Wycliffe's Bible. John Wycliffe
of the WNT, but less words in italics than the "Early Version" of the WNT. Wycliffe's Bible simply follows the WB in this regard. (Words in italics within parentheses in Wycliffe's New Testament are excerpts I have taken from the "Early Version of the WNT"; see the "Preface to the Revised Edition of Wycliffe's New Testament" for more information.)
When Wycliffe's Bible and the KJV are placed side-by-side, you can readily compare one text to the other. Sometimes reading Wycliffe's Bible first, then the KJV, you will see how the KJV grew out of the "Wycliffe Bible", and that it often follows it explicitly. Other times the KJV will help you to understand a difficult passage in Wycliffe's Bible. Sometimes the two texts will be different, but related; other times they will be as different as two versions of the same verse could be. But many times, particularly in regard to the New Testament, you will find these two texts very similar, and often, identical.
A Word Regarding the Primary Source
The primary source for this book was Forshall & Madden's 4-volume magnum opus, The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments, With the Apocryphal Books, In the Earliest English Versions, Made from the Latin Vulgate by John Wycliffe and His Followers. Today, it is most likely found in a university library or on the Internet.
Written over a period of twenty years in the mid-19th century, this monumental work of scholarship was the crowning achievement of The Rev. Josiah Forshall and Sir Frederic Madden. From about 160 extant hand-printed copies of the two versions of the "Wycliffe Bible" (about 40 copies of the "Early Version" and about 120 copies of the "Later Version"), they selected one copy from each version to serve as a "master" text, and then, by utilizing over 90,000 footnotes, correlated the other copies with these two "master" texts.
Both versions of the "Wycliffe Bible" contain prologues (introductions to each book or group of related books, mostly taken from Jerome), and marginal glosses (explanations of the text by the translators, and some alternate renderings of words and phrases). The prologues are not utilized in Wycliffe's Bible. The glosses are a different story.
Some revisions of the "Later Version" of the WOT, particularly the copies Forshall & Madden labelled "C", "G", "K", "Q", and "X", and to a lesser extent, "B", "I", and "N", contain glosses which prove that Hebrew Bibles, commentaries, and scholars were consulted during the copying/revising process. Over 300 times throughout the WOT, gloss after gloss states: "in Hebrew, it is", "is not in Hebrew", "as Hebrews say", "as Hebrews understand", "this verse is not in Hebrew", "this title is not in Hebrew". As well, at least 7 times, a "Rabbi Solomon" is quoted as commenting on a particular verse: "as Rabbi Solomon saith". This "Rabbi Solomon" was most likely the scholar "Rashi", the leading commentator on the Jewish Bible and the Talmud in the 11th century, or possibly another commentator from history, or perhaps even a contemporary of the translators (although this is the least likely possibility). Another 5 times, reference is made to (Jerome's) "Book of Hebrew Questions", a book of the master translator's own corrections of the Greek and Latin texts, which he made by referencing the Hebrew Scriptures. Jerome believed that the Hebrew provided a truer text to translate from than either the earlier Latin versions or the Septuagint (a fact agreed to by all modern translators). So, where appropriate, the words and phrases from these glosses have been either incorporated into the main text of Wycliffe's Old Testament or are presented as alternate renderings. A few of the alternate renderings from the glosses are printed in this book, but all of them can be found in the online files and in files on the Wycliffe's Bible CD. As well, gleanings from other glosses are placed in footnotes in this book.
