The Great Bible of 1539 was the first authorised edition of the Bible in English, authorised by King Henry VIII of England to be read aloud in the church services of the Church of England. The Great Bible was prepared by Myles Coverdale, working under commission of Thomas, Lord Cromwell, Secretary to Henry VIII and Vicar General. In 1538, Cromwell directed the clergy to provide "one book of the Bible of the largest volume in English, and the same set up in some convenient place within the said church that ye have care of, whereas your parishioners may most commodiously resort to the same and read it." The Great Bible includes much from the Tyndale Bible, with the objectionable features revised. As the Tyndale Bible was incomplete, Coverdale translated the remaining books of the Old Testament and Apocrypha from the LatinVulgate and German translations, rather than working from the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic texts. Although called the Great Bible because of its large size, it is known by several other names as well: the Cromwell Bible, since Thomas Cromwell directed its publication; Whitchurch's Bible after its first English printer; the Chained Bible, since it was chained to prevent removal from the church. It has less accurately been termed Cranmer's Bible, since although Thomas Cranmer was not responsible for the translation, a preface by him appeared in the second edition.
Printing
Miles Coverdale and Richard Grafton went over to Paris and put the work into the hands of the French printer, Regnault, with the countenance of Bonner, then British Ambassador at Paris. There was constant fear of the Inquisition. Coverdale packed off a large quantity of the finished work through Bonner to Cromwell, and just when this was done, the officers of the Inquisition came on the scene. Coverdale and Grafton made their escape. A large quantity of the printed sheets were sold as waste paper to a haberdasher, who resold them to Cromwell's agents, and they were, in due course, sent over to London. Cromwell bought the type and presses from Regnault and secured the services of his compositors. The first edition was a run of 2,500 copies that were begun in Paris in 1539. Much of the printing was done at Paris, and after some misadventures where the printed sheets were seized by the French authorities on grounds of heresy, the publication was completed in London in April 1539. It went through six subsequent revisions between 1540 and 1541. The second edition of 1540, included a preface by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, recommending the reading of the scriptures. Seven editions of the Great Bible were published in quick succession. 1. 1539, April – Printed in Paris and London by Richard Grafton & Edward Whitchurch. 2. 1540, April – Printed in London by Richard Grafton & Edward Whitchurch, includes Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's preface, and the Apocryphal Books were interspersed among the Canonical Books of the Old Testament. 3. 1540, July – Printed in London by Richard Grafton & Edward Whitchurch, includes Archbishop Cranmer's preface with Cromwell's shield defaced on the title page 4. 1540, November — Printed in London by Richard Grafton & Edward Whitchurch, with the title page of 1541, and includes Archbishop Cranmer's preface.. 5. 1541, May – Printed in London by Edward Whitchurch, includes Archbishop Cranmer's preface. 6. 1541, November – Printed in London by Edward Whitchurch, includes Archbishop Cranmer's preface. 7. 1541, December – Printed in London by Edward Whitchurch, includes Archbishop Cranmer's preface. More than 9,000 copies of the Great Bible were printed by 1541. 8. 1549, ________ – Printed in London by Edward Whitchurch. 9. "In 1568, the Great Bible was superseded as the authorised version of the Anglican Church by the Bishops’ Bible. The last of over 30 editions of the Great Bible appeared in 1569." A version of Cranmer's Great Bible can be found included in the English Hexapla, produced by Samuel Baxter & Sons in 1841. However copies of this work are fairly rare. The most available reprinting of the Great Bible's New Testament can be found in the second column of the New Testament Octapla edited by Luther Weigle, chairman of the translation committee that produced the Revised Standard Version.
Language
The language of the Great Bible marks the advent of Early Modern English. Moreover, this variant of English is pre-Elizabethan. The text, which was regularly read in the parish churches, helped to standardise and stabilise the language across England. Some of the readings of the First Authorised Version of the Bible differ from the more familiar 1611 edition, the Third Authorised Version. For example, the commandment against adultery in the Great Bible reads, "Thou shalt not breake wedlocke."
Aftermath
The later years of Henry VIII indeed were marked by serious reaction. In 1542 Convocation with the royal consent made an attempt thwarted by Cranmer to Latinise the English version and to make it in reality what the Catholic version of Rheims subsequently became. In the following year Parliament which then practically meant the King and two or three members of the Privy Council restricted the use of the English Bible to certain social classes that excluded nine tenths of the population and three years later it prohibited the use of everything but the Great Bible. It was probably at this time that there took place the great destruction of all previous work on the English Bible which has rendered examples of that work so scarce. Even Tunstall and Heath were anxious to escape from their responsibility in lending their names to the Great Bible. In the midst of this reaction Henry VIII died January 28, 1547.
