- The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Early Modern England, c. 1530–1700
- Acknowledgements
- List of Illustrations
- List of Contributors
- Note to the Reader
- ‘All other Bookes … are but Notes upon this’: The Early Modern Bible
- Part I Translations
- ‘A day after doomsday’: Cranmer and the Bible Translations of the 1530s
- Genevan Legacies: The Making of the English Geneva Bible
- ‘A comely gate to so rich and glorious a citie’: The Paratextual Architecture of the Rheims New Testament and the King James Bible
- The King James Bible and Biblical Images of Desolation
- The Roman Inkhorn: Religious Resistance to Latinism in Early Modern England
- Retranslating the Bible in the English Revolution
- Part II Scholarship
- The Septuagint and the Transformation of Biblical Scholarship in England, from the King James Bible (1611) to the London Polyglot (1657)
- The Apocrypha in Early Modern England
- Isaiah 63 and the Literal Senses of Scripture
- The ‘sundrie waies of Wisdom’: Richard Hooker on the Authority of Scripture and Reason
- ‘The doors shall fly open’: Chronology and Biblical Interpretation in England, c.1630–c.1730
- Early Modern <i>geographia sacra</i> in the Context of Early Modern Scholarship
- Milton’s Corrupt Bible
- The Commodification of Scripture, 1640–1660: Politics, Ecclesiology, and the Cultures of Print
- Self-Defeating Scholarship? Antiscripturism and Anglican Apologetics from Hooker to the Latitudinarians
- Part III Spreading the Word
- The Church of England and the English Bible, 1559–1640
- ‘Hearing’ and ‘Reading’: Disseminating Bible Knowledge and Fostering Bible Understanding in Early Modern England
- ‘All Scripture is given by inspiration of God’: Dissonance and Psalmody
- Ornament and Repetition: Biblical Interpretation in Early Modern English Preaching
- Preaching, Reading, and Publishing the Word in Protestant Scotland
- The Bible in Early Modern Gaelic Ireland: Tradition, Collaboration, and Alienation
- ‘Wilt thou not read me, Atheist?’ The Bible and Conversion
- Part IV The Political Bible
- Mover and Author: King James VI and I and the Political Use of the Bible
- ‘A king like other nations’: Political Theory and the Hebrew Republic in the Early Modern Age
- Digging, Levelling, and Ranting: The Bible and the Civil War Sects
- A Year in the Life of King Saul: 1643
- ‘That glory may dwell in our land’: The Bible, Britannia, and the Glorious Revolution
- Part V The Bible and Literature
- The King James Bible in its Cultural Moment
- The Noblest Composition in the Universe or Fit for the Flames? The Literary Style of the King James Bible
- Epic, Meditation, or Sacred History? Women and Biblical Verse Paraphrase in Seventeenth-Century England
- Scripture and Tragedy in the Reformation
- ‘This verse marks that’: George Herbert’s The Temple and Scripture in Context
- ‘Blessed Joseph! I would thou hadst more fellows’: John Bunyan’s Joseph
- <i>Paradise Lost</i>, the Bible, and Biblical Epic
- Part VI Reception Histories
- Donne’s Biblical Encounters
- Domestic Decoration and the Bible in the Early Modern Home
- ‘My exquisite copies for action’: John Saltmarsh and the Machiavellian Bible
- Unbelief and the Bible
- Inwardness and English Bible Translations
- Early Modern Davids: From Sin to Critique
- Chronology
- Bibliography
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter explores the inaugural moment for the English Reformation, and for the rendering of the scriptures in English within a national church. In May 1530, Henry VIII began to suggest that it was his duty to cause the New Testament to be translated into English for his subjects, marking a hesitant and reluctant shift towards a possible translation of the Bible. The King’s suggestion was met with opposition from senior churchmen on the one hand, and frustration by English evangelicals on the other, and Henry subsequently imposed legislation that limited Bible reading. This chapter examines the complex issues involved in the protocols that governed how scripture was disseminated to the laity.
