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, וַיְהִי , 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.
וְהִנֵּה, lit. And behold; Luther, Wie; Coverdale, How that.
על-היאר, 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. מן-היאר עלת, 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. וַתַּעֲמֹדְנָה , Tyndale, And stode, which is quite literal; Vulg., Et pascebantur; Luther, Und traten; Coverdale, And went.
Ver. 7. וְהִנֵּה חֲלוֹם , 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.