The New Testament
Article VI
OF THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURE FOR SALVATION
Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.
In the name of Holy Scripture, we do understand those Canonical books of the Old and New testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.
Of the names and number of the Canonical Books.
Genesis.
Exodus.
Leviticus.
Numbers.
Deuteronomy.
Joshua.
Judges.
Ruth.
The First Book of Samuel.
The Second Book of Samuel.
The First Book of Kings.
The Second Book of Kings.
The First Book of Chronicles.
The Second Book of Chronicles.
The First Book of Esdras.
The Second Book of Esdras.
The Book of Esther.
The Book of Job.
The Psalms.
The Proverbs.
Cantica, or Songs of Solomon.
Four Prophets the Greater.
Twelve Prophets the Less.
All the books of the New Testament, as they are commonly received, we do receive, and account them canonical.
And the other books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine. Such are these following:
The Third Book of Esdras.
The Fourth Book of Esdras.
The Book of Tobias.
The Book of Judith.
The rest of the Book of Esther.
The Book of Wisdom.
Jesus the Son of Sirach.
Baruch the Prophet.
The Song of the Three Children.
The Story of Susanna.
Of Bel and the Dragon.
The Prayer of Manasses.
The First Book of Maccabees.
The Second Book of Maccabees.
This article clearly sets out a distinction between the canonical works of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha. Although the latter is declared to be of use for “example of life and instruction of manners”—in other words, it is edifying—it does not contain material that can be said to “establish any doctrine.”
The issue that had to be addressed was whether the King James Bible would include the Apocrypha, or omit it altogether. The decision to include it was taken by Richard Bancroft—yet another example of his influence over the King James Bible. The task of translating the apocryphal books was entrusted to the Second Cambridge Company, who are generally thought to have discharged their duties well. The decision to include the Apocrypha was not particularly controversial at the time; the Geneva Bible had also included it. Yet it was a decision that would become controversial in later years. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), which set out the core beliefs and values of English Puritanism at the time of the Commonwealth, was quite explicit on the purpose and place of the Apocrypha. The third article of that Confession reads as follows:
The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the Canon of Scripture; and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings.
The Puritans thus regarded the Apocrypha as being on the same level of value as human publications, and thus that it should have no place in printed Bibles. James I himself appears to have held to this view, as can be seen from an early passage in the Basilikon Doron:
As to the Apocriphe bookes, I omit them because I am no Papist (as I said before) &Cindeed some of them are as like the dietement of the Spirit of God, as an Egg is to an Oyster.
Sadly, the full force of James's analogy here is lost to modern readers, and it can only be assumed that the point being made is that the Apocrypha is poor fare indeed compared with the richness and delicacy of the Old and New Testaments. However, it is possible that James's early views on the role of the Apocrypha were tempered by the religious situation in Scotland, where attitudes similar to those set out in the Westminster Confession were well established by the close of the sixteenth century. Perhaps James felt that, while in Scotland, one believed what the Church of Scotland taught, but while in England, one subtly shifted to attitudes associated with the Church of England. Or perhaps he took the view that this was precisely the kind of decision that Richard Bancroft ought to take, and was content to leave it to him.
Puritan critics of the King James Bible during the time of the Commonwealth thus lobbied for the removal of the Apocrypha from its contents, seeing this as a further cause for complaint against the religious establishment of the day. With the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II, the Apocrypha regained its former status. It continued to be included in printed versions of the King James Bible.
Yet it became clear that there was a commercial market for versions of the King James translation that omitted the Apocrypha. Part of the market pressure came from the Puritans and their noncom-formist successors in the eighteenth century, who wished these works to be excluded on theological grounds. The first English-language Bible to be printed in North America (1782–83), in which the Puritan heritage exercised a major influence, did not include the Apocrypha. Yet there was another pressure of importance—the production of English-language Bibles for the mission field. These needed to be produced as cheaply as possible.
Major British missionary societies that were active during the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century include the Baptist Missionary Society (founded in 1792, and initally known as the Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel); the London Missionary Society (founded in 1795, and initially known as the Missionary Society); and the Church Missionary Society (founded in 1799, and originally known as the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East). There was now a commercial reason for removing the Apocrypha—Bibles without it were both cheaper to produce, and smaller (and hence cheaper to transport overseas). Sensitive to the importance of both production and transportation costs, the missionary societies gradually came to the view that the Apocrypha would be omitted—primarily for financial, rather than theological reasons.
As far as is known, the first missionary society to take this decision was the British and Foreign Bible Society. Its decision of 1826 to cease including the Apocrypha in their Bibles is known to have given a major stimulus to the growing trend to publish Bibles without the Apocrypha. In very general terms, Bibles produced for a predominantly Protestant readership now tend to exclude the Apocrypha, and those intended for a Roman Catholic readership include it.
THE NEW TESTAMENT
The New Testament, which consists of twenty-seven books, is entirely written in Greek. We shall consider the specific form of Greek in which it is written later. The main components of the New Testament are the following.
The four gospels. The word “gospel” basically means “good news.” Each of the four gospel writers—or “evangelists,” as they are sometimes known—sets out the basic events lying behind the good news. The term synoptic gospels is often used to refer to the first three gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). This term refers to their similar literary structure, which has important implications for the way in which they are translated, and to which we shall return presently.
The Acts of the Apostles. This is basically an account of the expansion of Christianity in the decades after the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. How were events described in the gospels received at the time? How did the gospel spread from Palestine to Europe? These questions are addressed in the fifth work to be found in the New Testament, the full title of which is “the Acts of the Apostles,” but which is more usually referred to simply as “Acts.” The gospel of Luke and Acts are widely agreed to have been written by the same person—Luke.
The next major section of material in the New Testament are the letters, referred to by the older English word epistles in documents dealing with the King James Bible. These letters provide teaching concerning both Christian beliefs and behavior, as important today as they were when they were first written. Some of the false teachings that arose in the early period of the Church's history are in circulation once more, and these letters provide important resources for defending the integrity of the Christian faith today. Most of the letters were written by Paul, whose conversion to the Christian faith led him to undertake a major program of evangelism and church planting. Many of his letters were written to churches he had planted, giving them advice. Other letter writers include the apostles Peter and John.
The Book of Revelation. The New Testament then ends with the book of Revelation, which stands in a class of its own. It represents a vision of the end of history, in which the writer is allowed to see into heaven, and gain a glimpse of the new Jerusalem that is prepared for believers. This complex and difficult work is sometimes referred to as “the Apocalypse.”
There were some interesting translation problems that awaited the translators, to which we shall return presently. Our attention now turns to the languages in which the Bible was originally written, and the issues that they raised.