Protestant Bible

A Protestant Bible is a Christian Bible whose translation or revision was produced by Protestants. Such Bibles comprise 39 books of the Old Testament (according to the Hebrew Bible canon, known especially to non-Protestants as the protocanonical books) and 27 books of the New Testament for a total of 66 books. Some Protestants use Bibles which also include 14 additional books in a section known as the Apocrypha (though these are not considered canonical) bringing the total to 80 books.[1][2] This is often contrasted with the 73 books of the Catholic Bible, which includes seven deuterocanonical books as a part of the Old Testament.[3] The division between protocanonical and deuterocanonical books is not accepted by all Protestants who simply view books as being canonical or not and therefore classify books found in the deuterocanon, along with other books, as part of the Apocrypha.[4]

The contents page in the King James Bible, 1769 edition, listing "The Books of the Old Testament", "The Books called Apocrypha", and "The Books of the New Testament".

It was in Luther's Bible of 1534 that the Apocrypha was first published as a separate intertestamental section.[5] To this date, the Apocrypha is "included in the lectionaries of Anglican and Lutheran Churches."[6] The practice of including only the Old and New Testament books within printed bibles was standardized among many English-speaking Protestants following a 1825 decision by the British and Foreign Bible Society.[7] Today, "English Bibles with the Apocrypha are becoming more popular again" and they may be printed as intertestamental books.[8] In contrast, Evangelicals vary among themselves in their attitude to and interest in the Apocrypha but agree in the view that it is non-canonical.[9]

Early Protestant Bibles
The contents page in the Coverdale Bible

While from the Reformation, Protestants Confessions have usually excluded the books which other Christian traditions consider to be deuterocanonical books from the canon (the canon of the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches differs among themselves as well),[10] most early Protestant Bibles published the biblical apocrypha along with the Old Testament and New Testament.

The German language Luther Bible of 1522 did include the biblical apocrypha. Unlike in previous Catholic Bibles which interspersed the books of the apocrypha throughout the Old Testament, Martin Luther placed the Apocrypha in a separate section after the Old Testament, setting a precedent for the placement of these books in Protestant Bibles. The books of the Apocrypha were not listed in the table of contents of Luther's 1532 Old Testament and, in accordance with Luther's view of the canon, they were given the well-known title: "Apocrypha: These Books Are Not Held Equal to the Scriptures, but Are Useful and Good to Read" in the 1534 edition of his bible.[11]

In the English language, the incomplete Tyndale Bible published in 1525, 1534 and 1536, contained the entire New Testament. Of the Old Testament, although William Tyndale translated around half of its books, only the Pentateuch and the Book of Jonah were published. Viewing the canon as comprising the Old and New Testaments only, Tyndale did not translate any of the Apocrypha.[12] However, the first complete Modern English translation of the Bible, the Coverdale Bible of 1535, did include the Apocrypha. Like Luther, Miles Coverdale placed the Apocrypha in a separate section after the Old Testament.[13] Other early Protestant Bibles such as the Matthew's Bible (1537), Great Bible (1539), Geneva Bible (1560), Bishop's Bible (1568), and the King James Version (1611) included the Old Testament, Apocrypha, and New Testament.[8] Although within the same printed bibles, it was usually to be found in a separate section under the heading of Apocrypha and sometimes carrying a statement to the effect that the such books were non-canonical but useful for reading.[14]

Protestant translations into Italian were made by Antonio Brucioli in 1530, by Massimo Teofilo in 1552 and by Giovanni Diodati in 1607. Diodati was a Calvinist theologian and he was the first translator of the Bible into Italian from Hebrew and Greek sources. Diodati's version is the reference version for Italian Protestantism. This edition was revised in 1641, 1712, 1744, 1819 and 1821. A revised edition in modern Italian, Nuova Diodati, was published in 1991.

