(Vol. v., p. 59.)
The answer of our friend MR. OFFOR to the inquiry of your correspondent
H. H. H. V., Vol. v., p. 59., would have required no remarks but for the
paragraph which follows his description of the copies of Coverdale's
Bible in his valuable collection. That paragraph was as follows:--
"The introduction of the words _from the Douche and Latyn_ has
never been accounted for; they probably were inserted by the
German printer to make the volume more popular, so as to interest
reformers by the German of Luther, and Romanists by the Vulgate
Latin. The translation is certainly from the Hebrew and Greek,
compared with Luther's and the Vulgate."
If MR. OFFOR will look at "the Prologue to the Translation of the
Bible--Myles Coverdale unto the Christian Reader," in that copy of his,
which he describes with the delight of an amateur of rare editions as
having "several uncut leaves," he may read in its first page, how
Coverdale confesses, with that humility which especially adorned his
character, that "his insufficiency in the tongues" made him loath to
undertake the task. He then touchingly alludes to Tyndale's adversity,
suppressing his name, while he speaks of his "ripe knowledge," and
laments the hindrances to his completing the translation of the
Scriptures. But "to help me herein," he proceeds, "I have had sundry
translations, not only in Latin, but also of the Dutch [_i.e._ German]
interpreters, whom because of their singular gifts and special diligence
in the Bible, I have been the more glad to follow for the most part,
according as I was required." And again he says, "Lowly and faithfully
have I followed mine interpreters."
My attention was drawn to this subject nearly thirty years ago by the
strange inaccuracies in Bishop Marsh's account of the sources of our
authorised version; in which he had assumed that Tyndale could not
translate from the Hebrew, which there is the clearest evidence that he
knew well; and that he therefore translated from the German, of which
language it is almost equally certain that he was ignorant.
I saw, on the other hand, that Coverdale honestly confessed that his own
translation was a secondary one, from the German and the Vulgate. He
named the language, but not the translator, Luther, for the same reason
that in two references to Tyndale's ability he desisted from naming him,
viz., that his translation was to be dedicated to Henry VIII., who hated
both their names.
To test the different sources from which Tyndale and Coverdale formed
their respective translations, nothing more is necessary than to open
any chapter in the Hebrew and German Bibles; and whilst the translators
from either will of course be found to agree in the broad meaning of any
verse, there will be delicate distinctions in rendering idiomatic forms
of speech, which will be decisive of the question. Having preserved my
collation of some verses in Genesis xli., I find the following:
Ver. 1. First word, יִהְיַו, literally, _And it was_. An
introductory expression fairly represented by the Greek Εγενετο δε.
Tyndale, _And it fortuned_. Luther and the Vulgate have omitted it,
and therefore so has Coverdale.
הֵּנִהְו, lit. _And behold_; Luther, {Wie}; Coverdale, _How
that_.
ראיה-לע, LXX, Επι του ποταμου; Tyndale, _By a river's side_;
Luther, {Am Wasser}; Coverdale, _By a water side_. Here
the Greek preserves the emphatic article ה, which pointed to
the Nile; the Latin necessarily lose it, Tyndale neglects it, Coverdale
copies Luther's vague expression. Our authorised version has correctly,
_By the river_.
Ver. 2. תלע ראיה-ןמ, literally, _Out of the river
ascending_; LXX, Εκ του ποταμου ανεβαινον; Vulg., _De quo
ascendebant_; Luther, {Aus dem Wasser steigen}; Coverdale, _Out of the
water there came_; Tyndale, _There came out of the river_.
Ver. 3. הנדמעתו, Tyn Tyndale, _And stode_, which is quite
literal; Vulg., _Et pascebantur_; Luther, {Und traten}; Coverdale, _And
went_.
Ver. 7. םולח הנהו, lit. _And behold a dream_; Vulg.,
_Post quietem_; Tyndale, _And see, here is his dream_; Luther, {Und
merckte daß es ein Traum war}; Coverdale, _And saw that it was a
dream_.
Such instances might be multiplied to any extent. Their effect upon my
mind was to convince me that Coverdale did not even know the Hebrew
letters when he published his version of the Bible. In fact, the Jews
being then expelled from England, and the only Hebrew Lexicon, that of
Xantes Pagninus, having probably not arrived here, it was scarcely
possible for an Englishman to master the Hebrew tongue, without going
abroad to obtain access to learned Jews, as Tyndale did, and as
Coverdale himself did after the appearance of his Bible; and then, as I
think Mr. Pearson has afforded some evidence, he may have become
acquainted with Hebrew.
If H. H. H. V. desires to know more of Coverdale, he can find all that
late researches have been able to discover in the first volume of Mr C.
Anderson's _Annals of the English Bible_, and in the biographical notice
of Coverdale prefixed to the Parker Society's edition of his _Remains_,
by the Rev. G. Pearson. But when that gentleman describes Coverdale's
portion of Matthew's Bible, and says that the book of Jonah is of
Tyndale's version, he has made a mistake. Perhaps I may be allowed to
say, that the question, whether Tyndale put forth any version of Jonah,
is _adhuc sub judice_. At any rate, I can say, from collation, that the
Jonah in Matthew's Bible is identical with that which Coverdale put
forth in his own version.
The account of our early versions in Macknight's _Introduction to the
Epistles_ is very erroneous; and that prefixed to D'Oyley and Mant's
Bible, published by the Christian Knowledge Society, is far from being
correct.