The Latin Bible
From A collection of short essays. Project references reflect the source essay; see our current status.
The oldest manuscripts of the Bible are mostly written in Hebrew (the language of the Jewish people) and Greek (the language of the Greek empire which was dominant from about 800BC to around 600AD, hence used in Jesus’ time). However, as the Good Message about Yeshua/Jesus the messiah spread out from Judea into the wider world, other people groups wanted to read the scriptures in their own languages.
In 382AD, Hieronymos (Jerome) was commissioned by the leaders of the Roman church to translate the scriptures into Latin (the language of the Roman empire) and this translation was eventually known as ‘The Vulgate’ which means ‘The vulgar/common language (translation)’.
The Latin Vulgate was successfully used in churches for many centuries, but language never stands still (although the printing press has done things like standardise spelling and slowed down the rate of change). In western Europe, Latin evolved into the Romance Languages (leading to French & Spanish, etc.), and three groups of Germanic languages evolved into English & German, etc.
However because the Latin Vulgate was endorsed by the Roman church, it continued to be used in services even when the people no longer spoke Latin at home. Thus ‘The common language (translation)’ evolved into ‘The church translation (that common people no longer understood)’ and the common people were dependent on the priests to explain the scriptures to them. That led to great corruption in the church including the sale of ‘indulgences’ (certificates of forgiveness of sins) to fund massive building programs.
In the 1300s, John Wycliffe translated the Latin Vulgate New Testament into what we now call Middle English and soon made enemies in the church as he pointed out the various corruptions being taught. Then in the 1500s, William Tyndale started translating the Greek New Testament into English, but was burnt at the stake by the British church before he was able to complete it.
So the Latin Bible continued to be used even when the common people couldn’t understand it. But now, many terms in our English Bibles dating back to Wycliffe and Tyndale are still being used, centuries later when we no longer use those words outside of church circles. It’s time for a high-quality, modern English translation that places understanding the common language back above tradition. Thus the Open English Translation was born…