Several translations of Luther's Bible were made into Dutch. The first complete Dutch Bible was printed in Antwerp in 1526 by Jacob van Liesvelt.[15] However, the translations of Luther's Bible had Lutheran influences in their interpretation. At the Calvinistic Synod of Dort in 1618/19, it was therefore deemed necessary to have a new translation accurately based on the original languages. The synod requested the States-General of the Netherlands to commission it. The result was the Statenvertaling or States Translation which was completed in 1635 and authorized by the States-General in 1637. From that year until 1657, a half-million copies were printed. It remained authoritative in Dutch Protestant churches well into the 20th century.

The proto-Protestant Hussite Bible was translated into Hungarian by two Franciscan priests, Tamás Pécsi and Bálint Újlaki who were influenced by the Czech reformer Jan Hus. The exact date when the Hussite Bible was written is not known but it was finalized by 1441 at the latest. However, the translation was suppressed by the Catholic Inquisition. Following the Reformation, the full New Testament was translated into Hungarian by János Sylvester in 1541. It was not until 1590 that a Calvinist minister, Gáspár Károli, produced the Vizsoly Bible, the first complete and available Bible in Hungarian.

The Bear Bible's title-page printed by Mattias Apiarius, "the bee-keeper". Note the emblem of a bear tasting honey.

Protestant translations into Spanish began with the work of Casiodoro de Reina, a former Catholic monk, who became a Lutheran theologian.[16] With the help of several collaborators,[17] de Reina produced the Biblia del Oso or Bear Bible, the first complete Bible printed in Spanish based on Hebrew and Greek sources. Earlier Spanish translations, such as the 13th-century Alfonsina Bible, translated from Jerome's Vulgate, had been copied by hand. The Bear Bible was first published on 28 September 1569, in Basel, Switzerland.[18][19] The deuterocanonical books were included within the Old Testament in the 1569 edition. In 1602 Cipriano de Valera, a student of de Reina, published a revision of the Bear Bible which was printed in Amsterdam in which the deuterocanonical books were placed in a section between the Old and New Testaments called the Apocrypha.[20] This translation, subsequently revised, came to be known as the Reina-Valera Bible.

For the following three centuries, most English language Protestant Bibles, including the Authorized Version, continued with the practice of placing the Apocrypha in a separate section after the Old Testament. However, there were some exceptions. A surviving quarto edition of the Great Bible, produced some time after 1549, does not contain the Apocrypha although most copies of the Great Bible did. A 1575 quarto edition of the Bishop's Bible also does not contain them. Subsequently, some copies of the 1599 and 1640 editions of the Geneva Bible were also printed without them.[21] The Episcopalian king James VI and I, the sponsor of the Authorized King James Version (1611), "threatened anyone who dared to print the Bible without the Apocrypha with heavy fines and a year in jail."[2]

The Souldiers Pocket Bible, of 1643, draws verses largely from the Geneva Bible but only from either the Old or New Testaments. In 1644 the Long Parliament forbade the reading of the Apocrypha in churches and in 1666 the first editions of the King James Bible without the Apocrypha were bound.[22] Similarly, in 1782–83 when the first English Bible was printed in America, it did not contain the Apocrypha.[8]

19th-century developments

In 1826,[23] the National Bible Society of Scotland petitioned the British and Foreign Bible Society not to print the Apocrypha,[24] resulting in a decision that no BFBS funds were to pay for printing any Apocryphal books anywhere. They reasoned that by not printing the secondary material of Apocrypha within the Bible, the scriptures would prove to be less costly to produce.[25][26] The precise form of the resolution was:

That the funds of the Society be applied to the printing and circulation of the Canonical Books of Scripture, to the exclusion of those Books and parts of Books usually termed Apocryphal[27]

Current situation

Since the 19th century changes, many modern editions of the Bible and re-printings of the King James Version of the Bible that are used especially by non-Anglican Protestants omit the Apocrypha section. Additionally, modern non-Catholic re-printings of the Clementine Vulgate commonly omit the Apocrypha section. Many re-printings of older versions of the Bible now omit the apocrypha and many newer translations and revisions have never included them at all. Sometimes the term "Protestant Bible" is used as a shorthand for a bible which only contains the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments.[28]

