The Old English Bible translations are the partial

translations of the Bible The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. all of the Bible has been translated into 724 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,617 languages, and ...

prepared in medieval

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

into the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

. The translations are from Latin texts, not the original languages. Many of these translations were in fact

Bible gloss In Biblical studies, a gloss or glossa is an annotation written on margins or within the text of biblical manuscripts or printed editions of the scriptures. With regard to the Hebrew texts, the glosses chiefly contained explanations of purely ver ...

es, prepared to assist

cleric Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

s whose grasp of

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

was imperfect and circulated in connection with the Vulgate Latin Bible that was standard in

Western Christianity Western Christianity is one of two sub-divisions of Christianity ( Eastern Christianity being the other). Western Christianity is composed of the Latin Church and Western Protestantism, together with their offshoots such as the Old Catholic ...

at the time. Old English was one of very few early medieval vernacular languages the Bible was translated into, and featured a number of incomplete

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...

translations, some of which were meant to be circulated, like the Paris Psalter or Ælfric's Hexateuch.

Early history (600-874)

Information about translations is limited before the

Synod of Whitby In the Synod of Whitby in 664, King Oswiu of Northumbria ruled that his kingdom would calculate Easter and observe the monastic tonsure according to the customs of Rome rather than the customs practiced by Irish monks at Iona and its satellite ins ...

in 664. Aldhelm,

Bishop of Sherborne The Bishop of Sherborne is an episcopal title which takes its name from the market town of Sherborne in Dorset, England. The see of Sherborne was established in around 705 by St Aldhelm, the Abbot of Malmesbury. This see was the mother diocese of ...

and

Abbot of Malmesbury Malmesbury Abbey, at Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England, is a religious house dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. It was one of the few English houses with a continuous history from the 7th century through to the dissolution of the monasteri ...

(639–709), is said to have written an Old English translation of the

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...

, although this is disputed.

Cædmon Cædmon (; ''fl. c.'' 657 – 684) is the earliest English poet whose name is known. A Northumbrian cowherd who cared for the animals at the double monastery of Streonæshalch (now known as Whitby Abbey) during the abbacy of St. Hilda, he wa ...

(~657–684) is mentioned by Bede as one who sang poems in Old English based on the Bible stories, but he was not involved in translation ''per se''. Bede (''c.'' 672–735) produced a translation of the

Gospel of John The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...

into Old English, which he is said to have prepared shortly before his death. This translation is lost; we know of its existence from Cuthbert of Jarrow's account of Bede's death. The ''

Vespasian Psalter The Vespasian Psalter (London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian A I) is an Anglo-Saxon illuminated psalter decorated in a partly Insular style produced in the second or third quarter of the 8th century. It contains an interlinear gloss in Old E ...

'' (~850–875) is an

interlinear gloss In linguistics and pedagogy, an interlinear gloss is a gloss (series of brief explanations, such as definitions or pronunciations) placed between lines, such as between a line of original text and its translation into another language. When gloss ...

of the Book of Psalms in the

Mercian dialect Mercian was a dialect spoken in the Anglian kingdom of Mercia (roughly speaking the Midlands of England, an area in which four kingdoms had been united under one monarchy). Together with Northumbrian, it was one of the two Anglian dialects. The ...

.See also , which looks at three Anglo-Saxon glossed psalters and how layers of gloss and text, language and layout, speak to the meditative reader. Eleven other Anglo-Saxon (and two later) psalters with Old English glosses are known. The earliest are probably the early-9th-century red glosses of the Blickling Psalter ( Morgan Library & Museum, M.776). The latest Old English gloss is contained in the 12th-century

Eadwine Psalter The Eadwine Psalter or Eadwin Psalter is a heavily illuminated 12th-century psalter named after the scribe Eadwine, a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury (now Canterbury Cathedral), who was perhaps the "project manager" for the large and excepti ...

. The Old English material in the Tiberius Psalter of around 1050 includes a continuous interlinear gloss of the psalms.

Alfred and the House of Wessex (875-999)

As England was consolidated under the

House of Wessex The House of Wessex, also known as the Cerdicings and the West Saxon dynasty, refers to the family, traditionally founded by Cerdic, that ruled Wessex in Southern England from the early 6th century. The house became dominant in southern England aft ...

, led by descendants of Alfred the Great and

Edward the Elder Edward the Elder (17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded to the throne, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin ...

, translations continued. King Alfred (849–899) circulated a number of passages of the Bible in the vernacular. These included passages from the

Ten Commandments The Ten Commandments (Biblical Hebrew עשרת הדברים \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים, ''aséret ha-dvarím'', lit. The Decalogue, The Ten Words, cf. Mishnaic Hebrew עשרת הדיברות \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְ ...

and the

Pentateuch The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...

, which he prefixed to a code of laws he promulgated around this time. Alfred is also said to have directed the Book of Psalms to have been translated into Old English, though scholars are divided on Alfredian authorship of the Paris Psalter collection of the first fifty Psalms. Between 950 and 970,

Aldred the Scribe Aldred the Scribe (also known as Aldred the Glossator) is the name by which scholars identify a tenth-century priest, otherwise known only as Aldred, who was a provost of the monastic community of St. Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street in 970. He is ...

added a gloss in the

Northumbrian dialect The Northumbrian dialect refers to any of several English language varieties spoken in the traditional English region of Northumbria, which includes most of the North East England government region. The traditional Northumbrian dialect is a ...

of Old English (the ''Northumbrian Gloss on the Gospels'') to the ''

Lindisfarne Gospels The Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library Cotton MS Nero D.IV) is an illuminated manuscript gospel book probably produced around the years 715–720 in the monastery at Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumberland, which is now in the B ...

