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THE NEW TESTAMENT

While it is generally agreed that the books of the Old Testament were written in Hebrew, it is believed that the New Testament was first written in Greek.

After the martyrdom of Stephen, the followers of Christ suffered great persecution. In consequence they fled in large numbers from Jerusalem and were scattered abroad throughout Judea, Samaria, and afterwards farther a field. Full of the Gospel they made many converts in the regions in which they settled. But there was at the same time a great conflict of views between many of the disciples. We remember with what difficulty St. Peter was won over to the new idea that God's message through Jesus Christ was not for the Jews alone but that His teaching was to be a universal religion.

From Jerusalem the Gospel was carried by the disciples to Antioch in Syria, and this place became the headquarters of the missionary journeys which took Paul to Asia Minor, Macedonia and Greece, and eventually, to Rome. In Antioch, Jews, Greeks, Romans and Oriental races mingled.. It was a great trading centre, with Greek the language of all commercial intercourse, and while Aramaic was their spoken language the disciples would know Greek also. At this eventful period of the world's history it seems the working of Providence that when the Gospels were first written the language should have been one that was in international use.

But it was thirty or forty years after the death of Christ before the first books of our New Testament were written. The spread of Christianity in the early years of the Church was not due to the influence of sacred writings but to the preaching and testimony of men and women who had experienced the new life in Jesus Christ. The good news of the Kingdom was spread abroad by word of mouth or what is usually called the oral tradition. These disciples did not at first think of writing books, because they lived in the hope that Jesus would return to this earth during their lifetime.

Had He not said: "There be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death till they have seen the Kingdom of God come with power."-.Mark ix. i.

Surely that must mean nothing less than the end of the present world and the establishment of Christ's Kingdom in their own lifetime. What, then, was the use of writing books for the future? So they gathered together in their weekly meeting places to hear the Old Testament Scriptures and perhaps to listen to a disciple who had actually seen and heard the Lord. Year by year the word-of-mouth teaching went on-until they gradually realised that the end was not to be yet.

The numbers, still living, of those who had been eye witnesses of the ministry of Christ had rapidly diminished and soon there would be none left. James, the son of Zebedee, for his loyalty to Christ had suffered a martyr's death; others lived continually in peril of their lives. The story of St. Paul during his missionary journeys reveals in dramatic language the great dangers that ever confronted the disciples. It was clear that the first-hand testimony of these men must be collected and put into writing or the true story of Christ and his teaching might be forgotten. Under such conditions therefore were the Gospels written. It was not until about A.D. 60-68 that Mark wrote his gospel as it had been described to him by St. Peter, and it is probable that Matthew and Luke were completed by the year A.D. 75. St. John's Gospel was not in use before A.D. 100. The Epistles of St. Paul were, of course, written during his lifetime.

The originals of all these books must have perished in the early days of the Christian Church. When one realises that every copy had to be written on papyrus by hand, with scrupulous care, it is possible to understand how slowly these Scriptures must have circulated throughout the Churches. The work was expensive. Many of the early Christians were poor, and would find it very difficult to gather sufficient money to pay for such valuable books. But during the first three centuries, despite the great persecutions of the followers of Christ, large numbers of the books must have been copied, and, to meet the needs of brethren of other lands, translated into Latin, Syriac and Coptic. The history of Christianity during these early centuries reveals an amazing story of the wonderful growth of the Church. Fired by an unquenchable faith in the love of the risen Christ these early Christians carried the message of the Gospel into pagan lands and gave their lives in countless numbers to overcome the powers of darkness.

In the earlier pan of the fourth century the Emperor Constantine became a convert to Christianity and established it as the official religion of the great Roman Empire. The persecutions thenceforth ceased, and with such powerful authority on the side of the Church, great progress was made in making copies of the New Testament to meet the needs of the new Churches that were rapidly springing up. Thousands of converts were brought over to the Christian faith throughout the Roman Empire in Europe and Africa, as well as in Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor. But many versions of the Scriptures had been put in circulation during the four centuries, and it had been difficult for the leaders of the Church to guard and check the accuracy of the copyists in working from the original text. From the time of Constantine all danger of further errors practically ceased, but it was found that ;o many mistakes had already appeared in the Old Latin versions that there was an urgent need of a revision.

St. Jerome, at one time a monk in Bethlehem, and one of the greatest scholars of his age, was appointed to undertake this great task. He completed the New Testament revision in A.D. 385 and Followed on with his translations of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew.

This translation, known as the Vulgate, has had a greater influence on the history of your Bible than any other book. For over a thousand years it was the foundation of almost every version issued in Western Europe, and in our own Authorised Version (the Bible we use to-day) its influence can be easily traced. For several centuries it was severely attacked by the Christians of that period who held fast to their old Bibles as being the correct reading, but it has outlived all this criticism and remains to-day the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. During succeeding centuries it was used all over Western Europe, and until the invention of printing it was copied and spread abroad by every school and monastery.

Throughout this period the Bible had been circulating in Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Armenian. In the days of the Geat Roman Empire its legionaries brought the Latin language to the shores of North Africa, Spain and Britain, so that when Christianity was accepted as the official religion of the State the missionaries carried with them the Latin Bible. Their language was the language of commerce among the different nations as it also became the spoken and written language of all the great centres of learning in the middle ages.

