Abstract
By the time William Whittingham came to produce his revision of the Tyndale New Testament, the Reformation that had survived two Tudor monarchs, the first self-serving, the second a Protestant, was driven underground by the third, a Catholic. There was no Catholic version of the Bible to rival Cromwell’s legacy of Protestant Bible translations, and a complete Catholic Bible would not emerge for another sixty years. Whittingham prepared his New Testament away from the Catholic Queen Mary in the Protestant Geneva of Calvin, whilst John Rogers took centre-stage in Smithfield, London. Foxe represented the burning of John Rogers as an heroic Christian martyrdom and one more triumph of conscience by a Protestant, sure of his election, over the pretended authority of the antichristian Church of Rome.1 In his Epistle to Whittingham’s 1557 New Testament, John Calvin was mindful of the effects of Protestant persecutions on Reformation and exhorted the reader to consider the blood of the martyrs as strengthening the foundations of the one true Church:
Let us not be discomforted as thogh all hope were lost, when we se the true servants of God dye and destroyed before our eyes : for it is truely saied by Tertullian, and hath alwaies bene so proved, and shal be to the ende of teh worlde, that the bloude of Martyrs is the sede sowing of the Churche2.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
see J. Foxe. The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, 4th. ed. rev. J. Pratt. London: Oxford University Press, 1877.
See John Calvin, `The Epistle Declaring that Christ is the end of the Lawe’ in Whittingham’s New Testament STC 2871. viii.r.
The acknowledged importance of this work of revision [1560 Bible] is further shown by the fact that the text of the edition of 1557 was never reprinted. It was at once superseded by the more complete work undertaken very shortly after its appearance“.B. F. Westcott, A General View of the History of the English Bible 3rd ed. rev. W.A. Wright..Loncbn: Macmillan, 1905. 91.
S.L. Greenslade. ed. The Cambridge History of the Bible: The West from The Reformation to the Present Day,3.London: Cambridge University Press, 1963.156.
F. F. Bruce. History of the Bible in English: From the Earliest Versions New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. 86.
A. W. Pollard. Records of the English Bible London: Henry Frowde, 1911. 25.
L. Lupton. The History of the Geneva Bible. 24 vols. London, 1966–1993. 144.
In general, the Geneva New Testament contributed more to the phraseology of the Epistles than of the Gospels; for in the latter the foundation was well laid by Tyndale and Coverdale“. C. C. Butterworth. The Literary Lineage of the King James Bible. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1941. 162.
B. F. Westcott. A General View of the History of the English Bible. 3rd ed. rev. W.A. Wright.London Macmillan, 1905. 70–71.
Whittingham makes the substitution of `knowledge’ for `remembrance’ nine times in the Pauline Epistles. “Jugge. New Testament. 1552. STC 2867.
John B. Payne, ‘Erasmus on Romans 9:624.’ in David C. Steinmetz. ed. The Bible in the Sixteenth Century Durham and London: Duke University Press. 1990. 119.
See John Calvin. `The Epistle Declaring that Christ is the end of the Lawe.’ in Whittingham’s New Testament. STC 2871. viii.r.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2001 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Westbrook, V. (2001). William Whittingham’s New Testament. In: Long Travail and Great Paynes. Studies in Early Modern Religious Reforms, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2115-8_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2115-8_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5699-3
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-2115-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive