Textus Receptus Bibles
Coverdale Bible 1535
| 144:1 | Blessed be the LORDE my refuge, which teacheth my hades to warre, & my fyngers to fight. |
| 144:2 | My hope and my castell, my defence and my delyuerer, my shylde in whom I trust, which gouerneth the people that is vnder me. |
| 144:3 | LORDE, what is ma, that thou hast soch respecte vnto him? Or the sonne of man, that thou so regardest him? |
| 144:4 | Man is like a thinge of naught, his tyme passeth awaye like a shadowe. |
| 144:5 | Bowe thy heaues (o LORDE) & come downe, touch the mountaynes, yt they maye smoke withall. |
| 144:6 | Sende forth the lightenynge & scater the, shute out thine arowes and consume them. |
| 144:7 | Sende downe thine hande from aboue, delyuer me and take me out of ye greate waters, from the hande of straunge childre. |
| 144:8 | Whose mouth talketh of vanite, & their right hade is a righthande of falsede. |
| 144:9 | That I maye synge a new songe vnto the (o God) & synge prayses vnto the vpon a tenstrynged lute, |
| 144:10 | Thou that geuest victory vnto kynges, and hast delyuered Dauid thy seruaunt from the parell of the swerde. |
| 144:11 | Saue me and delyuer me from the honde of straunge childre, whose mouth talketh of vanite, and their right hande is a right hande of falsede. |
| 144:12 | That or sonnes maye growe vp as the yoge plantes, and that oure doughters maye be as the polished corners of the temple. |
| 144:13 | That or garners maye be full and plenteous with all maner of stoare: that or shepe maye brynge forth thousandes and hundreth thousands in oure villages. |
| 144:14 | That oure oxen maye be stronge to laboure, that there be no myschaunce, no decaye, and no complayninge in oure stretes. |
| 144:15 | Happie are the people that be in soch a case: yee blessed are the people, which haue the LORDE for their God. |
Coverdale Bible 1535
The Coverdale Bible, compiled by Myles Coverdale and published in 1535, was the first complete English translation of the Bible to contain both the Old and New Testament and translated from the original Hebrew and Greek. The later editions (folio and quarto) published in 1539 were the first complete Bibles printed in England. The 1539 folio edition carried the royal license and was, therefore, the first officially approved Bible translation in English.
Tyndale never had the satisfaction of completing his English Bible; but during his imprisonment, he may have learned that a complete translation, based largely upon his own, had actually been produced. The credit for this achievement, the first complete printed English Bible, is due to Miles Coverdale (1488-1569), afterward bishop of Exeter (1551-1553).
The details of its production are obscure. Coverdale met Tyndale in Hamburg, Germany in 1529, and is said to have assisted him in the translation of the Pentateuch. His own work was done under the patronage of Oliver Cromwell, who was anxious for the publication of an English Bible; and it was no doubt forwarded by the action of Convocation, which, under Archbishop Cranmer's leading, had petitioned in 1534 for the undertaking of such a work.
Coverdale's Bible was probably printed by Froschover in Zurich, Switzerland and was published at the end of 1535, with a dedication to Henry VIII. By this time, the conditions were more favorable to a Protestant Bible than they had been in 1525. Henry had finally broken with the Pope and had committed himself to the principle of an English Bible. Coverdale's work was accordingly tolerated by authority, and when the second edition of it appeared in 1537 (printed by an English printer, Nycolson of Southwark), it bore on its title-page the words, "Set forth with the King's most gracious license." In licensing Coverdale's translation, King Henry probably did not know how far he was sanctioning the work of Tyndale, which he had previously condemned.
In the New Testament, in particular, Tyndale's version is the basis of Coverdale's, and to a somewhat less extent this is also the case in the Pentateuch and Jonah; but Coverdale revised the work of his predecessor with the help of the Zurich German Bible of Zwingli and others (1524-1529), a Latin version by Pagninus, the Vulgate, and Luther. In his preface, he explicitly disclaims originality as a translator, and there is no sign that he made any noticeable use of the Greek and Hebrew; but he used the available Latin, German, and English versions with judgment. In the parts of the Old Testament which Tyndale had not published he appears to have translated mainly from the Zurich Bible. [Coverdale's Bible of 1535 was reprinted by Bagster, 1838.]
In one respect Coverdale's Bible was groundbreaking, namely, in the arrangement of the books of the. It is to Tyndale's example, no doubt, that the action of Coverdale is due. His Bible is divided into six parts -- (1) Pentateuch; (2) Joshua -- Esther; (3) Job -- "Solomon's Balettes" (i.e. Canticles); (4) Prophets; (5) "Apocrypha, the books and treatises which among the fathers of old are not reckoned to be of like authority with the other books of the Bible, neither are they found in the canon of the Hebrew"; (6) the New Testament. This represents the view generally taken by the Reformers, both in Germany and in England, and so far as concerns the English Bible, Coverdale's example was decisive.