THE BIBLE IN ENGLAND

Christianity first reached the shores of Britain in the early part of the second century, and although it was temporarily eclipsed during the invasion of the heathen Teutons in the middle of the fifth century, it had become fully established among the Celts who received it during the Roman occupation. The conversion of the Northern Picts was early accomplished by the Celtic Churchmen, and about A.D. 397 St. Ninian founded a church at Whithorn. But the conversion of the Teutons was not made until Augustine came at the beginning of the seventh century. As the Celtic Church was established before Jerome made his translation of the Vulgate, it was therefore the old Latin Bible that was read in the Churches. After the coming of Augustine the supremacy of the Roman Church was established and the Vulgate became the accepted Bible.

Still, the people did hot have the Bible in their own tongue, and although parts of it, especially the Gospels and Psalter, were translated into Anglo-Saxon for the benefit of the less educated clergy, it was a long time before it was considered desirable to translate the Bible into the language of the people. This does not seem strange when we consider that the people could not have read their own version even if they had possessed one, and only the very rich could have afforded to own a manuscript copy.

The.history of the English Bible falls naturally into two periods:
1. The age of Manuscript.
2. The age of Printing.

The story of the earliest English manuscripts is linked with the name of Caedmon (died A.D. 676), a monk of the Abbey of Whitby, who translated Metrical paraphrases of parts of the Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon. He was followed by the Venerable Bede (A.D. 672-735) at the monastery of Jarrow, on the River Tyne. One of the most fascinating characters of the early English Church, Bede was a great scholar, teacher and saint, and more than any other man he had made Northumbria the literary centre of Western Europe. It is uncertain how much of the Bible he translated, but we know that the Gospel of John was the last task of his life. As he lay dying he was directing the end of the Gospel to a youthful scribe. Towards evening the boy at the bedside said: There is one sentence unwritten, dear master." Write it quickly," replied Bede. After a few moments the boy told him all was finished "You speak truth," said Bede, "all is finished now." These were the last words of this venerable saint as he peacefully passed to his rest.

None of Bede's English work has been handed down to us but there is no doubt that many of his literary treasures were lost when the Danes laid waste the Northumbrian country during their invasion.
When Alfred the Great (A.D. 849-901) gave so much of his reign to the revival of learning, the religious life of his country was nearly extinct.

He prefixed an Anglo-Saxon translation of the Ten Commandments to his Book of Laws with portions of the Book of Exodus, but his death interrupted a version of the Psalms on which he was engaged. Scholar and patriot, Alfred saw very clearly that of all books the Bible would most surely lay the foundations of the literature of his people and it was his great ambition, therefore, that the Bible should be given to them in their own tongue.

After Alfred there followed an Anglo-Saxon translation, in beautiful language and style, of the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Kings, Esther, Job, etc., by Aelfric, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in A.D. 966.

After the Norman Conquest in 1066, considerable portions of the Bible were translated, chiefly in Metrical form. One part, a paraphrase of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, was made by a monk named Orm or Ormin.

The earliest rendering of any book of Scripture into English prose, was a translation of the book of Psalms by William of Shoreham, about 1327. The next prose translation was also a version of the Psalms by Richard Rolle of Hampole, near Doncaster (died 1349). In all these versions the translations were made from the Vulgate.

The Norman Conquest, with its prolonged conflict between the Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French, affected English scholarship very much, and as a result there comes a long pause in the history of Bible translations. The clergy were replaced by priests from Normandy, who showed scant favour for any Saxon manuscripts. For almost three centuries French was the language of educated persons and the upper classes. The Norman clergy had little sympathy with any desire to spread the knowledge of the Scriptures among the common people, so that we find the Bible almost a sealed book during this long period. But it must not be thought that this time of waiting was wasted. Instead, a gradual change was coming over the language of lit people, and out of the conflict of the two tongues and the fusion of the two races there emerged a language which became the English of Wycliffe and Chaucer. The day was drawing near when a translation of the whole Bible, of permanent value, could be made. Even in its imperfect form at that time the Scriptures had laid hold of the hearts of the people for many years before Wycliffe was born. The Church in England was passing through a critical period in its history, for it was an age mainly of ignorance and superstition. A hostile spirit against the attempts of the Pope in Rome to interfere with the liberties of the Church in England was growing throughout the nation and creating a strong feeling of independence. Education was also rapidly increasing with the opening of new schools and colleges. It is not surprising to find John Wycliffe among the leaders of this agitation against the power of Rome. A great scholar and preacher, he had a commanding influence among the poorer clergy as well as the populace, and for a long time he had been spreading the teaching of the Gospel throughout the country with the help of his "poor preachers." He was a great lover of the Bible, it was his constant companion and guide, and he desired nothing more than to give it to his countrymen in their own tongue. Wycliffe made his version from the Latin Vulgate in 1382, aided by his friend Nicholas de Hereford who translated a large part of the Old Testament. One serious defect of his translation is that it was not made from the original Hebrew and Greek. But, its value was very great; it created a vigorous impulse to sacred study and it had a powerful influence on the spiritual life of the nation. Yet Wycliffe's great life-work was not favourably received by the leading Churchmen of his day. He had to face severe opposition on the plea that he had made the Bible "common." His enemies were many and powerful; the King, the Pope and the higher clergy were against him and he had to face his trial at Blackfriars, when his teaching was condemned and he himself was excommunicated.

Four years after his death a revision was made by John Purvey, one of his beloved followers.

Continues