For the Church
Even though the early church, existing in a predominately Greek-speaking world, did not generally require translation of the Greek New Testament, translation into a number of the other languages of the Roman Empire began early and was widespread. Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, Georgian, and Armenian translations of the Scriptures were produced for the needs of the spreading church. And for the growing church in the West, a number of Latin translations, of varying quality, appeared. By the end of the fourth century, the need for a single, common translation into Latin motivated Jerome to bring forth his spectacular Vulgate, the translation of the Scriptures that sustained the church in the West for over a thousand years, well beyond the time of the Reformation. Even though we normally think of the Reformation as a period of blossoming for Bible translations, Jerome’s Vulgate actually served as the scriptural platform for the Lord’s move at the time, since much of the polemical writing of this era is in Latin and depends on Jerome’s Latin translation of the Bible. Further, many early translations of the Scriptures into English were made, not from Greek or Hebrew as might be expected, but from Jerome’s monumental and classic work into Latin. For example, Wycliffe’s translation of the Bible in the early 14th century, the first in Europe in a nearly thousand years, was based upon Jerome’s Vulgate. But it is indeed the case that the Protestant Reformers, armed with a particular recovery of light and truth in the Scriptures, picked up the task of translating the Bible into the languages of the Europeans with full vigor. Luther, easily the most dominant figure of the Reformation, is also easily the most influential Bible translator of all time. His approach to the translation of the Bible into German, completed in 1534, influenced a number of translators in other languages, including William Tyndale, who, around the same time, was the first to translate the Bible into English entirely from its original languages.

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