If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!

The Wycliffite Bible (1) was c. 1384. Wycliffite (2), generally if somewhat erroneously known as Purvey, was 1388. (Anne Hudson doesn’t think Purvey had anything to do with Wycliffite II, but I’m not so sure.) The Tyndale New Testament was first published in 1525, and his Old Testament followed in 1534.

Tyndale wasn’t strangled, but burnt for heresy, in Belgium in 1536. (Those sneaky Belgians!) Wycliffe had the excellent sense to die before the s*** really hit the fan over the “Wycliffite” Bible in the early 15th century. (Not that he actually wrote it, but a lot of people thought he did.) Prior to the Constitutions of Oxford of 1407, a number of demonstratably orthodox priests and bishops used the text, and copies of it were even found in monasteries as late as the time of the Henrican dissolutions, around the 1530’s and '40’s.

Then there’s the Kentish Bible of the 14th century, Genesis and Exodus, the Lindisfarne Gospels, and a whole raft of previous English dialect/Old English Bible texts that predate the Wycliffite Bible. Ah, I’ll save it for the next lunch hour.

Do continue, Duke, when you get a chance. Is interesting.

NoClue…not sure whether my sarcasm detector is detecting anything or not.

Anyway, all will be revealed when I finally finish my dissertation. At the rate it’s going now–oh, should be next decade.

Damn.

Just shot beer out of my nose. Ouch!

BTW, Duke, no sarcasm.