The only impressions of anjr portions of the Scrip- tures which were printed during the remainder of the reign of Henry appear to have been the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays, in 1542, probably an edition of tiie Pentateuch in 1544, Joye's book of Daniel and the books of Solomon in 1545, and the New Testament according to the text of the Great Bible in 1546. The number of copies of the Scriptures in circulation at this time must, however, have been very considerable. In 1543 the Parliament prohibited the use of Tyndale's version, and in 1546 Coverdale's translation, as well as Tyndale's, was prohibited by a stringent proclama- tion, and all such books were to be delivered up to persons appointed for the purpose, in order that they might be burned. The diligence with which Henry's proclamation was executed, in the destruction of the earlier editions, accounts for the very few copies which have come down to our time. The destruction ap- pears to have been almost as complete as that of the earlier editions of Tyndale's New Testament.
Among the early acts of the reign of Edward VI waa the reversing of the restrictions which had been laid on the circulation and the reading of the Script- ures. Vet no new recension or translation was pub- lished, except a translation of the paraphrase of Eras- mus in 1549-50. Among those who took part in this work was Coverdale ; and the Princess Mary— the fu- ture persecuting queen — translated a portion of the Gospel of John. Cranmer contemplated a new trans- lation of the Bible; but Fagius and Bucer died, and the work was frustrated. An edition of Coverdale's Bible, said to have been printed at Zurich, was pub- Kshed in 1550. This edition was probably one of the two revisions which Coverdale mentioned in his ser- mon .it Paul's < !ross, in which he defended his version, and said " if he mi ht review the book once again, as be had twice before, he doubted not he should amend." During some part of this reign Sir John Cheke trans- lated the Gospel of Matthew, and perhaps part of Mark, bul the translation waa not then published. The fol- lowing is a specimen of Choke's version — Matt, ii, 1:
When Jesus was boorn in Betblem a citi of Juri in king Herood's dais, lo then the YVisard's cam fro thest parties.
However, many editions of the Bible were printed, some being reprints of Matthew's Bible, some of Cran- mer's, and some of Taverner's Recognition. The total number of impressions of the Bible in the reign of Ed- ward was at least thirteen. There were also several editions of the New Testament, some of Tyndale's translations, some of Coverdale's version, and some according to Cranmer's Bible. The number of these editions of the New Testament amounts to at least twenty-five, so that the whole number of Bibles and Testaments in circulation comprised man)- thousand copies.
On the accession of Mary the printing and the cir- culation of the Scriptures in English was hindered, so that her reign onl)- witnessed the printing of one edition of the New Testament, printed at Geneva in 1557. The translator of the Genevan Testament was William Whittingham, a native of Holmset, six miles from Durham, who was one of the exiles from England. This was a small square volume, printed in Roman letters, with the supplementary words in italics. It was the first English New Testament di- vided into verses and broken into small sections or par- agraphs. The preface was written by John Calvin, whose sister Catharine was married to Whittingham. In the manner of rendering not a few passages the translator followed the judgment of Beza in his theo- logical views. The following is a specimen of this version — Matt, xiii, 19 :
When soeur a man hearetb the worde of the kyngdome, and vnderstandeth it not, there commeth that euyl one, and catchetb away that which was sowen in his heart, and this is the corne which was sowen by the way syde.
Whittingham and his companions in exile also ex- ecuted a translation of the whole Bible at Geneva, and it is not unlikely that Coverdale aided in the work. The translators probably had motives which sufficient- ly influenced them in executing a new version, instead of giving a mere reprint or revision of any which had preceded. The intention of such a work had been en- tertained in the reign of Edward VI, and it is proba-. ble that in this projected revision, from the manner in which the name of Bucer was connected with it, there would have been embodied whatever might be learned from the biblical knowledge possessed by the Reform- ers on the Continent. This translation differed from all that had preceded it not only in its plan, but also in its execution. The other versions had been gener- ally the work or the revision of an individual, or, at most, a revision in which certain individuals executed certain particular parts; in this translation we find, on the contrary, many acting unitedly in the forma- tion of a version, and thus, in the plan of operation, there was a principle of completeness which had not been acted on previously. The translators, by the use of supplementary words, often aided the sense with- out seeming to insert what was not found in the orig- inal. It was also stored with marginal notes. This version of the whole Bible was printed at Geneva by Rowland Hall in 1560, so that it was not published until after many of the exiles had returned home. In this translation, which was the first complete English Bible divided by verses, it is to be observed that the translation of the New Testament differs in several respects from that which had been separately printed in 1556. The expense of preparing the Genevan Rilile was chiefly borne by John Bodley, the father of Sir Thomas, the founder of the noble library at Oxford. On the return of the exiles, Queen Elizabeth granted a patent to Bodley solely, for the term of seven years, to print this edition ; yet, on account of the interfer- ence of Archbishop Parker, no edition of the Genevan Testament or Bible was published in England till the year 1576. Immediately after Parker's death this version was published ; it continued to be frequently