Textus Receptus Bibles
Coverdale Bible 1535
| 20:1 | And I sawe an angell come downe from heauen, hauinge the keye of the bottomlesse pyt, and a gret chayne in his honde. |
| 20:2 | And he toke the dragon that olde serpent (which is the deuell and Satanas) and he bounde him a thousand yeares: |
| 20:3 | and cast him in to the bottomlesse pyt, and he bounde him, and set a seale on him, that he shuld disceaue the people nomoare, tyll the thousand yeares were fulfilled. And after that muste he be lowsed for a littell season. |
| 20:4 | And I sawe seates, and they sat vpon them, and the iudgement was geuen vnto them: and I sawe the soules of them that were beheaded for the witnes of Iesu, and for the worde of God: which had not worshipped the beest, nether his ymage, nether had taken his marke vpon their forheddes or on their hondes: and they lyved and raygned with Christ a .M. years |
| 20:5 | but the other of the deed men lyued not agayne, vntill the thousand yeare were fynisshed. This is that fyrst resurreccion. |
| 20:6 | Blessed and holy is he that hath parte in the fyrst resurreccion. On soch hath the seconde deeth no power, but they shalbe the prestes of God and of Christ, and shall raygne with him a thousand yeare. |
| 20:7 | And when the thousand yeares are expyred, Sathan shalbe lowsed out of his preson, |
| 20:8 | and shal go out to deceaue the people which are in the foure quarters of the earth. Gog and Magog, to gadder them togedder to batayle, whose nombre is as the sonde off the see: |
| 20:9 | and they went vp on the playne of the earth, and compased the tentes of the sayntes aboute, and the beloued cite. And fyre cam doune from God out of heauen, and deuoured them: |
| 20:10 | and the deuell that disceaued them, was cast in to a lake of fyre and brymstone, where the beest and the false prophet were, and shalbe tormented daye and night for euermore. |
| 20:11 | And I sawe a gret whyte seate, and him that sat on it, from whose face fled awaye both the earth and heauen, and their place was nomore founde. |
| 20:12 | And I sawe the deed, both gret and small stonde before God: And the bokes were opened, and another boke was opened, which is (the boke) of life, and the deed were iudged of tho thinges which were wrytten in the bokes accordinge to their dedes: |
| 20:13 | and the see gaue vp her deed, which were in her, and deeth and hell delyuered vp the deed, which were in them: and they were iudged euery man accordynge to his dedes. |
| 20:14 | And deth and hell were cast in to the lake of fyre. This is that second deeth. |
| 20:15 | And whosoeuer was not founde wrytten in the boke off life, was cast in to the lake of fyre. |
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.