A Cambridge graduate and reformer, a contemporary of Tyndale. During Tyndale's months of imprisonment Coverdale published the first edition of Tyndale's complete translation of the Bible. He is given credit for having translated the first complete English Bible in 1535.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, English-Bible, history, Miles-Coverdale, Reformation, Tyndale[/tags]

After King Henry VIII's break with England he seemed intent on creating an English Catholic Church, for instance the Statute of Six articles upheld many basic Catholic articles. Only two serious changes marked the new way within the Church of England. The first was the suppression of the monasteries; the second was the publication of the English Bible for use in the churches. In the latter years of William Tyndale's life he produced translated portions of the Old Testament (including the Pentateuch) and an improved edition of the New. In 1536 he died, burned at the stake. Yet, during his imprisonment Miles Coverdale published an edition of the Bible which was essentially Tyndale's work, supplemented by Latin and German versions. Then, a year after Tyndale's death, the Matthew Bible appeared. It was the work of another English reformer named John Rogers, it was virtually a well-edited compilation of Tyndale and

A Bible translation which was the work of several English exiles in Geneva during the reign of the Catholic, Queen Mary. Miles Coverdale, who had translated the first complete Bible into English in 1535, was in this group. Once printed during the early years of Elizabeth's reign, the Geneva Bible's numbered verses, lucid prose, improved scholarship, extensive prologues, and marginal notes gave it wide popularity. Until its eventual replacement by the King James Version (1611) it was the most widely distributed Bible in English and was the one the Puritans carried to America.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Geneva-Bible, history, James, Miles-Coverdale[/tags]