The footnotes in Forshall & Madden's four volumes are another source of invaluable information. As noted, there are over 90,000 footnotes, with about 65,000 pertaining to the Old Testament (both versions), and about 25,000 pertaining to the New Testament (both versions). These footnotes delineate textual divergence - changes, omissions, insertions, copyist errors - between the two "master" texts and the other hand-printed copies of both versions of the "Wycliffe Bible". (A footnote can either refer to a single copy or to multiple copies.) Close reading of these footnotes indicates that many times when a copy of either version was written (though less frequently with the "Early Version"), the original language texts were also consulted. For time and again, words were added, or changed, to produce a more accurate rendering of the original Hebrew of the Old Testament, and the original Greek of the New Testament. In creating Wycliffe's Bible, many of these footnotes were utilized to provide the most precise translation, as well as the best phrasing - the most satisfying, balanced, and rhythmic read - that is found within all extant copies of the "Wycliffe Bible". However, specifically in regard to Wycliffe's New Testament, no "Later Version" footnote was simply used to produce greater consistency with the KJV, nor were two footnotes combined within the same phrase ("between the commas") for that purpose. With some "Early Version" WNT verses, noteworthy phrasing from two (or more) footnotes were combined due to space limitations, and to avoid needless repetition. These excerpts are marked with a plus sign in superscript, "+" and are contained within square brackets, [ ]; all the other "Early Version" passages are from a single source.
In Wycliffe's Bible, a forward slash, "/", separates different renderings of the same phrase from two different hand-written copies, usually the "master" text and an alternate rendering found in a footnote. Most of the renderings from the footnotes in Wycliffe's Old Testament came from the copies labelled "I", "N", and "S". It is significant to note that numerous textual variations indicated by footnotes for only the "Early Version" also appear in the KJV. This strongly suggests that the KJV translators consulted a variety of copies of the "Wycliffe Bible" during the writing of the KJV (more on this below). See the online files or the files on the Wycliffe's Bible CD for the majority of these alternate renderings taken from the footnotes.
In creating Wycliffe's Bible, textual errors that were found in the "Wycliffe Bible" were not changed (they are also part of the reality of this book); none are of major doctrinal significance. Corrections of names, numbers, and places, most often found in chapters of repetitive lists, were placed in parentheses, immediately following the error, to enable better comparison with other translations.
A handful of printing errors - reversed letters or misread vowels of pronouns, prepositions, and adverbs - were discovered in the "Later Version" of the WB. These were confirmed by referring to the "Early Version", which in each case agreed with either the Hebrew of the OT, or the Greek of the NT, and not with the "Later Version" of the WB. These were corrected, and in the online files and in files on the Wycliffe's Bible CD, the "Early Version" phrases have been provided for comparison purposes.
Use of the "Early Version"
The "Later Version" of the "Wycliffe Bible" is the foundation upon which Wycliffe's Bible was built. Strictly speaking, Wycliffe's Bible is not a composite of the "Later" and "Early" versions. However, the "Early Version" of the WB was utilized in a number of significant ways in the writing of Wycliffe's Bible.
First, the "Early Version" was used to define unknown words found in the "Later Version". Irregular spelling can make even the simplest words difficult to decipher. The "Early Version" served as a second source for such words. Often it had a more recognizable spelling, and so helped to identify them. As well, as was stated above, often a modern equivalent of a "dead" word (to be used as a replacement or a substitution word) was found only in the "Early Version". Similarly, and again surprisingly, modern verb forms were also often found only in the "Early Version". Their existence helped achieve verb form consistency in Wycliffe's Bible.
Second, the "Early Version" served as a source of "missing" words and phrases. In the WOT, about two dozen times, a textually significant word or partial phrase was not found in the "Later Version", but was present in the "Early Version" (following the Hebrew and also found in the KJV). Examples include: Genesis 35:5 and 50:22; Leviticus 4:21; Numbers 32:29 and 35:27; Deuteronomy 3:22; Joshua 16:8; 1st Samuel 1:9; 2nd Samuel 17:28; 1st Kings 8:2, 8:34, 21:7, and 21:19; 2nd Kings 1:4; Ezra 4:8; Proverbs 5:4 and 21:21; Isaiah 64:2; Jeremiah 52:22; Ezekiel 15:4; Hosea 2:12; and Zechariah 7:4. (An even greater number of significant phrase fragments are "missing" from the WOT "Early Version".) In the WNT, a limited number of times, a textually significant word, or partial phrase, not found in the "Later Version", but present in the "Early Version" (following the Greek and also found in the KJV), was inserted into Wycliffe's New Testament to enhance its accuracy, reader comprehension,