Amongst the many earnest men driven into exile by the Marian persecution was William Whittingham, some time Fellow of All Souls’, Oxford, and subsequently Dean of Durham.[23] Along with others he found a refuge, first at Frankfort, and afterwards at Geneva. On the 10th day of June, 1557, there was published, in the last mentioned city, a small volume, 16mo, entitled “The Newe Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ. Conferred diligently with the Greke, and best approved translations. With the arguments aswel before the chapters, as for every Boke and Epistle, also diversities of readings, and moste proffitable annotations of all harde places; whereunto is added a copious Table.” This translation, there is reason to believe, was the work of Whittingham alone. It may be noted, in passing, that it was the first English New Testament which contained the now familiar division into verses, and the first also to indicate by italics the words added by the translator in order to convey more fully or more clearly the sense of the original.
Three years afterwards (1560) there was published in the same city, “The Bible and Holy Scriptures conteyned in the Olde and Newe Testament. Translated according to the Ebrue and Greeke, and conferred with the best translations in divers languages. With moste profitable annotations upon all the hard places, and other things of great importance as may appeare in the epistle to the reader.” This is the celebrated Genevan version, which for nearly a century onward was the form of Bible most largely circulated in this country. It differed in several respects from its predecessors. It was a convenient quarto instead of a cumbrous folio. It was printed in Roman letters instead of the heavy Gothic or black letters. It marked by a different type all words inserted for the completion of the sense, and the chapters were divided into verses. But what was of more importance, it was, as stated in the title, compared throughout with the original texts. Both in the Old and New Testaments it largely reproduces the words of Tyndale. Sometimes it gives a preference to the version of Coverdale; but often it departs from both in order to give a more exact rendering of the Hebrew or the Greek. It seems that several of the Genevan refugees consecrated their enforced leisure to “this great and wonderful work,” as they justly term it, moved thereto by the twofold consideration that, owing to “imperfect knowledge of the tongues,” the previous “translations required greatly to be perused and reformed,” and that “great opportunities and occasions” for doing this work were presented to them in the “so many godly and learned men” into whose society they had now been brought.
The names of Miles Coverdale, Christopher Goodman, Anthony Gilby, Thomas Sampson, William Cole, and William Whittingham are given as those who, with some others, joined in this undertaking. On the accession of Elizabeth most of the exiles returned home, conveying with them, for presentation to the Queen, the Book of Psalms as a specimen of the work on which they were engaged.[24]
Wittingham only, with one or two others, remained behind for a year and a half in order to complete the work. According to the statement given in the address to the reader, the entire period spent upon the preparation of this version was a little more than two years. It will hence be seen that whatever may have been the part taken in the work by Coverdale and others, by far the chief share in it devolved upon Whittingham and the one or two referred to, who were probably Gilby and Sampson. How weighty was the obligation which in the view of these self-denying men rested upon them to give the word of God to their country in the form that would best and most truly present it, and with what reverent care they laboured to attain unto this, is shown by the fact that although Whittingham had so recently published his version of the New Testament, he is not content with a simple reproduction of this, but subjects it to a thorough and very careful revision. A comparison of the introduction to Luke’s gospel as it appears in the Genevan Bible of 1560 with the same passage in Whittingham’s version of 1557 will help our readers in some measure to realize the nature and extent of this revision.
In the earlier version the passages read thus:
“For asmuch as many have taken in hand to write the historie of those thynges, wherof we are fully certified, even as they declared them unto us, which from ye begynnyng saw them their selves, and were ministers at the doyng: It seemed good also to me (moste noble Theophilus) as sone as I had learned perfectly all thynges from the beginnyng, to wryte unto thee therof from poynt to poynt: That thou mightest acknowlage the trueth of those thinges where in thou hast bene broght up.”
In the version of 1560 the same passage is given thus:
“For as much as many have taken in hande to set foorth the storie of those thinges whereof we are fully persuaded. As they have delivered them unto us, which from the beginning saw them theirselves, and were ministers of the worde, It seemed good also to me (most noble Theophilus), as sone as I had searched out perfectly all things from the beginnyng, to write unto thee thereof from point to point, That thou mightest acknowledge the certaintie of these things, whereof thou hast bene instructed.”
It will be seen that in this short passage the changes made from the earlier form of the work are as many as ten in number. As this, however, may be deemed a somewhat exceptional passage, let us take an ordinary chapter in the Gospels, presenting no special difficulty, as for instance Matt. xvii. A collation of the two versions will show that in this chapter of twenty-seven verses the revision of 1560 departs from Whittingham’s earlier work in no fewer than forty places.[25] Thus persevering was the endeavour of these faithful men to do their very best, and with what success may to some extent be seen in the fact that of these forty changes twenty-six were confirmed in after years by the judgment of King James’ translators.