John Wycliffe Bible | Reformation, Anglo-Saxon, Rare Bibles

Description: The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New testament, with the Apocryphal Books, in the Earliest English Version made from the Latin Vulgate by John Wycliffe and His Followers; Edited by the Rev. Josiah Forshall, F.R.S etc., Late Fellow of Exeter College, and Sir Frederic Gadded, K.H. F.R.S. etc. Keeper of the Mss. In the British Museum. Oxford, at the University Press - 1850. 4 tall Royal Quarto volumes, 33x28cm each. Text in parallel columns. Bound in a modern 1/2 calf, spines have been speckled. There is some wear to the edges, particularly the corners, commensurate with age otherwise a good, solid and clean set. A very scarce and much sought after set, although only printed in 1850, this is the first printed edition of the complete Wycliffite Bible, and as such, is the preeminent resource for Wycliffe scholarship. Before this, only his New Testament had been printed (the first edition of this was only printed in 1731 and is very rare) and the Song of Solomon was printed by the Rev Samuel Clark in his Commentary on the Bible. William Tyndale is famed for producing the first printed English New Testament but John Wycliffe pre-dates this by nearly two hundred years. However copies of his translation were only available in manuscript and Wycliffe’s translation was from the Latin vulgate whereas Tyndale’s was from the Original Biblical languages of Hebrew and Greek. Before Wycliffe, only odd books of the Bible were available in English as the Roman Catholic Church did not want the scriptures available in a language that ordinary people could understand. For hundreds of years, the Roman Catholic Church taught that only Priests and Scholars were responsible enough to read it for themselves. Anyone found with Scripture in English were often tried as Heretics and often burned at the stake. It was not until the appearance of John Wyclife and his followers that the idea of translating the whole Bible into the common vernacular came around. Wycliffe believed each man was directly responsible to God and commanded to obey his Law and by Law, Wyclife meant the Scriptures. But if men are to obey God's Word, men must have God's Word. Therefore each man must have access to the Bible in a readable and understandable translation, and should therefore be available in the vernacular. "the first printed edition of the complete Wyclifffite version, with both the earlier version of c.1382 and the revised version completed by John Purvey about 1388 (Wycliffe having died in 1384). Of the approximately 170 medieval manuscript copies of the Wycliffe translation known to be extant in 1850, about 5/6 were of the revised version. The text of both of these versions is reproduced in parallel columns in this edition.” DMH 1876. Wycliffite version in double columns. Four volumes, tall Royal Quarto.

Price: 3995 GBP

Location: Glasgow

End Time: 2025-01-27T15:08:32.000Z

Shipping Cost: 80.14 GBP