Today, "English Bibles with the Apocrypha are becoming more popular again" and they may be printed as intertestamental books.[8] In contrast, Evangelicals vary among themselves in their attitude to and interest in the Apocrypha. Some view it as a useful historical and theological background to the events of the New Testament while others either have little interest in the Apocrypha or view it with hostility. However, all agree in the view that it is non-canonical.[29]

Books

Protestant Bibles comprise 39 books of the Old Testament (according to the Jewish Hebrew Bible canon, known especially to non-Protestants as the protocanonical books) and the 27 books of the New Testament for a total of 66 books. Some Protestant Bibles, such as the original King James Version, include 14 additional books known as the Apocrypha, though these are not considered canonical.[1] With the Old Testament, Apocrypha, and New Testament, the total number of books in the Protestant Bible becomes 80.[2] Many modern Protestant Bibles print only the Old Testament and New Testament;[25] there is a 400-year intertestamental period in the chronology of the Christian scriptures between the Old and New Testaments. This period is also known as the "400 Silent Years" because it is believed to have been a span where God made no additional canonical revelations to his people.[30]

These Old Testament, Apocrypha and New Testament books of the Bible, with their commonly accepted names among the Protestant Churches, are given below. Note that "1", "2", or "3" as a leading numeral is normally pronounced in the United States as the ordinal number, thus "First Samuel" for "1 Samuel".[31]

Old Testament

Apocrypha (not used in all churches or bibles)

New Testament

Notable English translations

Most Bible translations into English conform to the Protestant canon and ordering while some offer multiple versions (Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox) with different canon and ordering. For example, the version of the ESV with Apocrypha has been approved as a Catholic bible.[32] Notable English translations include:

AbbreviationNameDateWith Apocrypha?Translation
Wycliffe's Bible1382 - 1395NoFormal equivalence
Tyndale Bible1526 (NT), 1530 (Pentateuch), 1531 (Jonah)NoFormal equivalence
TCBCoverdale Bible1535YesFormal equivalence
Matthew Bible1537YesFormal equivalence
GENGeneva Bible1557 (NT), 1560 (OT)UsuallyFormal equivalence
KJVKing James Version (aka "Authorized Version")1611, 1769 (Blayney revision)VariesFormal equivalence
YLTYoung's Literal Translation1862NoExtreme formal equivalence
RVRevised Version (or English Revised Version)1881 (NT), 1885 (OT)Version available from 1894Formal equivalence
ASVAmerican Standard Version1900 (NT), 1901 (OT)NoFormal equivalence
RSVRevised Standard Version1946 (NT), 1952 (OT)Version available from 1957Formal equivalence
NEBNew English Bible1961 (NT), 1970 (OT)Version available from 1970Dynamic equivalence
NASBNew American Standard Bible1963 (NT), 1971 (OT), 1995 (update)NoFormal equivalence
AMPThe Amplified Bible1958 (NT), 1965 (OT)NoDynamic equivalence
GNBGood News Bible1966 (NT), 1976 (OT)Version available from 1979Dynamic equivalence, paraphrase
LBThe Living Bible1971NoParaphrase
NIVNew International Version1973 (NT), 1978 (OT)NoOptimal equivalence
NKJVNew King James Version1979 (NT), 1982 (OT)NoFormal equivalence
NRSVNew Revised Standard Version1989Version available from 1989Formal equivalence
REBRevised English Bible1989Version availableDynamic equivalence
GBGod's Word Translation1995NoOptimal equivalence
NLTNew Living Translation1996Version availableDynamic equivalence
HCSBHolman Christian Standard Bible1999 (NT), 2004 (OT)NoOptimal equivalence
ESVEnglish Standard Version2001Version available from 2009Formal equivalence
MSGThe Message2002Version available from 2013Paraphrase
CEBCommon English Bible2010 (NT), 2011 (OT)YesDynamic equivalence
MEVModern English Version2011 (NT), 2014 (OT)Formal equivalence
CSBChristian Standard Bible2017Optimal equivalence

