistic properties of the Gothic text, holds that the translation of the Bible into Gothic was not or not solely performed by Wulfila, or any one person, but rather by a team of scholars. Surviving fragments of the Wulfila Bible consist of codices and one lead tablet from the 5th to 8th century containing a large part of the New Testament and some parts of the Old Testament, largely written in Italy. These are: Codex Argenteus, the longest and most celebrated of the manuscripts, which is kept in Uppsala, Codex Ambrosianus A through Codex Ambrosianus E, containing the epistles, Skeireins (in a fragment of Codex Ambrosianus E known as the Codex Vaticanus Latinus 5750), and Nehemiah 5–7, Codex Carolinus, a Gothic Latin diglot palimpsest containing Romans 11–14, Codex Gissensis, apparently also a Gothic-Latin diglot, containing fragments of the Gospel of Luke, Gothica Bononiensia (also known as the Codex Boniensis), a recently discovered (2009) palimpsest fragment with what appears to be a sermon, containing direct Bible quotes and allusions, both from previously attested parts of the Gothic Bible (the text is clearly taken from Ulfilas’ translation) and previously unattested ones (e.g. Psalms, Genesis). Fragmenta Pannonica (also known as the Hács-Béndekpuszta fragments or the Tabella Hungarica), which consist of 1 mm thick lead plates with fragmented remnants of verses from the Gospels.”

650 AD ~ The Aldhelm Psalms – (Old English: Ealdhelm, Latin: Aldhelmus Malmesberiensis) (c. 639 – 25 May 709), Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey, Bishop of Sherborne, and a writer and scholar of Latin poetry, was born before the middle of the 7th century. He is thought to have written an Old English translation of the Psalms. He is said to have been the son of Kenten, who was of the royal house of Wessex.[1] He was certainly not, as his early biographer Faritius asserts, the brother of King Ine.[2] After his death he was venerated as a saint, his feast day being the day of his death, 25 May.” Aldhelm wrote in elaborate, grandiloquent and very difficult Latin, known as hermeneutic style. This verborum garrulitas shows the influence of Irish models and became England’s dominant Latin style for centuries,[17] though eventually it came to be regarded as barbarous.[18] His works became standard school texts in monastic schools, until his influence declined around the time of the Norman Conquest.”

717 AD ~ The Lindisfarne Gospels – (London, British Library Cotton MS Nero D.IV) is an illuminated manuscript gospel book probably produced around the years 715–720 in the monastery at Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumberland, which is now in the British Library in London.[1] The manuscript is one of the finest works in the unique style of Hiberno-Saxon or Insular art, combining Mediterranean, Anglo-Saxon and Celtic elements.[2] They are presumed to be the work of a monk named Eadfrith, who became Bishop of Lindisfarne in 698 and died in 721.[3] Current scholarship indicates a date around 715, and it is believed they were produced in honour of St. Cuthbert. However, some parts of the manuscript were left unfinished so it is likely that Eadfrith was still working on it at his time of death.[3] It is also possible that he produced them prior to 698, in order to commemorate the elevation of Cuthbert’s relics in that year,[4] which is also thought to have been the occasion for which the St Cuthbert Gospel (also British Library) was produced. The Gospels are richly illustrated in the insular style and were originally encased in a fine leather treasure binding covered with jewels and metals made by Billfrith the Anchorite in the 8th century. During the Viking raids on Lindisfarne this jewelled cover was lost and a replacement was made in 1852.[5] The text is written in insular script, and is the best documented and most complete insular manuscript of the period.”

734 AD ~ The Bede Gospel Of John – (/biːd/ BEED; Old English: Bǣda [ˈbæːdɑ], Bēda [ˈbeːdɑ]; 672/3 – 26 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable (Latin: Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom of Northumbria of the Angles (contemporarily Monkwearmouth –Jarrow Abbey in Tyne and Wear, England). Produced a translation of the Gospel of John into Old English, which he is said to have prepared shortly before his death. This translation is lost; we know of its existence from Cuthbert of Jarrow’s account of Bede’s death.[4] Born on lands belonging to the twin monastery of Monkwearmouth–Jarrow in present-day Tyne and Wear, Bede was sent to Monkwearmouth at the age of seven and later joined Abbot Ceolfrith at Jarrow. Both of them survived a plague that struck in 686 and killed a majority of the population there. While Bede spent most of his life in the monastery, he travelled to several abbeys and monasteries across the British Isles, even visiting the archbishop of York and King Ceolwulf of Northumbria.

