The very meanest translation in English... is the Word of God

bgwilkinson

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The very meanest translation in English... is the Word of God

Miles Smith wrote this describing the Rheims NT 1582.

These translators were formerly Church of England professionals who were English Catholics that fled to the safety of  Rheims, France. They were in fear of their lives as England went Protestant for the second time.

The backlash against the persecution of Roman Catholic Bloody Mary Tudor, during her short reign, was sever and Catholics fled England in droves because of this backlash, even those that had been educated at Oxford and Cambridge. These Catholics were native Englishmen that were well known to the KJV translators, there were brothers who were on each committee, John Rainolds who was on the KJV translation committee and his brother William who was one of the Rheims translators. Both were educated at Oxford where their uncle, Thomas Rainolds, was warden of Merton College and vice-chancellor of the university.


Quote from the place where the margin says; An answer to the imputations of our adversaries.

“Now to the later we answer; that we do not deny, nay we affirm and avow, that the very meanest translation of the Bible in English, set forth by men of our profession (for wee have seene none of theirs of the whole Bible as yet)...

{note the complete Douay-Rheims Bible was not published until 1610 making it too late for the KJV translators to use in their version, However the Rheims NT was published in 1582 and I have shown on other threads that Bilson and Bancroft quoted it extensively  it in their books.}

{A complete Bishops' and Rheims NT was published by William Fulke at the request of Queen Elizabeth in 1589. There is no doubt that that NT was in great supply in London when the translators were doing their work.}

...containeth the word of God, nay is the word of God. As the Kings Speech which he uttered in Parliament, being translated into French, Dutch, Italian, and Latin, is still the Kings Speech, though it be not interpreted by every Translator with like grace, nor peradventure so fitly for phrase, nor so expressly for sense, everywhere. For it is confessed, that things are to take their denomination of the greater part; and a natural man could say, Verum ubimulta nitent in carmine, non ego paucis offendor maculis etc. A man may be counted a virtuous man, though he have made many slips in his life, (els, there were none virtuous, for in many things we offend all) also a comely man and lovely, though he have some warts upon his hand, yea, not only freckles upon his face, but also skarres. No cause therefore why the word translated should be denied to be the word, or forbidden to be current, notwithstanding that some imperfections and blemishes may be noted in the setting forth of it.”

Miles Smith has just described his view of the Rheims NT of 1582
 
Actually, not, because men of his profession meant Protestants (i.e. the Protestant profession) so he was describing the merits of the Tyndale, etc. against theirs (the Douay Rheims).
 
BP, I do not think you read what Miles said.


"An answer to the imputations of our adversaries."

The part of TTTR that is reproduced above is directly addressing the Douay-Rheims and its translators.

There was a battle going on in England between the Church of Rome(our adversaries) and the Church of England.

Much that Miles wrote addresses the arguments that the Rheims NT has in its margin notes.

William Fulke in his diglot of 1589 answered each of their margin notes on a one to one basis.
https://archive.org/details/FulkeNewTestamentConfutation1589

I would encourage you to get Fulkes diaglot and read it, it will shed much light on Miles writing.



"(for wee have seene none of theirs of the whole Bible as yet)"...

The above phrase directly refers to the Douay OT. Because the complete Douay-Rheims Bible was not published until 1610, Miles said he hadn't "seene their whole Bible as yet", but they did have the NT, which was a part of the whole, but not the whole Bible as yet.

He was specifically referring to the translators that worked at Rheims and Douay.



BP I think you are having problems comprehending the English that Miles is using.

Maybe that explains why you seem to have no comprehension whatsoever regarding the rest of the contents of TTTR.

Several people have told me that they do not understand Miles style of writing.

It certainly is  not what people are accustomed to reading in the 21st cent.

One must remember that the religious professionals of that era normally wrote and conversed in Latin.
That is why TTTR is in a heavily Latinized form of English.

People who read Latin would have no problem understanding his Latinized sentence constructions.

The Latin Vulgate was their King James Bible, that is the reason they seemed to normalize their translations in the various Germanic languages with the Vulgate. It had been the Bible of Western Christianity for over a thousand years. Many thought it was inspired and the original language in which the Scriptures were written.
 
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