In 382 a man named Jerome translated what we know as the Latin Vulgate from earlier Latin texts known as Vetus Latina. Jerome translated the Hebrew and Greek versions of scripture into the Latin of his day.

The Latin Vulgate, the only translation of the Bible sanctioned by the church until the time of the Reformation in 1514. Jerome's translation eventually took over the older Latin translations and also ceased to be the vernacular of the day as the Latin language grew and developed and as Christianity continued to spread.

In order to protect the translations of the scriptures, any new translations of Scripture needed church approval. It was felt by both King and Church that if the Bible was in the "common tongue" and able to be read by the peasant that there was too much chance for heresy against the Church. So new versions were suppressed. Over time, the Vulgate lost integrity as it was retranslated from old versions and the Church itself fell into heresy. In the 1490's, a man named Thomas Linacre, personal physician to King's Henry the VII and VIII, decided to learn Greek. After reading the gospels in Greek he wrote in his diary "Either this (the original Greek) is not the Gospel, or we are not saved." The Latin had become so corrupt that it had not preserved the primary message of the Bible, the Gospel. Yet the church continued to threaten to kill anyone attempting to translate the Scriptures or to correct the Vulgate. It became about control...

The first hand written English Bible was written by John Wycliffe in 1380. John proceeded with this work of translation in rebellion against the idea that one needed the approval of the church to learn and understand scripture. He believed every person should be allowed to read the Bible in his/her own language. The church could not suppress his actions because they promoted no heresy, until Wycliffe was accused of being a part of political upheaval in that time. His version of the Bible was eventually declared "heretical" and his bones were exhumed and ground into dust by the church.

John Hus, one of Wycliffe's followers, actively promoted his idea after Wycliffe's death until he was burned at the stake in 1415, with Wycliffe's bibles used as kindling. His last words were "in 100 years God will raise up a man whose calls for reform cannot be suppressed!"

Luther is known as the Father of the Reformation and nailed his 95 Thesis to the Church of Wittenburg's door in 1517. The 95 Thesis were 95 points of corruption that Luther leveled at the Catholic Church. He called for repentance and reform.

William Tyndale wanted to use the same 1516 Erasmus text as a source to translate and print the New Testament in English for the first time in history. Tyndale showed up on Luther's doorstep in Germany in 1525, and by year's end had translated the New Testament into English. Tyndale had been forced to flee England, because of the wide-spread rumor that his English New Testament project was underway, causing inquisitors and bounty hunters to be constantly on Tyndale's trail to arrest him and prevent his project. God foiled their plans, and in 1525-1526 the Tyndale New Testament became the first printed edition of the scripture in the English language. Subsequent printings of the Tyndale New Testament in the 1530's were often elaborately illustrated.

They were burned as soon as the Bishop could confiscate them, but copies trickled through and actually ended up in the bedroom of King Henry VIII. The more the King and Bishop resisted its distribution, the more fascinated the public at large became. The church declared it contained thousands of errors as they torched hundreds of New Testaments confiscated by the clergy, while in fact, they burned them because they could find no errors at all. One risked death by burning if caught in mere possession of Tyndale's forbidden books.

Having God's Word available to the public in the language of the common man, English, would have meant disaster to the church. No longer would they control access to the scriptures. If people were able to read the Bible in their own tongue, the church's income and power would crumble. They could not possibly continue to get away with selling indulgences (the forgiveness of sins) or selling the release of loved ones from a church-manufactured "Purgatory". People would begin to challenge the church's authority if the church were exposed as frauds and thieves. The contradictions between what God's Word said, and what the priests taught, would open the public's eyes and the truth would set them free from the grip of fear that the institutional church held. Salvation through faith, not works or donations, would be understood. The need for priests would vanish through the priesthood of all believers. The veneration of church-canonized Saints and Mary would be called into question. The availability of the scriptures in English was the biggest threat imaginable to the wicked church. Neither side would give up without a fight.

