The History of Bible Translations

Long before the New Testament was written, the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek. Known as the Septuagint (named after the seventy scholars said to have produced it), this monumental project made the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings accessible to the wider Greek-speaking Mediterranean world.

The Septuagint became the primary Bible of the early Church. Writers of the New Testament quoted from it extensively, and it remains an invaluable witness to the original Hebrew text, frequently revealing readings that differ from later manuscripts.

As the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, the need for a definitive Latin text became urgent. Pope Damasus I commissioned the scholar Jerome to produce a reliable Latin translation in A.D. 382. After years of painstaking work — including direct study of the Hebrew originals — Jerome produced what became known as the Vulgate (from the Latin vulgata, meaning 'common').

The Vulgate became the standard ecclesiastical text of Western Christianity for over a thousand years, profoundly shaping the theology, liturgy, and language of Europe.

In 14th-century England, John Wycliffe dared to challenge the authority of the Latin Church by producing the first complete English Bible in 1382. Translated from the Latin Vulgate, Wycliffe believed that every person should have access to the Scriptures in their own language.

His efforts were met with fierce opposition. The Church declared his teachings heretical, and 44 years after his death, his bones were dug up and burned. Yet his work ignited a fire that could not be extinguished.

The Renaissance brought a renewed appetite for original sources. The Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus compiled the first printed edition of the Greek New Testament in 1516, famously declaring he would rather return to the source than trust any translation.

His 'Received Text' (Textus Receptus) became the foundation for the Reformation-era translations and provided a Greek source that challenged many of the Vulgate's traditional readings. Within two years, Martin Luther had used it to produce his German New Testament.

William Tyndale was the first to translate the Bible into English directly from the original Hebrew and Greek. His New Testament, published in 1526, was so dangerous that authorities burned both the books and eventually Tyndale himself in 1536.

His last recorded words were a prayer: 'Lord, open the King of England's eyes.' Within three years, the King had authorised an English Bible — built substantially on Tyndale's own words. It is estimated that over 80% of the King James Version traces directly back to his translation.

Commissioned by King James I of England, the King James Bible was the work of 47 scholars working across six groups, drawing on every major text and previous translation available. Published in 1611, it became arguably the most influential book in the English language.

Its majestic prose shaped literature, law, and worship for four centuries. Yet its archaic language — beautiful as it is — has made modern engagement increasingly difficult, providing the very impetus for projects like the Edified Edition.

In the spring of 1947, a Bedouin shepherd threw a stone into a cave near Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea and heard something break. What he had stumbled upon would become the most significant archaeological find of the 20th century: the Dead Sea Scrolls — a collection of nearly 900 manuscripts dating from the 3rd century BC to the 1st century AD.

Among them were fragments from every book of the Old Testament except Esther, including a complete scroll of Isaiah that predated the previously oldest known Hebrew manuscript by a full thousand years. Remarkably, the text was almost identical — a testimony to the extraordinary care of Jewish scribes across the centuries.

But the scrolls also revealed places where the text differed from the later Masoretic manuscripts that the KJV was based on. In Psalm 22:16, for instance, the Dead Sea Scrolls support the reading "they have pierced my hands and my feet" rather than "like a lion." In Deuteronomy 32:8, the scrolls read "sons of God" (Bene Elohim) rather than "sons of Israel."

These discoveries did not undermine Scripture — they enriched it. They handed modern translators new tools to reach the oldest recoverable text. Translations like the Edified Edition take these manuscript discoveries seriously, choosing the oldest and most reliable readings wherever the evidence supports them.

The 20th century brought an explosion of new translations. The Revised Standard Version (RSV) in 1952 aimed to combine scholarly accuracy with readability. The New International Version (NIV), first published in 1978, became the world's best-selling modern translation, prioritising clear, contemporary English. The English Standard Version (ESV) (2001) and the New Living Translation (NLT) each found their own audiences between formal equivalence and dynamic readability.

The digital age has transformed everything. For the first time in history, any reader can compare a dozen translations side by side in seconds. Ancient manuscripts are being digitised and published. Scholars collaborate across continents. The barrier between the academic study of Scripture and the ordinary reader has never been lower.

But this abundance has also created a new challenge: with so many translations available, which one should a reader trust? How do these translations differ from each other — and from the original? What does it mean for a translation to be "accurate"?

These are precisely the questions that motivated the creation of the Edified Edition (EDE). Rather than choosing between scholarship and accessibility, the EDE insists on both: a translation rooted in the oldest available manuscripts, driven by the original Hebrew and Greek, and written in plain, precise modern English — so that every reader, regardless of their background, can encounter the text the way its first audience did: directly, powerfully, without a veil of archaic language between them and the living Word.