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-43-
God Hath Spoken
Chapter 9
A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE
Turn to Isaiah chapter 34, verse 16. "Seek ye out of the book of the LORD and read." Christian Philosophy
In one of the volumes of his commentaries on the Bible, Matthew Henry declares Christian philosophy in six statements. First, true religion is the one thing useful. The one thing essential in life is true religion.
Second, divine revelation is necessary to true religion. God must teach men what constitutes true religion. Apart from divine revelation, men will worship God falsely, or they will worship a false god.
Third, divine revelation is now to be found in the Holy Scriptures consisting of the Old and New Testaments.
Fourth, the Scriptures were purposely designed for our learning.
Fifth, the Scriptures were not only designed for our learning, but they are our settled rule of faith and practice, i.e., what we are to believe, and how we are to behave ourselves. Last, it is the duty of Christians to diligently search the Scriptures, and it is the office of pastors to guide them and assist them therein. George Whitefield thundered that God is going to demand a swift accounting if we neglect His Word after He has humbled Himself to become an Author.
The Septuagint
Approximately 400 years before Christ was born, the Old Testament was completed. The last book was penned. What a glorious dawning for mankind! However, in 332 B.C. Alexander the Great conquered Palestine. The Scriptures were written in Hebrew, so only people who knew the Hebrew language could read the Word of God. While Hebrew remained the language of religion, the language of the man on the street became Greek, for it was the language of all within the empire of Alexander. But the Scriptures remained in Hebrew, and the common people could not seek out the book of the Lord and read.
In the 3rd century B.C., in Alexandria, Egypt, seventy scholars translated the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek in seventy two days. It was therefore called the "Seventy Version" or The Septuagint. Once again common men could seek out the book of the Lord and read. Although the Scriptures remained in the Hebrew language, it was now also in the language of the strangers in Palestine. Dawn had again appeared in the history of mankind.
Then in 168 B.C., Antiochus Epiphanes conquered Israel. In his attempt to extirpate the worship of God, he forbade possession of the Scriptures upon pain of death.
The Vulgate
In 64 B.C. the Roman army conquered the empire of Alexander. Still the language of the common man was Greek. The Roman Peace, or "Pax Romana" was established. Highways were cleared of robbers and the seas were rid of pirates. Roads and bridges were constructed, but with all the developments brought by Rome, Latin also was brought, and within three centuries the language of the common man was changed from Greek to Latin. The Word of God was now in Hebrew and Greek, but how could a Roman seek out the book of the Lord and read?
In Bethlehem there lived a monk named Jerome. In A.D. 410, he translated the Scriptures into Latin. This Bible, because it was in the language of the common man, i.e. the "vulgar" tongue, became known as The Vulgate, and it was in use for a thousand years.
At the very time Jerome was translating the Scriptures, the Roman Empire began to be broken up by invading hordes of European and Asiatic barbarians. In A.D. 4l0, Alaric, king of the Visigoths, sacked Rome. In A.D. 455 the Vandals "vandalized" the city. Learning became lost, for in the frenzy of their indiscriminate destruction, entire libraries and records were lost. Consequently, a period known as the Dark Ages descended upon Europe.
The Dark Ages lasted a thousand years. It was a time when people had great difficulty obtaining knowledge. There were kings who could not read, and people who cannot read cannot seek out the book of the Lord and read. Men were plunged into spiritual darkness without the Scriptures to light their way.