A 2014 study into the Bible in American Life found that of those survey respondents who read the Bible, there was an overwhelming favouring of Protestant translations. 55% reported using the King James Version, followed by 19% for the New International Version, 7% for the New Revised Standard Version (printed in both Protestant and Catholic editions), 6% for the New American Bible (a Catholic Bible translation) and 5% for the Living Bible. Other versions were used by fewer than 10%.[33] A 2015 report by the California-based Barna Group found that 39% of American readers of the Bible preferred the King James Version, followed by 13% for the New International Version, 10% for the New King James Version and 8% for the English Standard Version. No other version was favoured by more than 3% of the survey respondents.[34]

gollark: I mean, none of those are pandemics right now, so the political will to do anything about it doesn't exist.
gollark: And after just 20ish months and hundreds of millions of doses administered!
gollark: It seems like it's already quite bad, and this would presumably be good for the booster shots some places are talking about.
gollark: With the mRNA/viral vector vaccines, it would be pretty easy to swap out the spike protein for delta-variant ones and probably get better immunity to it, right? Is anyone doing this? It seems like a very obvious idea.
gollark: This "gematria" thing reminds me of that excellent excessively pun-heavy bible fanfiction I read but not funny.

See also

References
  1. King James Version Apocrypha, Reader's Edition. Hendrickson Publishers. 2009. p. viii. ISBN 9781598564648. The version of 1611, following its mandate to revise and standardize the English Bible tradition, included the fourteen (or fifteen) books of the Apocrypha in a section between the Old and New Testaments (see the chart on page vi). Because of the Thirty-Nine Articles, there was no reason for King James' translators to include any comments as to the status of these books, as had the earlier English translators and editors.
  2. Tedford, Marie; Goudey, Pat (2008). The Official Price Guide to Collecting Books. House of Collectibles. p. 81. ISBN 9780375722936. Up until the 1880s every Protestant Bible (not just Catholic Bibles) had 80 books, not 66. The inter-testamental books written hundreds of years before Christ, called the "Aprocrypha," were part of virtually every printing of the Tyndale-Matthews Bible, the Great Bible, the Bishops Bible, the Protestant Geneva Bible, and the King James Bible until their removal in the 1880s. The original 1611 King James contained the Apocrypha, and King James threatened anyone who dared to print the Bible without the Apocrypha with heavy fines and a year in jail.
  3. Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law, 825
  4. Henze, Matthias; Boccaccini, Gabriele (20 November 2013). Fourth Ezra and Second Baruch: Reconstruction after the Fall. Brill. p. 383. ISBN 9789004258815. Why 3 and 4 Esdras (called 1 and 2 Esdras in the NRSV Apocrypha) are pushed to the front of the list is not clear, but the motive may have been to distinguish the Anglican Apocrypha from the Roman Catholic canon affirmed at the fourth session of the Council of trent in 1546, which included all of the books in the Anglican Apocrypha list except 3 and 4 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh. These three texts were designated at Trent as Apocrypha and later included in an appendix to the Clementine Vulgate, first published in 1592 (and the standard Vulgate text until Vatican II).
  5. Bruce, F.F. "The Canon of Scripture". IVP Academic, 2010, Location 1478–86 (Kindle Edition).
  6. Readings from the Apocrypha. Forward Movement Publications. 1981. p. 5.
  7. Howsham, L. Cheap Bibles: Nineteenth-Century Publishing and the British and Foreign Bible Society. Cambridge University Press, Aug 8, 2002.
  8. Ewert, David (11 May 2010). A General Introduction to the Bible: From Ancient Tablets to Modern Translations. Zondervan. p. 104. ISBN 9780310872436. English Bibles were patterned after those of the Continental Reformers by having the Apocrypha set off from the rest of the OT. Coverdale (1535) called them "Apocrypha". All English Bibles prior to 1629 contained the Apocrypha. Matthew's Bible (1537), the Great Bible (1539), the Geneva Bible (1560), the Bishop's Bible (1568), and the King James Bible (1611) contained the Apocrypha. Soon after the publication of the KJV, however, the English Bibles began to drop the Apocrypha and eventually they disappeared entirely. The first English Bible to be printed in America (1782–83) lacked the Apocrypha. In 1826 the British and Foreign Bible Society decided to no longer print them. Today the trend is in the opposite direction, and English Bibles with the Apocrypha are becoming more popular again.
