Saturday, January 19

Coverdale's Achievement

Miles Coverdale, who published the first complete English language Bible, died on this day in 1568 at the age of 81. His Bible, printed in 1535, was a remarkable achievement and formed the basis for every other English translation over the course of the next three hundred years.

Once an assistant to William Tyndale, Coverdale was not actually a particularly capable Greek or Hebrew scholar, but he had a fine literary style, an unshakable tenacity, and a singular vision to complete the work his brilliant mentor had begun. Working from Tyndale’s notes, he was able to hammer out a masterpiece--more than seventy percent of which ultimately found its way into the King James Version of 1611.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This may seem rather bizarre, but my iPod is named Miles Coverdale. I got him in my freshman year on the day after we had our first lecture about Coverdale and I was still feeling inspired by the lecture, so I named my iPod after him.

Anonymous said...

A true Christian hero!