990 AD ~ “The Wessex Gospels (also known as the West-Saxon Gospels) are a full translation of the four gospels into a West Saxon dialect of Old English. Produced in approximately 990, they are the first translation of all four gospels into English without the Latin text. Seven manuscript copies survive. Its transcribing was supervised by the monk Aelfric of Eynsham.[2] The text of Matthew 6:9–13, the Lord’s Prayer, is as follows: Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum, si þin nama gehalgod. To becume þin rice, gewurþe ðin willa, on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. Urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg, and forgyf us ure gyltas, swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum. And ne gelæd þu us on costnunge, ac alys us of yfele. Soþlice.” Ælfric of Eynsham (Old English: Ælfrīc; Latin: Alfricus, Elphricus; c. 955 – c. 1010) was an Englishabbot and a student of Æthelwold of Winchester, and a consummate, prolific writer in Old English of hagiography, homilies, biblical commentaries, and other genres. He is also known variously as Ælfric the Grammarian (Alfricus Grammaticus), Ælfric of Cerne, and Ælfric the Homilist. In the view of Peter Hunter Blair, he was “a man comparable both in the quantity of his writings and in the quality of his mind even with Bede himself.”[1] According to Claudio Leonardi, he “represented the highest pinnacle of Benedictine reform and Anglo-Saxon literature”.

1008 AD ~”The Leningrad Codex (Latin: Codex Leningradensis [Leningrad Book]; Hebrew: כתב יד לנינגרד) is the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew, using the Masoretic Text and Tiberian vocalization. According to its colophon, it was made in Cairo in 1008 CE (or possibly 1009). Some have proposed that the Leningrad Codex was corrected against the Aleppo Codex, a slightly earlier manuscript that was partially lost in the 20th century. However, Paul E. Kahle argues that the Leningrad manuscript was more likely based on other, lost manuscripts by the ben Asher family.[2] The Aleppo Codex is several decades older, but parts of it have been missing since the 1947 anti-Jewish riots in Aleppo, making the Leningrad Codex the oldest complete codex of the Tiberian mesorah that has survived intact to this day. In modern times, the Leningrad Codex is significant as the Hebrew text reproduced in Biblia Hebraica (1937), Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (1977), and Biblia Hebraica Quinta (2004–present). It also serves as a primary source for the recovery of details in the missing parts of the Aleppo Codex. The Leningrad Codex (a codex is a handwritten book bound at one side, as opposed to a scroll) is so named because it has been housed at the National Library of Russia in Saint Petersburg since 1863 (before 1917 named Imperial Public Library).”

1010 AD ~ “The Old English Hexateuch – is the collaborative project of the late Anglo-Saxon period that translated the six books of the Hexateuch into Old English, presumably under the editorship of Ælfric of Eynsham.[1] It is the first English vernacular translation of the first six books of the Old Testament, i.e. the five books of the Torah (Genesis Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) and Joshua. It was probably made for use by lay people.[2] The translation is known in seven manuscripts, most of which are fragmentary. The best-known of those is a richly illuminated manuscript in the British Library, Cotton MS Claudius B.iv. Another copy of the text, without lavish illustrations but including a translation of the Book of Judges (hence also called the Old English Heptateuch), is found in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 509. The whole manuscript is available online at the British Library website.”

1155 AD ~ “The Bologna Torah Scroll (also known as the University of Bologna Torah Scroll, circa 1155-1225CE) is the world’s oldest complete extant Torah scroll.[1][2] The scroll contains the full text of the five Books of Moses in Hebrew and is kosher. The scroll was returned to the Biella Synagogue during a ceremony on March 6, 2016.[3] The scroll was discovered at the University of Bologna’s library by Mauro Perani, a professor of Hebrew. While updating the university’s catalogue, Perani came across a Torah scroll that he believed to have been erroneously dated to the 17th century after a textual analysis. Two independent carbon-dating tests were performed (one at the University of Sorrento and another at the University of Illinois) and indicated that the scroll was actually written between the second half of the 12th century to the beginning of the 13th century. The scroll measures 36 meters by 64 cm (39 yards by 25 inches) and is made of sheepskin.”