'' as well as a foreword describing who wrote and decorated it. Its version of The

Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...

is as follows: ::''Suae ðonne iuih gie bidde fader urer ðu arð ðu bist in heofnum & in heofnas; sie gehalgad noma ðin; to-cymeð ric ðin. sie willo ðin suae is in heofne & in eorðo. hlaf userne oferwistlic sel us to dæg. & forgef us scylda usra suae uoe forgefon scyldgum usum. & ne inlæd usih in costunge ah gefrig usich from yfle'' At around the same time (~950–970), a priest named Farman wrote a gloss on the

Gospel of Matthew The Gospel of Matthew), or simply Matthew. It is most commonly abbreviated as "Matt." is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells how Israel's Messiah, Jesus, comes to his people and form ...

that is preserved in a manuscript called the ''Rushworth Gospels''. In approximately 990, a full and freestanding version of the four Gospels in idiomatic Old English appeared in the

West Saxon dialect West Saxon is the term applied to the two different dialects Early West Saxon and Late West Saxon with West Saxon being one of the four distinct regional dialects of Old English. The three others were Kentish, Mercian and Northumbrian (the lat ...

and are known as the ''

Wessex Gospels __NOTOC__ The ''Wessex Gospels'' (also known as the ''West-Saxon Gospels'') refer to a translation of the four gospels of the Christian Bible into a West Saxon dialect of Old English. Produced from approximately AD 990 to 1175 in present-day Engla ...

''. Seven manuscript copies of this translation have survived. This translation gives us the most familiar Old English version of , the

: ::''Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum, si þin nama gehalgod. To becume þin rice, gewurþe ðin willa, on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. Urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg, and forgyf us ure gyltas, swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum. And ne gelæd þu us on costnunge, ac alys us of yfele. Soþlice.'' At about the same time as the Wessex Gospels (~990), the priest

Ælfric of Eynsham Ælfric of Eynsham ( ang, Ælfrīc; la, Alfricus, Elphricus; ) was an English abbot and a student of Æthelwold of Winchester, and a consummate, prolific writer in Old English of hagiography, homilies, biblical commentaries, and other genres ...

produced an independent translation of the

with books of

Joshua Joshua () or Yehoshua ( ''Yəhōšuaʿ'', Tiberian: ''Yŏhōšuaʿ,'' lit. 'Yahweh is salvation') ''Yēšūaʿ''; syr, ܝܫܘܥ ܒܪ ܢܘܢ ''Yəšūʿ bar Nōn''; el, Ἰησοῦς, ar , يُوشَعُ ٱبْنُ نُونٍ '' Yūšaʿ ...

and

Judges A judge is an official who presides over a court. Judge or Judges may also refer to: Roles *Judge, an alternative name for an adjudicator in a competition in theatre, music, sport, etc. *Judge, an alternative name/aviator call sign for a membe ...

. His translations were used for the illustrated

Old English Hexateuch The Old English Hexateuch is the collaborative project of the late Anglo-Saxon period that translated the six books of the Hexateuch into Old English, presumably under the editorship of Ælfric of Eynsham. It is the first English vernacular transla ...

Late Anglo-Saxon translations (after 1000)

The

Junius manuscript The Junius manuscript is one of the four major codices of Old English literature. Written in the 10th century, it contains poetry dealing with Biblical subjects in Old English, the vernacular language of Anglo-Saxon England. Modern editors have ...

(initially ascribed to Cædmon) was copied about 1000. It includes Biblical material in vernacular verses: Genesis in two versions ('' Genesis A'' and '' Genesis B''), '' Exodus'', '' Daniel'', and ''

Christ and Satan ''Christ and Satan'' is an anonymous Old English religious poem consisting of 729 alliterative verse, contained in the Junius Manuscript. Junius Manuscript The poem is located in a codex of Old English biblical poetry called the Junius Manuscript ...

'', from the apocryphal

Gospel of Nicodemus Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

. The three related manuscripts, Royal 1 A. xiv at the British Library, Bodley 441 and Hatton 38 at the Bodleian Library, are written in Old English, although produced in the late 12th century. Hatton 38 is noted as being written in the latest Kentish form of West Saxon. They cover the four Gospels, with one section (Luke 16.14–17.1) missing from both manuscripts, Hatton and Royal. In 1066, the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Con ...

marked the beginning of the end of the Old English language. Translating the Bible into Old English gradually ended with the movement from Old English to

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...

, and eventually there were attempts to provide Middle English Bible translations.

References

Sources

* . * . * . * . * . * . * . * * . * . * . * * .

External links

*
Ða Halgan Godspel on Englisc
' ("The Holy Gospels in English"), mostly based on Cod. Bibl. Pub. Cant. Ii. 2. 11.

(some information)

* ttp://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/1001Williams.htm Translators and Translations of the Anglo Saxon Bibleby Ian Williams, 2000.
List of English Bible Translations
* New digital editions, with manuscript images, of much of Old English biblical verse, including Junius 11 poems and metrical psalms and psalm excerpts, are available in th
''Old English Poetry in Facsimile Project''
eds. Martin Foys, ''et al.''(Madison, WI: Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture, 2019-), with translations from th
''Old English Poetry Project''
Aaron Hostetter (trans.). {{DEFAULTSORT:Old English Bible Translations Old English literature English, Old