Reference: English Versions
Hastings
1. The history of the English Bible begins early in the history of the English people, though not quite at the beginning of it, and only slowly attains to any magnitude. The Bible which was brought into the country by the first missionaries, by Aidan in the north and Augustine in the south, was the Latin Bible; and for some considerable time after the first preaching of Christianity to the English no vernacular version would be required. Nor is there any trace of a vernacular Bible in the Celtic Church, which still existed in Wales and Ireland. The literary language of the educated minority was Latin; and the instruction of the newly converted English tribes was carried on by oral teaching and preaching. As time went on, however, and monasteries were founded, many of whose inmates were imperfectly acquainted either with English or with Latin, a demand arose for English translations of the Scriptures. This took two forms. On the one hand, there was a call for word-for-word translations of the Latin, which might assist readers to a comprehension of the Latin Bible; and, on the other, for continuous versions or paraphrases, which might be read to, or by, those whose skill in reading Latin was small.
2. The earliest form, so far as is known, in which this demand was met was the poem of Caedmon, the work of a monk of Whitby in the third quarter of the 7th cent., which gives a metrical paraphrase of parts of both Testaments. The only extant MS of the poem (in the Bodleian) belongs to the end of the 10th cent., and it is doubtful how much of it really goes back to the time of Caedmon. In any case, the poem as it appears here does not appear to be later than the 8th century. A tradition, originating with Bale, attributed an English version of the Psalms to Aldhelm, bishop of Sherborne (d. 707), but it appears to be quite baseless (see A. S. Cook, Bibl. Quot. in Old Eng. Prose Writers, 1878, pp. xiv
See Verses Found in Dictionary
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Therefore do not be like them, for your Father knows {what you need} before you ask him.
Therefore do not be like them, for your Father knows {what you need} before you ask him.
And he said to him, 'Friend, how did you come in here, not having wedding clothes?' But {he could say nothing}.
"Here is a boy who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many [people]?"
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places; but if not, I would have told you, because I am going away to prepare a place for you. read more. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, so that where I am, you may be also. And you know the way where I am going." Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How are we able to know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you know him and have seen him."
writing [this letter] {to be delivered by them}: The apostles and the elders, brothers. To the brothers [who are] from among the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia. Greetings! Because we have heard that some have gone out from among us--to whom we gave no orders--[and] have thrown you into confusion by words upsetting your {minds}, read more. it seemed best to us, {having reached a unanimous decision}, [and] having chosen men, to send [them] to you together with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives on behalf of the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we have sent Judas and Silas, and they will report the same [things] by word of mouth. For it seemed best to the Holy Spirit and to us to place on you no greater burden except these necessary things: [that you] abstain from food sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. [If you] keep yourselves from {these things} you will do well. Farewell.
Therefore, [when I] was wanting [to do] this, perhaps then was I making use of vacillation? Or was I deciding what I was deciding according to the flesh, in order that with me my "yes" may be "yes" and my "no" [may be] "no" [at the same time]? But God [is] faithful, so that our word to you is not "yes" and "no." read more. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the one who was proclaimed among you by us, by me and Silvanus and Timothy, did not become "yes" and "no," but has become "yes" in him. For as many as [are the] promises of God, in him [they are] "yes"; therefore also through him [is] the "amen" to the glory of God through us.
On account of this, I bend my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, read more. that he may grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner person, [that] Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith (you having been firmly rooted and established in love), in order that you may be strong enough to grasp together with all the saints what [is] the breadth, and length, and height, and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, in order that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to the one who is able to do beyond all measure more than all that we ask or think, according to the power that is at work in us, to him [be] the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.