In the end, Tyndale was caught: betrayed by an Englishman that he had befriended. Tyndale was incarcerated for 500 days before he was strangled and burned at the stake in 1536. Tyndale’s last words were, "Oh Lord, open the King of England’s eyes". This prayer would be answered just three years later in 1539, when King Henry VIII finally allowed, and even funded, the printing of an English Bible known as the “Great Bible”. But before that could happen…

It was not that King Henry VIII had a change of conscience regarding publishing the Bible in English. His motives were more sinister… but the Lord sometimes uses the evil intentions of men to bring about His glory. King Henry VIII had in fact, requested that the Pope permit him to divorce his wife and marry his mistress. The Pope refused. King Henry responded by marrying his mistress anyway, (later having two of his many wives executed), and thumbing his nose at the Pope by renouncing Roman Catholicism, taking England out from under Rome’s religious control, and declaring himself as the reigning head of State to also be the new head of the Church. This new branch of the Christian Church, neither Roman Catholic nor truly Protestant, became known as the Anglican Church or the Church of England. King Henry acted essentially as its “Pope”. His first act was to further defy the wishes of Rome by funding the printing of the scriptures in English… the first legal English Bible… just for spite.

The current canon of Scripture was settled at the Council of Trent. Charles V and German assemblies (called Diets) appealed to reformers and Catholics to meet and attempt to reunify the church and settle controversies. Protestants were granted safe passage but the Catholic Church denied them the ability to vote on council matters. The resulting vote had the 66 books of our current Bible plus the apocryphal books.

In addition to Catholics not agreeing with Protestants on books to be included in the canon there were people trying to confuse Christians by coming up with additional gospels, including the Gnostics and Stoics. It was important for the church to take an official stance on which books of the Bible most agreed with Christ's and the apostle's teachings.

The word apocrypha means "hidden." These 16 books were written primarily in the time period between the Old and New Testaments (B.C. 420-27).

1. There are no clear, definite New Testament quotations from the Apocrypha by Jesus or the apostles. While there may be various allusions by the New Testament to the Apocrypha, there are no authoritative statements like "thus says the Lord," "as it is written," or "the Scriptures say." There are references in the New Testament to the pseudepigrapha (literally “false writings”) (Jude 14-15) and even citations from pagan sources (Acts 17:22-34), but none of these are cited as Scripture and are rejected even by Roman Catholics. In contrast, the New Testament writers cite the Old Testament numerous times (Mt. 5; Lk. 24:27; Jn. 10:35) and use phrases such as "thus says the Lord," "as it is written," or "the Scriptures say," indicating their approval of these books as inspired by God.

2. Many ancient Jews rejected the Apocrypha as Scripture. Philo never quoted the Apocrypha as Scripture. Josephus explicitly rejected the Apocrypha and listed the Hebrew Canon to be 22 books. In fact, the Jewish Community acknowledged that the prophetic gifts had ceased in Israel before the Apocrypha was written. Jesus had many disagreements with the Jews, but any disagreements over the accepted Hebrew canon were never recorded.

3. The Catholic Church has not always accepted the Apocrypha. The Apocrypha was not officially accepted by the Catholic Church at a universal council until 1546 at the Council of Trent. This is over a millennium and a half after the books were written, and was a counter reaction to the Protestant Reformation.

4. The Apocrypha contains a number of false teachings (see: Errors in the Apocrypha). (To check the following references, see http://www.newadvent.org/bible.) For example:

The command to use magic (Tobit 6:5-7).
Forgiveness of sins by almsgiving (Tobit 4:11; 12:9).
Offering of money for the sins of the dead (2 Maccabees 12:43-45).

5. The Apocryphal books do not share many of the characteristics of the Canonical books: they are not prophetic, there is no supernatural confirmation of any of the apocryphal writers works, there is no predictive prophecy, there is no new Messianic truth revealed, they are not cited as authoritative by any prophetic book written after them, and they even acknowledge that there were no prophets in Israel at their time (cf. 1 Macc. 9:27; 14:41).

The thought-for-thought translations seek to express the meaning of each sentence or paragraph from the original language in simple up-to-date English without being tied to translating every word.

Goal of conveying the Bible in a simple, easy-to-understand language without regard to word-for-word or even thought-for-thought expressions of the original languages.