1200 AD ~ “The Book Of Hours – is a Christian devotional book used to pray the canonical hours.[2] The use of a book of hours was especially popular in the Middle Ages and as a result, they are the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. Like every manuscript, each manuscript book of hours is unique in one way or another, but most contain a similar collection of texts, prayers and psalms, often with appropriate decorations, for Christian devotion. Illumination or decoration is minimal in many examples, often restricted to decorated capital letters at the start of psalms and other prayers, but books made for wealthy patrons may be extremely lavish, with full-page miniatures. These illustrations would combine picturesque scenes of country life with sacred images.[3]: 46  Books of hours were usually written in Latin (the Latin name for them is horae), although there are many entirely or partially written in vernacular European languages, especially Dutch. The closely related primer is occasionally considered synonymous with books of hours, but their contents and purposes could deviate significantly from simply recitation of the canonical hours. Tens of thousands of books of hours have survived to the present day, in libraries and private collections throughout the world.

1382 AD ~ “Wycliffe’s Bible is the name now given to a group of Bible translations into Middle English that were made under the direction of English theologian John Wycliffe. They appeared over a period from approximately 1382 to 1395.[1] These Bible translations were the chief inspiration and chief cause of the Lollard movement, a pre-Reformation movement that rejected many of the distinctive teachings of the Catholic Church. In the early Middle Ages, most Western Christians encountered the Bible only in the form of oral versions of scriptures, verses and homilies in Latin (other sources were mystery plays, usually performed in the vernacular, and popular iconography). Though relatively few people could read at this time, Wycliffe’s idea was to translate the Bible into the vernacular, saying “it helpeth Christian men to study the Gospel in that tongue in which they know best Christ’s sentence”.[2] Long thought to be the work of Wycliffe himself, the Wycliffe translations are now generally believed to be the work of several hands. Nicholas of Hereford is known to have translated a part of the text; John Purvey and perhaps John Trevisa are names that have been mentioned as possible authors. The translators worked from the Vulgate, the Latin Bible that was the standard Biblical text of Western Christianity. They included in the testaments those works which would later be called the Apocrypha by most Protestants (referred to as deuterocanonical by Roman Catholics and some Anglicans), along with 3 Esdras (which is now called 2 Esdras) and Paul’s epistle to the Laodiceans. Although unauthorized, the work was popular. Wycliffe Bible texts are the most common manuscript literature in Middle English. More than 250 manuscripts of the Wycliffe Bible survive. One copy sold at auction on 5 December 2016 for US$1,692,500.”

1454 AD ~ “The Gutenberg Bible – (also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42) was the earliest major book printed using mass-produced movable metal type in Europe. Printed entirely in Latin. It marked the start of the “Gutenberg Revolution” and the age of printed books in the West. The book is valued and revered for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities[1] as well as its historical significance. It is an edition of the Latin Vulgate printed in the 1450s by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, in present-day Germany. Forty-nine copies (or substantial portions of copies) have survived. They are thought to be among the world’s most valuable books, although no complete copy has been sold since 1978.[2][3] In March 1455, the future Pope Pius II wrote that he had seen pages from the Gutenberg Bible displayed in Frankfurt to promote the edition, and that either 158 or 180 copies had been printed (he cited sources for both numbers).” In 2018 Marc William White was walking to a bookstore in Chicago, on his way Yahweh spoke to him and said, “go in this building, and ask to see part of a Gutenberg Bible”, that day he had a private viewing, with no appointment, of a page from an original Gutenberg Bible in the Special Collections & Preservation Division (after signing no less than 2 contracts) at the Harold Washington Library Center of The Chicago Public Library, on State Street. Mr. Frazier, the Director personally displayed the leaf for Mr. White, and despite “Ms. Christian” having rigorously searched multiple computer systems that day on the second floor, and despite “Ms. Debby” at the main desk in the Special Collections having worked there for 20 years on the 6th floor, neither ladies knew the Gutenberg Bible leaf was actually in their collection and housed in the building. He then went and celebrated with a Virgin Pina Colada, and the servers name was “Ms. Christian”.

1500 AD ~ “Early Modern English Bibles – translations are of between about 1500 and 1800, the period of Early Modern English. This was the first major period of Bible translation into the English language. This period began with the introduction of the Tyndale Bible. The first complete edition of his New Testament was in 1526. William Tyndale used the Greek and Hebrew texts of the New Testament (NT) and Old Testament (OT) in addition to Jerome‘s Latin translation. He was the first translator to use the printing press – this enabled the distribution of several thousand copies of his New Testament translation throughout England. Tyndale did not complete his Old Testament translation. The first printed English translation of the whole Bible was produced by Miles Coverdale in 1535, using Tyndale’s work together with his own translations from the Latin Vulgate or German text. After much scholarly debate it is concluded that this was printed in Antwerp and the colophon gives the date as 4 October 1535. This first edition was adapted by Coverdale for his first “authorised version”, known as the Great Bible, of 1539.”

