Historical Timeline on English Bible Translation

500 BC: Completion of All Original Hebrew Manuscripts which make up The 39 Books of the Old Testament.

200 BC: Completion of the Septuagint - the Greek translation of the Old Testament.

1st Century - 100 AD: Completion of All Original Greek Manuscripts which make up The 27 Books of the New Testament.

315 AD: Athenasius, the Bishop of Alexandria, identifies the 27 books of the New Testament which are today recognized as the canon of scripture.

382 AD: Jerome's Latin Vulgate translated.

500 AD: Scriptures have been Translated into Over 500 Languages.

600 AD: LATIN was the Only Language Allowed for Scripture.

995 AD: Anglo-Saxon (Early Roots of English Language) Translations of The New Testament Produced.

1384 AD: Wycliffe is the First Person to translate the Bible into English. His is a secondary translation as it did not come from the original manuscripts. His translation was never widely circulated because copies had to be hand-written as the printing press was not invented yet.

1455 AD: Gutenberg Invents the Printing Press; Books May Now be mass-Produced Instead of Individually Hand-Written. The First Book Ever Printed is Gutenberg's Bible which is the Latin Vulgate.

1516 AD: Erasmus prints his Greek New Testament, which later became known as the "Received Text". He translated it into Latin and printed a bilingual Greek/Latin New Testament Parallel New Testament. This started the Reformation as the reformers had the correct Greek New Testament to produce translations in the other languages.

1522 AD: Martin Luther's German New Testament translated from Erasmus Greek NT.

1526 AD: William Tyndale's New Testament translated from Erasmus NT; The First New Testament printed in the English Language. This was a primary translation, being translated from the original Greek text.

1535 AD: Myles Coverdale's Bible; The First Complete Bible printed in the English Language.

1537 AD: Tyndale-Matthews Bible; The Second Complete Bible printed in English. Done by John "Thomas Matthew" Rogers.

1539 AD: The "Great Bible" Printed; The First English Language Bible Authorized for Public Use.

1560 AD: The Geneva Bible Printed; The First English Language Bible to add Numbered Verses to Each Chapter.

1568 AD: The Bishops Bible Printed.

1609 AD: The Douay Old Testament is added to the Rheims New Testament (of 1582) Making the First Complete English Catholic Bible; Translated from Jerome's Latin Vulgate. This was a secondary translation and greatly inferior to the primary translations being produced by the Protestant Reformers.

1611 AD: The King James Bible Printed.

1782 AD: Robert Aitken's Bible; The First English Language Bible (KJV) Printed in America.

1791 AD: Isaac Collins and Isaiah Thomas Respectively Produce the First Family Bible and First Illustrated Bible Printed in America. Both were King James Versions.

1846 AD: The Illuminated Bible; The Most Lavishly Illustrated Bible printed in America. A King James Version.

Changes in the English Language

The English language came into being around the 900's AD. For hundreds of years it grew and changed. In the 1600's, when the King James Bible was translated, the English language was at its peak linguistically. Since then, it has actually degenerated. The following textual comparison of the earliest English translations of John 3:16, as shown in the English Hexapla Parallel New Testament, show the changes in the language over a 500 year period.

Anglo-Saxon Proto-English Manuscripts (995 AD): “God lufode middan-eard swa, dat he seade his an-cennedan sunu, dat nan ne forweorde de on hine gely ac habbe dat ece lif."

Wycliff (1380): "for god loued so the world; that he gaf his oon bigetun sone, that eche man that bileueth in him perisch not: but haue euerlastynge liif,"

Tyndale (1534): "For God so loveth the worlde, that he hath geven his only sonne, that none that beleve in him, shuld perisshe: but shuld have everlastinge lyfe."

Great Bible (1539): "For God so loued the worlde, that he gaue his only begotten sonne, that whosoeuer beleueth in him, shulde not perisshe, but haue euerlasting lyfe."

Geneva (1560): "For God so loueth the world, that he hath geuen his only begotten Sonne: that none that beleue in him, should peryshe, but haue euerlasting lyfe."

Rheims (1582): "For so God loued the vvorld, that he gaue his only-begotten sonne: that euery one that beleeueth in him, perish not, but may haue life euerlasting"

1st Ed. King James (1611): "For God so loued the world, that he gaue his only begotten Sonne: that whosoeuer beleeueth in him, should not perish, but haue euerlasting life."