  9. Carson, D. A. (2 January 1997). "The Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books: An Evangelical View". In Kohlenberger, John R. (ed.). The Parallel Apocrypha (PDF). Oxford University Press. pp. xliv–xlvii. ISBN 978-0195284447.
  10. Schaff, Philip. Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches, French Confession of Faith, p. 361; Belgic Confession 4. Canonical Books of the Holy Scripture; Westminster Confession of Faith, 1646; The 1577 Lutheran Epitome of the Formula of Concord
  11. Brecht, Martin. Martin Luther. Volume 3, p. 98 James L. Schaaf, trans. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985–1993. ISBN 0-8006-2813-6
  12. Werrell, Ralph S. (2013). The Roots of William Tyndale's Theology. James Clarke & Co. p. 42. ISBN 9780227174029.
  13. https://bible.org/seriespage/1-wycliffe-king-james-period-challenge
  14. Fallows, Samuel; et al., eds. (1910) [1901]. The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopædia and Scriptural Dictionary, Fully Defining and Explaining All Religious Terms, Including Biographical, Geographical, Historical, Archæological and Doctrinal Themes. The Howard-Severance co. p. 521.
  15. Paul Arblaster, Gergely Juhász, Guido Latré (eds) Tyndale's Testament, Brepols 2002, ISBN 2-503-51411-1, p. 120.
  16. Rosales, Raymond S. Casiodoro de Reina: Patriarca del Protestantismo Hispano. St. Louis: Concordia Seminary Publications. 2002.
  17. González, Jorge A. The Reina–Valera Bible: From Dream to Reality Archived 2007-09-18 at the Wayback Machine
  18. James Dixon Douglas, Merrill Chapin Tenney (1997), Diccionario Bíblico Mundo Hispano, Editorial Mundo Hispano, pág 145.
  19. "Sagradas Escrituras (1569) Bible, SEV". biblestudytools.com. Retrieved 8 July 2013.
  20. A facsimile edition was produced by the Spanish Bible Society: (Sagrada Biblia. Traducción de Casiodoro de Reina 1569. Revisión de Cipriano de Valera 1602. Facsímil. 1990, Sociedades Biblicas Unidas, ISBN 84-85132-72-6)]
  21. http://www.tbsbibles.org/pdf_information/307-1.pdf
  22. Kenyon, Sir Frederic G. (1909). "English Versions". In James Hastings (ed.). Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 978-1-56563-915-7.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  23. Howsam, Leslie (2002). Cheap Bibles. Cambridge University Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-521-52212-0.
  24. Flick, Dr. Stephen. "Canonization of the Bible". Christian heritage fellowship. Retrieved 21 June 2014.
  25. Anderson, Charles R. (2003). Puzzles and Essays from "The Exchange": Tricky Reference Questions. Psychology Press. p. 123. ISBN 9780789017628. Paper and printing were expensive and early publishers were able to hold down costs by eliminating the Apocrypha once it was deemed secondary material.
  26. McGrath, Alister (10 December 2008). In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 298. ISBN 9780307486226.
  27. Browne, George (1859). History of the British and Foreign Bible Society. p. 362.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  28. https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/2008/august/why-are-protestant-and-catholic-bibles-different.html
  29. https://s3.amazonaws.com/tgc-documents/carson/1997_apocryphal-deuterocanonical_books.pdf
  30. Lambert, Lance. "400 Silent Years: Anything but Silent". Archived from the original on February 22, 2014. Retrieved 2012-09-21.
  31. Library of Congress Rule Interpretations, C.8. http://www.itsmarc.com/crs/mergedProjects/lcri/lcri/c_8__lcri.htm
  32. "Catholic Edition of ESV Bible Launched". Daijiworld. 2018-02-10.
  33. Goff, Philip. Farnsley, Arthur E. Thuesen, Peter J. The Bible in American Life, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, p. 12 Archived 2014-05-30 at the Wayback Machine
  34. https://www.americanbible.org/uploads/content/State_of_the_Bible_2015_report.pdf
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