1516 AD ~ “Textus Receptus (Latin: “received text”) refers to all printed editions of the Greek New Testament from Erasmus’s,  Novum Instrumentum omne (1516) to the 1633 Elzevir edition.[1] It was the most commonly used text type for Protestant denominations. The Textus Receptus constituted the translation-base for the original German Luther Bible, the translation of the New Testament into English by William Tyndale, the King James Version, the Spanish Reina-Valera translation, the Czech Bible of Kralice, and most Reformation-era New Testament translations throughout Western and Central Europe. The text originated with the first printed Greek New Testament, published in 1516, a work undertaken in Basel by the Dutch Catholic scholar, priest and monk Desiderius Erasmus. Erasmus had been working for years on two projects: a collation of Greek texts and a fresh Latin New Testament. In 1512, he began his work on the Latin New Testament. He collected all the Vulgate manuscripts that he could find to create a critical edition. Then, he polished the Latin, declaring, “It is only fair that Paul should address the Romans in somewhat better Latin.”[2] In the earlier phases of the project, he never mentioned a Greek text: “My mind is so excited at the thought of emending Jerome’s text, with notes, that I seem to myself inspired by some god. I have already almost finished emending him by collating a large number of ancient manuscripts, and this I am doing at enormous personal expense. The edition was a sell-out commercial success and was reprinted in 1519, with most but not all of the typographical errors corrected.”

1522 AD ~ “The Tyndale Bible – generally refers to the body of biblical translations by William Tyndale into Early Modern English, made c. 1522–1536. Tyndale’s Bible is credited with being the first Bible translation in the English language to work directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, although it relied heavily upon the Latin Vulgate. Furthermore, it was the first English biblical translation that was mass-produced as a result of new advances in the art of printing. The term ‘Tyndale’s Bible’ is not strictly correct, because Tyndale never published a complete English language Bible; instead, a completely translated Bible was completed by Myles Coverdale, who supplemented Tyndale’s translations with his own to produce the first complete printed Bible in English in 1535. Before his execution, Tyndale had translated the New Testament, the Pentateuch, and the historical books of the Old Testament.[1] Of the Old Testament books, the Pentateuch, Book of Jonah, and a revised version of the Book of Genesis were published during Tyndale’s lifetime. His other Old Testament works were first used in the creation of the Matthew Bible and also greatly influenced subsequent English translations of the Bible.”

1535 AD ~ “The Coverdale Bible, – compiled by Myles Coverdale and published in 1535, was the first complete Modern English translation of the Bible (not just the Old Testament or New Testament), and the first complete printed translation into English (cf. Wycliffe’s Bible in manuscript). The later editions (folio and quarto) published in 1537 were the first complete Bibles printed in England. The 1537 folio edition carried the royal licence and was therefore the first officially approved Bible translation in English. The Psalter from the Coverdale Bible was included in the Great Bible of 1540 and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer beginning in 1662, and in all editions of the U.S. Episcopal Church Book of Common Prayer until 1979. Although Coverdale was also involved in the preparation of the Great Bible of 1539, the Coverdale Bible continued to be reprinted. The last of over 20 editions of the whole Bible, or its New Testament, appeared in 1553.[citation needed]“

1539 AD ~ “The Great Bible – was the first authorized edition of the Bible in English, authorized by King Henry VIII of England to be read aloud in the church services of the Church of England. The Great Bible was prepared by Myles Coverdale, working under commission of Thomas, Lord Cromwell, Secretary to Henry VIII and Vicar General. In 1538, Cromwell directed the clergy to provide “one book of the Bible of the largest volume in English, and the same set up in some convenient place within the said church that ye have care of, whereas your parishioners may most commodiously resort to the same and read it. The Great Bible includes much from the Tyndale Bible, with the objectionable features revised. As the Tyndale Bible was incomplete, Coverdale translated the remaining books of the Old Testament and Apocrypha from the Latin Vulgate and German translations, rather than working from the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic texts.”