Keywords: Bible translation, Erasmus, Paraclesis, Thomas Cranmer, Lollards, Tyndale, national church
Susan Wabuda is Associate Professor of History at Fordham University and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Her specialty is the history and theology of the Reformation. In addition to numerous essays, she is the author of Preaching during the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2002).
Access to the complete content on Oxford Handbooks Online requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.
Please subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.
For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us.
- The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Early Modern England, c. 1530–1700
- Acknowledgements
- List of Illustrations
- List of Contributors
- Note to the Reader
- ‘All other Bookes … are but Notes upon this’: The Early Modern Bible
- Part I Translations
- ‘A day after doomsday’: Cranmer and the Bible Translations of the 1530s
- Genevan Legacies: The Making of the English Geneva Bible
- ‘A comely gate to so rich and glorious a citie’: The Paratextual Architecture of the Rheims New Testament and the King James Bible
- The King James Bible and Biblical Images of Desolation
- The Roman Inkhorn: Religious Resistance to Latinism in Early Modern England
- Retranslating the Bible in the English Revolution
- Part II Scholarship
- The Septuagint and the Transformation of Biblical Scholarship in England, from the King James Bible (1611) to the London Polyglot (1657)
- The Apocrypha in Early Modern England
- Isaiah 63 and the Literal Senses of Scripture
- The ‘sundrie waies of Wisdom’: Richard Hooker on the Authority of Scripture and Reason
- ‘The doors shall fly open’: Chronology and Biblical Interpretation in England, c.1630–c.1730
- Early Modern <i>geographia sacra</i> in the Context of Early Modern Scholarship
- Milton’s Corrupt Bible
- The Commodification of Scripture, 1640–1660: Politics, Ecclesiology, and the Cultures of Print
- Self-Defeating Scholarship? Antiscripturism and Anglican Apologetics from Hooker to the Latitudinarians
- Part III Spreading the Word
- The Church of England and the English Bible, 1559–1640
- ‘Hearing’ and ‘Reading’: Disseminating Bible Knowledge and Fostering Bible Understanding in Early Modern England
- ‘All Scripture is given by inspiration of God’: Dissonance and Psalmody
- Ornament and Repetition: Biblical Interpretation in Early Modern English Preaching
- Preaching, Reading, and Publishing the Word in Protestant Scotland
- The Bible in Early Modern Gaelic Ireland: Tradition, Collaboration, and Alienation
- ‘Wilt thou not read me, Atheist?’ The Bible and Conversion
- Part IV The Political Bible
- Mover and Author: King James VI and I and the Political Use of the Bible
- ‘A king like other nations’: Political Theory and the Hebrew Republic in the Early Modern Age
- Digging, Levelling, and Ranting: The Bible and the Civil War Sects
- A Year in the Life of King Saul: 1643
- ‘That glory may dwell in our land’: The Bible, Britannia, and the Glorious Revolution
- Part V The Bible and Literature
- The King James Bible in its Cultural Moment
- The Noblest Composition in the Universe or Fit for the Flames? The Literary Style of the King James Bible
- Epic, Meditation, or Sacred History? Women and Biblical Verse Paraphrase in Seventeenth-Century England
- Scripture and Tragedy in the Reformation
- ‘This verse marks that’: George Herbert’s The Temple and Scripture in Context
- ‘Blessed Joseph! I would thou hadst more fellows’: John Bunyan’s Joseph
- <i>Paradise Lost</i>, the Bible, and Biblical Epic
- Part VI Reception Histories
- Donne’s Biblical Encounters
- Domestic Decoration and the Bible in the Early Modern Home
- ‘My exquisite copies for action’: John Saltmarsh and the Machiavellian Bible
- Unbelief and the Bible
- Inwardness and English Bible Translations
- Early Modern Davids: From Sin to Critique
- Chronology
- Bibliography
- Index
