Myles
Coverdale
(also spelled Miles
Coverdale) (c.
1488 – 20 January 1569) was
a 16th-century Bible
translator who produced the first complete printed translation of
the Bible into English.
From
1528 to 1535, he appears to have spent most of his time on the
Continent. In 1535 he published the first complete English Bible in
print, the so-called Coverdale Bible. As Coverdale was not proficient in
Hebrew or Greek, he used 'five soundry interpreters' in Latin, English
and 'Douche' (German) as source text. He made use of Tyndale's
translation of the New Testament (following Tyndale's November 1534
Antwerp edition) and of those books which were translated by Tyndale:
the Pentateuch, and the book of Jonah. The publication appeared in
Antwerp and was partly financed by Jacobus van Meteren. In 1537, his
translations were included in the Matthew Bible. In 1538, he was in
Paris, superintending the printing of the "Great Bible," and
the same year were published, both in London and Paris, editions of a
Latin and an English New Testament, the latter being by Coverdale. That
1538 Bible was a diglot (dual-language) Bible, in which he compared the
Latin Vulgate with his own English translation. He also edited the Great
Bible (1540). Henry VIII had a Coverdale Bible put into every English
Church, chained to a bookstand, so that every citizen would have access
to a Bible. |