1549 AD ~ “The Book of Common Prayer (BCP) is the name given to a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion and by other Christian churches historically related to Anglicanism. The first prayer book, published in 1549 in the reign of King Edward VI of England, was a product of the English Reformation following the break with Rome. The work of 1549 was the first prayer book to include the complete forms of service for daily and Sunday worship in English. It contained Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, the Litany, and Holy Communion and also the occasional services in full: the orders for Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, “prayers to be said with the sick“, and a funeral service. It also set out in full the “propers” (that is the parts of the service which varied week by week or, at times, daily throughout the Church’s Year): the introits, collects, and epistle and gospel readings for the Sunday service of Holy Communion. Old Testament and New Testament readings for daily prayer were specified in tabular format as were the Psalms and canticles, mostly biblical, that were provided to be said or sung between the readings.”

1560 AD ~ “The Geneva Bible – is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into English, preceding the King James Version by 51 years.[1] The first full edition of this Bible, with a further revised New Testament, appeared in 1560,[5] and was published by Sir Rowland Hill of Soulton, but it was not printed in England until 1575 (New Testament[5]) and 1576 (complete Bible[5]). It was the primary Bible of 16th-century English Protestantism and was used by William Shakespeare,[2] Oliver Cromwell, John Knox, John Donne, and others. It was one of the Bibles taken to America on the Mayflower (Pilgrim Hall Museum has collected several Bibles of Mayflower passengers). The Geneva Bible was used by many English Dissenters, and it was still respected by Oliver Cromwell‘s soldiers at the time of the English Civil War, in the booklet The Souldiers Pocket Bible.[3] This version of the Bible is significant because, for the first time, a mechanically printed, mass-produced Bible was made available directly to the general public which came with a variety of scriptural study guides and aids (collectively called an apparatus), which included verse citations that allow the reader to cross-reference one verse with numerous relevant verses in the rest of the Bible, introductions to each book of the Bible that acted to summarize all of the material that each book would cover, maps, tables, woodcut illustrations and indices. Because the language of the Geneva Bible was more forceful and vigorous, most readers strongly preferred this version to the Great Bible. In the words of Cleland Boyd McAfee, “it drove the Great Bible off the field by sheer power of excellence”.”

1568 AD ~ “The Bishops’ Bible is an English translation of the Bible which was produced under the authority of the established Church of England in 1568. It was substantially revised in 1572, and the 1602 edition was prescribed as the base text for the King James Version that was completed in 1611. The thorough Calvinism of the Geneva Bible (more evident in the marginal notes than in the translation itself) offended the high-church party of the Church of England, to which almost all of its bishops subscribed. Though most mainstream English clergy agreed with much of Calvin’s theology, the majority did not approve of his prescribed church polity, Presbyterianism, which sought to replace government of the church by bishops (Episcopalian) with government by lay elders. However, they were aware that the Great Bible of 1539 — which was the only version then legally authorized for use in Anglican worship — differed, in that much of the Old Testament and Apocrypha was translated from the Latin Vulgate, rather than from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. In an attempt to replace the objectionable Geneva translation, they circulated one of their own, which became known as the “Bishops’ Bible”.

1611 AD ~ “The King James Bible (KJB) – also the King James Version (KJV) and the Authorized Version, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of King James VI and I.[d][e] The 80 books of the King James Version include 39 books of the Old Testament, an intertestamental section containing 14 books of what Protestants consider the Apocrypha, and the 27 books of the New Testament. Noted for its “majesty of style”, the King James Version has been described as one of the most important books in English culture and a driving force in the shaping of the English-speaking world. The KJV was first printed by John Norton and Robert Barker, who both held the post of the King’s Printer, and was the third translation into English language approved by the English Church authorities: The first had been the Great Bible, commissioned in the reign of King Henry VIII (1535), and the second had been the Bishops’ Bible, commissioned in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1568).[5] In Geneva, Switzerland, the first generation of Protestant Reformers had produced the Geneva Bible of 1560[6] from the original Hebrew and Greek scriptures, which was influential in the writing of the Authorized King James Version.”

