Matthew+(Rogers)+Bible

In 1534, Rogers went to [|Antwerp] as chaplain to the English merchants of the [|Company of the Merchant Adventurers].

Here he met [|William Tyndale], under whose influence he abandoned the [|Roman Catholic] faith, and married Antwerp native Adriana de Weyden (b. 1522, anglicised to Adrana Pratt in 1552) in 1537. After Tyndale's death, Rogers pushed on with his predecessor's [|English] version of the [|Old Testament], which he used as far as //[|2 Chronicles]//, employing [|Myles Coverdale]'s translation (1535) for the remainder and for the //[|Apocrypha]//. Although it is claimed that Rogers was the first person to ever print a complete English Bible that was translated directly from the original Greek & Hebrew, there was also a reliance upon a Latin translation of the Hebrew Bible by Sebastian Münster and published in 1534.

Tyndale's [|New Testament] had been published in 1526. The [|complete Bible] was put out under the pseudonym of [|Thomas Matthew] in 1537; it was printed in Paris and Antwerp by Adriana's uncle, Sir [|Jacobus van Meteren]. [|Richard Grafton] published the sheets and got leave to sell the edition (1500 copies) in England. At the insistence of Archbishop Cranmer, the "King's most gracious license" was granted to this translation. Previously in the same year, the 1537 reprint of the [|Myles Coverdale]'s translation had been granted such a license.

The pseudonym "Matthew" is associated with Rogers, but it seems more probable that Matthew stands for Tyndale's own name, which, back then, was dangerous to employ. Rogers had little to do with the translation; his own share in that work was probably confined to translating the prayer of Manasses (inserted here for the first time in a printed English Bible), the general task of editing the materials at his disposal, and preparing the marginal notes collected from various sources. These are often cited as the first original English language commentary on the Bible. Rogers also contributed the [|Song of Manasses] in the Apocrypha, which he found in a [|French] Bible printed in 1535. His work was largely used by those who prepared the [|Great Bible] (1539–40), and from this came the [|Bishops' Bible] (1568) and the [|King James Version].

Excerpt taken from Wikipedia article entitled "John Rogers"

Sources: 
 * 1) **[|^]** [|Chester 1861], p. 1
 * 2) **[|^]** [|Daniell 2004]
 * 3) **[|^]** [|Hill 1907], pp. 5–6
 * 4) **[|^]** [|Hill 1907], p. 4
 * 5) **[|^]**  Venn, J.; Venn, J. A., eds. (1922–1958). "[|Rogers, John]". //[|Alumni Cantabrigienses] (10 vols)// (online ed.). Cambridge University Press.
 * 6) **[|^]** [|Chester 1861], pp. 3–5
 * 7) **[|^]** [|Daniell 2003], p. 191
 * 8) **[|^]** [|Daniell 2003], p. 191