The first English translations of the Bible were hand written by John "Thomas Matthew" Wycliffe in the 1380's. Wycliffe, a widely known scholar and theologian, was opposed to many teachings of the organized church, and felt that the Bible should be in English, rather than in Latin, so that Christians would not be dependent on the clergy to interpret scripture.
He was the leader of The Lollards, and Christian sect that was considered heretical by the Roman Catholic Church. Wycliffe wrote his translations using the standard Catholic Bible of the day, the Latin Vulgate, as his source. His bones were exhumed many years after his death, by order of the Pope, crushed, and scattered in the river as a penalty for his "heresy".Desiderius Erasmus, a famed Dutch scholar, felt that it was important for the sake of accuracy to go back to the original sources for a new Bible translation. In 1516, he published his translation of the New Testament as a Latin - Greek parallel Bible. The new translation was the first in 1000 years to have been translated from ancient Greek manuscripts rather than from the Latin Vulgate. Ironically, although he dedicated the work to Pope Leo X, it became one of the main causes of the Protestant Reformation. His work later became known as the "Textus Receptus", and was the source used in the translation of the King James Version in 1611. Erasmus also wrote latin paraphrases of several New Testament books which were translated and published in the common European languages of the day.
Thanks to the invention of the printing press some 75 years earlier, the first printed New Testament in the English language was published by William Tyndale in 1525. Despite his genius, Tyndale had no easy task. He was forced to flee to Germany to write his translation when word of the project leaked out, and the Inquisition tried to find and arrest him in the attempt to stop his work. With the help of Martin Luther in Germany, Tyndale used Erasmus' "Textus Receptus" as his source and the work was completed within a year. The new Bibles were printed in Germany and smuggled into England. So fierce was the organized church's opposition that anyone caught distributing the Tyndale Bible was burned at the stake. The Tyndale Bible is easily available today, and can be read online.
The Geneva Bible
During the Protestant Reformation there were few safe havens for vocal Protestants. One of these was Geneva, Switzerland. During the 1550s, prominent leaders of the Reformation, in exile in Geneva, produced a New Testament, and later a complete Bible, that became known as the Geneva Bible. The primary writer, William Whittingham, relied on Tyndale's version, but added extensive commentaries. This was the bible of the Reformation, and bible brought by Puritans to America. The Geneva Bible was also the first to number verses within the chapters to make reference easier. For more than a century the Geneva Bible was the bible of choice for English Christians. This version has been out of print for centuries and is difficult to find. You can read the Geneva New Testament at the Logos Resources page.
The King James Bible
In 1611, The combined efforts of 50 scholars produced "The translation to end all translations": the King James Version. Although the Geneva Bible remained more popular for decades after its release, the King James Version has become, and has remained, the standard for over 400 years. Like Luther and Tyndale, the writers of the King James used the "Textus Receptus" as their source for the New Testament. The King James draws heavily on the Geneva and Tyndale Bibles, and took many other sources into account as well. The verses and numbered as in the Geneva bible and much of the Geneva Bible's commentaries were used. Today, many Protestants accept the King James as the only legitimate translation, when actually the King James is the bible of the Anglican Church, which at one time actively killed and persecuted Protestants. Early American Protestants used the Geneva Bible and rejected the "king's version".
Until the mid-ninteenth century the Bible contained 14 additional books. These books, collectively called the Apocrypha, are still contained in the Catholic Bible between the Old and New Testaments. Early Christian Apoocryphal texts from the 1st and 2nd centuries are also known. For more about the Apocrypha see the next article.