1640 AD ~ “The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre, commonly called the Bay Psalm Book, is a metrical psalter first printed in 1640 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was the first book printed in British North America.[1][2] The psalms in it are metrical translations into English. The translations are not particularly polished, and none have remained in use, although some of the tunes to which they were sung have survived (for instance, “Old 100th“); however, its production, just 20 years after the Pilgrims’ arrival at Plymouth, Massachusetts, represents a considerable achievement. It went through several editions and remained in use for well over a century.[3][4][5] In November 2013, one of eleven known surviving copies of the first edition sold at auction for $14.2 million, a record for a printed book. The early residents of the Massachusetts Bay Colony brought with them several books of psalms: the Ainsworth Psalter (1612), compiled by Henry Ainsworth for use by Puritan “separatists” in Holland; the Ravenscroft Psalter (1621); and the Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter (1562), of which there were several editions. Evidently they were dissatisfied with the translations from Hebrew in these several psalters and wished for some that were closer to the original. They hired “thirty pious and learned Ministers”, including Richard Mather, Thomas Mayhew, and John Eliot,[9] to undertake a new translation, which they presented here.[10] The tunes to be sung to the new translations were the familiar ones from their existing psalters. The first printing was the third product of the Stephen Day (sometimes spelled Daye) press, and consisted of a 148 small quarto leaves, including a 12-page preface, “The Psalmes in Metre”, “An Admonition to the Reader”, and an extensive list of errata headed “Faults escaped in printing”. As with subsequent editions of the book, Day printed the book for sale by the first bookseller in British America, Hezekiah Usher, whose shop at that time was also located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[11] An estimated 1,700 copies of the first edition were printed.”

1661 AD ~ “The Eliot Indian Bible – (Algonquin: Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God;[1] also known as the Algonquian Bible) was the first translation of the Christian Bible into an indigenous American language, as well as the first Bible published in British North America. It was prepared by English Puritan missionary John Eliot by translating the Geneva Bible[2][3][4] into the Massachusett language.[5][6] Printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the work first appeared in 1661 with only the New Testament. An edition including all 66 books of both the Old and New Testaments was printed in 1663.[7] The inscription on the 1663 edition’s cover page, beginning with Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up Biblum God, corresponds in English to The Whole Holy His-Bible God, both Old Testament and also New Testament. This turned by the servant of Christ, who is called John Eliot.[8] The preparation and printing of Eliot’s work was supported by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, whose governor was the eminent scientist Robert Boyle.”

1743 AD ~ “The Sauer Bible – In 1743, Sauer published the first German-language Bible to be printed in North America (the first in any European language). It was a quarto edition of the Bible in high German, Luther‘s translation, which was limited to 1,200 copies of 1,284 pages. All pages were hand-set and printed one sheet at a time. It bore the title “Biblia, Das ist: Die Heilige Schrift Alten und Neuen Testaments, Nach der Deutschen Übersetzung D. Martin Luther“. (Bible: The Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testaments following the translation of Dr. Martin Luther). Another 40 years would pass before an English-language Bible would appear in North America. It was three years in press, the largest work as yet issued in the colonies, and was the first Bible printed in the American colonies, with the exception of John Eliot‘s Indian Bible. Sauer’s Bible emphasized passages most in sympathy with Anabaptist and Pietist beliefs. It was rapidly excepted among the Mennonites, Amish and Brethren. It was well received by the German churches of Pennsylvania, who were in turn influential in what became the Universalist church in the Middle Atlantic and New England states. George de Benneville (1703–1793) was an important influence on the early Universalists and, like Sauer, had sojourned among the Wittgenstein Pietists before coming to America. Sauer remained active as a printer up until his death on September 25, 1758 in Germantown, but none of his other publications had the impact of the “Sauer Bible.” The latter was re-published in 1763 and again in 1776 by his son.”

1782 AD ~ “The Aitken Bible – first Bible English printed in America – 1782, was reviewed, approved and authorized by the Congress of the Confederation. The Bible was reviewed first for accuracy by the Congressional Chaplains White and Duffield and they reported on its accuracy. Then the Journals of Congress for September 1782 records on page 469, “Resolved. That the United States in Congress assembled highly approve the pious and laudable undertaking of Mr. Aitkin, as subservient to the interest of religion as well as an influence of the progress of arts in this country and being satisfied from the above report (by the congressional chaplains), they recommend this edition of the bible to the inhabitants of the United States and hereby authorize him to publish this recommendation.” (Spelling has been modernized).[5] In 1781 Aitken undertook to print the first complete English Bible produced in America and sought the official sanction of Congress for his edition. Congress passed a resolution officially authorizing the edition in September 1782. Known as the “Aitken Bible,” this was the first and only edition of the Bible ever authorized by Congress. As Aitken reported to George Washington, the venture was a financial failure.”

