Myles+Coverdale

[|Myles Coverdale] and John “Thomas Matthew” Rogers had remained loyal disciples the last six years of Tyndale's life, and they carried the English Bible project forward and even accelerated it. Coverdale finished translating the Old Testament, and in **1535** he printed the first complete Bible in the English language, making use of Luther's German text and the Latin as sources. Thus, the first complete English Bible was printed on **October 4, 1535**, and is known as the **Coverdale Bible.**

The place of publication of the 1535 edition was long disputed. The printer was assumed to be either Froschover in Zurich or Cervicornus and Soter (in Cologne or Marburg). Since the discovery of [|Guido Latré] in 1997, the printer has been identified as [|Merten de Keyser] in [|Antwerp]. The publication was partly financed by [|Jacobus van Meteren] in Antwerp, whose sister-in-law, Adriana de Weyden, married [|John Rogers]. The other backer of the Coverdale Bible was [|Jacobus van Meteren]’s nephew, [|Leonard Ortels] (†1539), father of [|Abraham Ortelius] (1527–1598), the famous humanist geographer and cartographer. Although [|Coverdale] was also involved in the preparation of the [|Great Bible] of 1539, the Coverdale Bible continued to be reprinted. The last of over 20 editions of the whole Bible or its New Testament appeared in 1553.

[|Coverdale] based his [|New Testament] on [|Tyndale’s] translation. For the [|Old Testament], Coverdale used Tyndale’s published [|Pentateuch] and possibly his published [|Jonah]. He apparently did not make use of any of Tyndale’s other, unpublished, [|Old Testament] material (cf. [|Matthew Bible]). Instead, Coverdale himself translated the remaining books of the Old Testament and the [|Apocrypha]. Not being a Hebrew or Greek scholar, he worked primarily from [|German] Bibles—[|Luther’s Bible] and the Swiss-German version ([|Zürich Bible]) of [|Zwingli][|1]and [|Juda]—and Latin sources including the [|Vulgate].

Partially adapted from Wikipedia article entitled "Coverdale Bible"

Sources:


 * A. S. Herbert, //Historical Catalogue of Printed Editions of the English Bible 1525–1961//, London: British and Foreign Bible Society; New York: American Bible Society, 1968. SBN 564 00130 9.
 * H. WAUWERMANS, art. Abraham Ortelius, col. 293.
 * [|Guido Latre, "The 1535 Coverdale Bible and its Antwerp Origins,", in //The Bible as Book: The Reformation//, ed. by O'Sullivan, Orlaith (The British Library & Oak Knoll Press in association with The Scriptorium: Center for Christian Antiquities London & New Castle, Delaware 2000), pp. 89-102.ISBN 9781584560258, ISBN 1-58456-025-8]