Textus Receptus Bibles
Coverdale Bible 1535
| 1:1 | Pavl and Siluanus and Timotheus. Vnto the cogregacion of the Tessalonyans, in God the father and in the LORDE Iesus Christ. Grace be with you, and peace from God oure father and from the LORDE Iesus Christ. |
| 1:2 | We geue thankes vnto God allwaye for you all, makynge mesion of you in or prayers |
| 1:3 | without ceassynge, and call to remembraunce youre worke in the faith, and youre laboure in loue, & youre pacience in hope, which is oure LORDE Iesus Christ before God oure father: |
| 1:4 | Because we knowe (brethren, beloued of God) how that ye are electe: |
| 1:5 | for oure Gospell hath not bene with you in worde onely, but both in power and in the holy goost, and in moch certayntie, as ye knowe after what maner we were amonge you for youre sakes. |
| 1:6 | And ye became the folowers of vs and of the LORDE: and receaued the worde in moch affliccion with ioye of the holy goost: |
| 1:7 | so that ye were an example to all that beleued in Macedonia and Achaia. |
| 1:8 | For fro you was the worde of the LORDE noysed out, not onely in Macedonia & Achaia, but i all quarters also is yor faith i God spred abrode so that it nedeth not vs to speake eny thinge at all. |
| 1:9 | For they them selues shewe of you, what maner of entrynge in we had vnto you, and how ye are turned vnto God from ymages, for to serue the lyuynge and true God, |
| 1:10 | and to loke for his sonne from heaue: whom he raysed vp from the deed, euen Iesus, which hath delyuered vs fro the wrath to come. |
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.