1791 AD ~ “The Collins Family Bible – It was required in many of the Thirteen Colonies during the early part of the 18th century that every family have a bible.[3] Most families went by the colony law requirements until the beginning of the American Revolutionary War.[3] Up until this time, bibles came from Europe but could no longer be supplied because of hazards of the war.[3] The Continental Congress obtained bids from Collins for producing copies of the KJV edition of the Bible for the colony families.[3][41] He published 5,000 copies of a quarto edition family bible consisting of 925 pages in 1791.[4][21][39] Collins was paid about four Spanish dollars per bible for the printing.[39] Collins’s bible used higher quality printing types and better techniques than conventional printing of the time period. His bible was proofread up to eleven times before being published.[21] Bible scholars note that it was one of the most textually accurate bibles ever printed[32][42] and was one of the earliest American family bibles published.[43][44] It was the largest publishing job ever done in America up to that point[21] and three thousand bibles were pre-sold before printing started.[45] It was different than the customary editions of the Christian Bible in that the dedication to King James was omitted and instead it had an address “To the Reader” by Reverend John Witherspoon. Some of the printed copies had Jean-Frédéric Osterwald‘s The Arguments of the Books and Chapters of the Old and New Testament With Practical Observations with a separate title page altogether.[4]“

1881 AD ~ “The Revised Version (RV) or English Revised Version (ERV) of the Bible is a late 19th-century British revision of the King James Version. It was the first and remains the only officially authorised and recognised revision of the King James Version in Great Britain. The work was entrusted to over 50 scholars from various denominations in Great Britain. American scholars were invited to co-operate, by correspondence.[1] Its New Testament was published in 1881, its Old Testament in 1885, and its Apocrypha in 1894.[1] The best known of the translation committee members were Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort; their fiercest critics of that period were John William Burgon and George Saintsbury. The New Testament revision company was commissioned in 1870 by the convocation of Canterbury.[2] Their stated aim was “to adapt King James’ version to the present state of the English language without changing the idiom and vocabulary,” and “to adapt it to the present standard of Biblical scholarship.” To those ends, the Greek text that was used to translate the New Testament was believed by most to be of higher reliability than the Textus Receptus. The readings used were compiled from a different text of the Greek Testament by Edwin Palmer. While the text of the translation itself is widely regarded as excessively literal and flat,[4] the Revised Version is significant in the history of English Bible translation for many reasons. At the time of the RV’s publication, the nearly 300-year-old King James Version was the main Protestant English Bible in Victorian England. The RV, therefore, is regarded as the forerunner of the entire modern translation tradition. It was also considered more accurate than the King James Version in a number of verses.”

1901 AD ~ “The American Standard Version (ASV), officially Revised Version, Standard American Edition, is a Bible translation into English that was completed in 1901 with the publication of the revision of the Old Testament. The revised New Testament had been released in 1900. It was previously known by its full name, but soon came to have other names, such as the American Revised Version, the American Standard Revision, the American Standard Revised Bible, and the American Standard Edition. The American Standard Version, which was also known as The American Revision of 1901, is rooted in the work begun in 1870 to revise the King James Bible of 1611. This project eventually produced the Revised Version (RV) in the UK. An invitation was extended to American religious leaders for scholars to work on the RV project. In 1871, thirty scholars were chosen by Philip Schaff. The denominations represented on the American committee were the Baptist, Congregationalist, Dutch Reformed, Friends, Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Protestant Episcopal, and Unitarian. These scholars began work in 1872. Three of the editors, the youngest in years, became the editors of the American Standard Revised New Testament: Drs. Dwight, Thayer and Matthew B. Riddle.”

1952 AD ~ “The Revised Standard Version Bible (RSV) – is an English translation of the Bible published in 1952 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA.[1] This translation itself is a revision of the American Standard Version (ASV) of 1901,[2] and was intended to be a readable and literally accurate modern English translation which aimed to “preserve all that is best in the English Bible as it has been known and used through the centuries” and “to put the message of the Bible in simple, enduring words that are worthy to stand in the great Tyndale–King James tradition.”[3][4] The RSV was the first translation of the Bible to make use of the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah, a development considered “revolutionary” in the academic field of biblical scholarship.[2] The New Testament was first published in 1946, the Old Testament in 1952, and the Apocrypha in 1957; the New Testament was revised in 1971. The original Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (RSV-CE) was published in 1965–66, and the deuterocanonical books were expanded in 1977. The Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition (RSV-2CE) was released in 2006.”

