Notes and Queries, Vol. V, Number 120, February 14, 1852: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. — John Shaqi
Notes and Queries, Vol. V, Number 120, February 14, 1852: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.Various
History
Notes and Queries, Vol. V, Number 120, February 14, 1852: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
Learned disputes about the translation of Biblical words might occupy
the pages of "N. & Q." to the discomfort of some of its readers. In fact
its numbers might be all swallowed up in the important inquiry after
those original texts which our eminent translators used when they
supplied England with the water of life, by furnishing the country with
a faithful translation of the Holy Oracles. To the martyr Tyndale, and
the venerable servant of Christ, Coverdale, this nation and the world
are indebted to an extent that no honour to their memory can ever repay.
Tyndale, fearless, learned, and devoted, was sacrificed in the prime of
life; while Coverdale, more cautious, went on to old age constantly
energetic in promoting the Reformation.
Words and sentences can be produced in which Coverdale claims
superiority over Tyndale. While Tyndale's is more suited to this day of
fearless enquiry and meridian light, Coverdale's may be preferred as a
gentler clearing away of the morning clouds which obscured the horizon
after Wickliffe had introduced the day spring from on high.
It has become too much the fashion in our day to exalt Tyndale at the
expense of Coverdale. This is ungenerous and unjust: they were both of
them great and shining lights in the hemisphere of the Reformation.
Tyndale's learning and decision of character gave him great advantages
as a translator from languages then but little known; while Coverdale's
cautious, pains-taking perseverance enabled him to render most essential
service to the sacred cause of Divine Truth. Our inquiry commenced with
the question, why the words "translated out of Douche and Latyn into
Englyshe" appeared upon the title-page to _some_ copies of Coverdale's
Bible, 1535. I must remind my excellent friend, the Rev. HENRY WALTER,
that while the copy in the British Museum, and that at Holkham, has
those words, a finer and unsophisticated copy in the library of Earl
Jersey of the _same_ edition has no such words; and that the four
editions subsequently published by Coverdale all omit the words "Douche
and Latyn," and insert in their place, "faythfully translated in
English." My decided impression is, that the insertion of those words on
the first title-page was not with Coverdale's knowledge, and that, lest
they should mislead the reader, they were omitted when the title was
reprinted; and a dedication and prologue were added when the copies
arrived in England, the dedication and preface being from a very
different fount of type to that used in printing the text.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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