Jacob Riley

Markita Proctor
English 101 Dual Credit
April/21/2015
Throughout history, many translations of the bible have been created and
discovered. While all translations may contain the same biblical message, multiple
translations of the same text have been published. Due to the fact that throughout
history language has changed and evolved, different translations of the bible were
written because different people wanted to read it in a language that either they
knew best, or the language that they deemed necessary to read it in to honor the
lord.
According to an article, the bible was originally written in Hebrew whenever
there was only the Old Testament. After about 200 years, the Greeks translated it
while adding on the fourteen books of Apocrypha. After about 500 years of this
however, the bible was translated to Latin since the Roman Empire saw Latin as the
only language the bible should ever be read or spoken (History of the English
Bible). So far in history, there are three translations of the bible. The Greeks
translated the bible in order to actually read it in their own language, while the
Romans translated it since they saw Latin as the only language to read it in.
These were the only languages that the bible was translated in until more
people from different areas of the world, who spoke different languages, ended up
migrating to Britain in the middle of the Roman Empire. According the same article,
German peoples who came to Britain bring their dialect . . .Saxon becomes OldEnglish. . .a need for an English version of the scriptures arises (History of the
English Bible). However, during this time, it was considered treasonous to translate
the bible from Latin in the Roman Empire. This need did not go unfulfilled however
since John Wycliffe in the fourteenth century decided to translate the scriptures into
English from Latin. It was from Wycliffes ideology of translating the bible that John
Hus, one of his followers, said that people should be able to read the bible in their
own language and oppose the Roman Empires ideology (English Bible History). Men
like Wycliffe and Hus caused there to be a massive shift in the way people think
about the bible. They were the first of many to star adopting the idea of translating
the bible to a more common dialect.
It was during this time that renaissance scholars began talking about how
translations could not translate word for word from the Hebrew and Greek texts. It
was said that Now Renaissance Scholars said: You cant go word for word from one
language into another (No. 935: A Wittenberg Bible). It is due to this idea that
there are so many different translations. While there are translations that try to
come close to the original texts, some translations are written to be as modern as
possible. As language began to modernize, there were more translations due to
people wanting to experience the bible in different ways.
The many different translations of the bible were written due to the evolution
of language and different people wanting to read it a certain way to either read the
bible in an easier spoken dialect or wanting to read the bible in a way that fully gave
the effect of the original text. The fact that so many different people think

differently and want to gain different things is evidence enough on why there are so
many different translations. In the end, the translations come from the same book,
but people understand them in different ways.

Works Cited
"English Bible History: Timeline of How We Got the English Bible." English Bible
History: Timeline of How We Got the English Bible. Web. 22 Apr. 2015.
"History of the English Bible." The History of the Bible up to the Modern Revised
Version of the King James Bible. Web. 22 Apr. 2015.
Lienhard, John. "No. 935: A Wittenberg Bible." No. 935: A Wittenberg Bible. Web. 22
Apr. 2015.