1971 AD ~ “The Living Bible (TLB or LB) is a personal paraphrase, not a translation, of the Bible in English by Kenneth N. Taylor and first published in 1971. Taylor used the American Standard Version of 1901 as his base text.[1] The Living Bible was well received in many Evangelical circles. Youth-oriented Protestant groups such as Youth for Christ and Young Life accepted it readily. In 1962 Billy Graham received a copy of Living Letters – a paraphrase of the New Testament epistles and the first portion of what later became The Living Bible – while recuperating in a hospital in Hawaii. He was impressed with its easy readability, and he asked for permission to print 50,000 paperback copies of Living Letters for use in his evangelistic crusades. Over the next year he distributed 600,000 copies of Living Letters. The Living Bible was a best-seller in the early 1970s, largely due to the accessibility of its modern language, which made passages understandable to those with weak reading skills, or no previous background in Bible study. The Living Bible was the best-selling book in the U.S.[6] From the very beginning of its publication, Taylor had assigned the copyright to Tyndale House Foundation, so all of the royalties from sales of The Living Bible were given to charity.[7]“

1978 AD ~ “The New International Version Bible (NIV) is a translation of the Bible in contemporary English. Published by Biblica, the complete NIV was released in 1978 with major revisions in 1984 and 2011. The NIV relies on recently published critical editions of the original Hebrew and Greek texts.[1][2] Biblica claims that “the NIV delivers the very best combination of accuracy and readability.”[6] As of March 2013, over 450 million printed copies of the translation had been distributed.[5] The NIV is the best-selling translation in the United States.[7] According to the Association for Christian Retail (CBA), the New International Version has become the most popular selling English translation of the Bible in CBA bookstores, having sold more than 450 million copies worldwide.[5] There are numerous study Bibles available with extensive notes on the text and background information to make the Biblical stories more comprehensible. Among these are the NIV Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible, Concordia Study Bible, the Zondervan published NIV Study Bible, the Wesleyan revision, Reflecting God Study Bible, as well as the Life Application Study Bible.”

1982 AD ~ “The New King James Version (NKJV) is a translation of the Bible in contemporary English. Published by Thomas Nelson, the complete NKJV was released in 1982. With regard to its textual basis, the NKJV relies on a recently published critical edition (the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia) for the Old Testament,[1] while opting to use the Textus Receptus for the New Testament.[2][a] The NKJV is described by Thomas Nelson as being “scrupulously faithful to the original,[b] yet truly updated to enhance its clarity and readability. The NKJV translation project was conceived by Arthur Farstad. It was inaugurated in 1975 with two meetings (Nashville and Chicago) of 130 biblical scholars, pastors, and theologians. The men who were invited prepared the guidelines for the NKJV. The aim of its translators was to update the vocabulary and grammar of the King James Version, while preserving the classic style and literary beauty of the original 1769 edition of the King James Version. The 130 translators believed in faithfulness to the original Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew texts including the Dead Sea Scrolls. Also agreed upon for most New King James Bibles were easier event descriptions, a history of each book, and added dictionary and updated concordance. The text for the New Testament was published in 1979; the Psalms in 1980; and the full Bible in 1982. The project took seven years in total to complete.”

1996 AD ~ “The New Living Translation (NLT) is a translation of the Bible in contemporary English. Published in 1996 by Tyndale House Foundation, the NLT was created “by 90 leading Bible scholars.”[4] The NLT relies on recently published critical editions of the original Hebrew and Greek texts.[1] The origin of the NLT came from a project aiming to revise The Living Bible (TLB). This effort eventually led to the creation of the NLT—a new translation separate from the LB.[2] The first NLT edition retains some stylistic influences of the LB, but these are less evident in text revisions that have been published since. The New Living Translation used translators from a variety of Christian denominations. The method combined an attempt to translate the original texts simply and literally with a dynamic equivalence synergy approach used to convey the thoughts behind the text where a literal translation may have been difficult to understand or even misleading to modern readers. A part of the reasoning behind adapting the language for accessibility is the premise that more people will hear the Bible read aloud in a church service than are likely to read it or study it on their own.[5] It has been suggested that this “thought-for-thought” methodology, while making the translation easier to understand, is less accurate than a literal (formal equivalence) method, and thus the New Living Translation may not be suitable for those wishing to undertake detailed study of the Bible.[6] Work on this revision began in 1989 with ninety translators; it was published in July 1996, 25 years after the publication of The Living Bible. Advanced reader copies of the Epistle to the Romans were originally printed as the New Living Version, but eventually renamed the New Living Translation to avoid confusion between this new work and The Living Bible. NLV is still used to identify the New Living Translation in ONIX for Books. Soon after that, a new revision was begun and The Second Edition of the NLT (also called the NLTse) was released in 2004.[7] A revision in 2007 comprised mostly minor textual or footnote changes.[8] Other revisions were released in 2013 and 2015 with minor changes throughout.”