The Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The Hebrew was the language of the nation of Israel and used in almost all 39 books of the Old Testament. The Aramaic was the common man's language in Palestine. It was used in passages of Daniel and Ezra in the Old Testament. However, Jesus and his Jewish followers used Aramaic. Hellenistic or ``common'' Greek was the universal language of the world in the New Testament times and was used for all New Testament writings.

The earliest Hebrew manuscripts we have dated to the 9th and 10th centuries. They are meticulous copies authenticated by earlier writings.

The five most authoritative Hebrew Old Testament manuscripts are:

1. The Cairo Codex - circa 895 AD. Former and Latter Prophets.
2. The Leningrad Codex of the Prophets - circa 916 AD.
3. The Codex of the Pentateuch - 10th or 11th century.
4. The Leningrad Codex - finished 1008 AD. Complete Old Testament.
5. The Aleppo Codex - 10th century. Almost complete Old Testament.

Other significant supporting manuscripts are:

1. Samaritan Pentateuch - circa 400 BC. A parallel Hebrew text.
2. Septuagint - circa 250 BC. Greek translation of entire Old Testament. A ``popular'' translation, not meticulously done, but was the only Bible available for the early church, and most often quoted by the Apostles.
3. Aramaic Targums - Hebrew text translated into Aramaic for public worship.
4. Syriac Peshitta - 1st century. Syriac translation of Old Testament.
5. Latin Versions - Old Latin (150 AD) and Vulgate (400 AD).

There are some 5000 manuscripts found so far and many are dated! About 375 of these are UNICALS (printed in all capitals), while the remainder are CURSIVES (a later running hand style). They are usually divided into two volumes:

The five oldest manuscripts found so far are:

1. The Vatican Manuscript (about 4th century) - nearly complete New Testament (was photographed for scholars in 1889).
2. The Sinaitic Manuscript (middle 4th century) - found in Mt. Sinai monastery (part of Old Testament and complete New Testament).
3. The Alexander Manuscript (5th century) - an incomplete copy.
4. The Manuscript of Ephraem (5th century) - an incomplete copy.
5. The Codex Bazae (5th century) - contains the Gospels and Acts (has facing pages, with Greek on one & Latin on other).

There are also two translations:

Jerome's Vulgate became the Bible of the Western World for the next 1000 years through the growth of Roman Catholicism. The Vulgate became the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church, and todays Roman Catholic Bible in English is actually an English translation from the Latin Vulgate.

Date	Activities
347	Jerome was born.
382	Jerome started his work on Bible translation which became known as Jerome's Latin Vulgate Bible.
386	Jerome moved to Bethlehem and worked on the Old Testament. He began on using the Greek LXX (Septuagint), but quickly decided to work directly from the Hebrew.
405	Jerome completed the Old and New Testament. Due to older Latin texts in circulation, Jerome's work was not widely popular until the ninth century. The influence of Jerome's Bible was quite extensive. For instance, the first knowledge of the Bible in the British Isles was from the Vulgate.
420	Jerome died.
735	The Gospel of John was rendered into Saxon by Bede.
1073	Pope Gregory VII ordered that no translation of the Scriptures were to be made into the vernacular, or common language of the people, effectively ending access to the scriptures for all except those who previously had obtained copies and those who were educated and fluent in the languages of the Scriptures.
1228	The Bible was translated into chapters by Stephen Langton
1250	Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro introduced the system of chapters for all the books of the Bible.
1263	Cardinal Hugo died.
1320	John Wycliff (Wycliffe) was born. He became an Oxford theologian. He was referred to in history as ``The Morning Star of the Reformation.'' His followers are known as Lollards.
1370	John Huss (Jan Hus) of Bohemia was born
1380	Wycliff produced the first hand-written English language manuscripts of the Bible.
1382	John Huss, a student of Wycliff, translated the Bible into English.
1384	Wycliff died of paralysis. But 44 years later, the Pope, infuriated by his teachings, ordered to dug his bones, burned them, and scattered the ashes in the river!
1388	John Purvey, a follower of Wycliff, made Wycliff's Bible more readable. Wycliff's English translation was close to the Latin grammar of the source that it was very hard to follow.
1408	Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Arundel convened a synod at Oxford to forbid anyone to translate, even to read, a vernacular version of the Bible without the approval of a diocesan bishop or a provincial council. The entire collection of thirteen such prohibitions were called the ``Consititutions of Oxford.''
1414	The Catholic church declared that anyone caught reading the Scriptures in English would automatically ``forfeit land, cattle, life, and goods from their heirs forever.''
1415	John Huss was burned alive at the stake for his ``heresy'' and rebellion against Catholic authority.
1448	R. Nathan divided the Old Testament into verses.
1450	Johann Gutenburg of Germany invented the printing press.
1454	Latin Psalter was first printed.
1456	Gutenberg (Marzarin) Bible was printed. It was, however, in Latin rather than English.
1483	Martin Luther was born at Eisleben, Germany.
1488	A complete Hebrew Bible was printed.
1494	William Tyndale was born. He was educated at Oxford and Cambridge.
1514	A Greek New Testament was printed but not published until later.
1516	Erasmus published the New Testament in Greek and became known as the first Greek New Testament ever published.
1521	Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German. This translation was taken from Erasmus' Greek/Latin New Testament.
1526	Tyndale printed the first English New Testament based on Erasmus' Greek edition.
1530	Tyndale published the first five books of the Old Testament.
1531	Tyndale published an edition of Jonah.
1534	Tyndale revised his New Testament and it became the definitive one. The Publication of the first Wittenberg Bible, Old and New Testaments. Today, Martin Luther's translation is still the standard German translation.
1535	Tyndale revised his New Testament.
	Myles Coverdale , an Augustinian friar, after finished translating the Old Testament, printed the first complete Bible in the English language, making use of Luther's German text and the Latin as sources. It was known as Coverdale Bible. He was Tyndale's assistant and proof reader.
1536	Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake after being betrayed by an Englishman that he had befriended. His last words were, ``Lord, open the eyes of the King of England.''
1537	John Rogers (Tyndale's assistant) printed the second complete English Bible under the pseudonym ``Thomas Matthew''. It was known as the ``Matthew's Bible''. This Bible incorporated Tyndale's translation of the Old Testament books from Joshua to Second Chronicles (Tyndale never published these books, however).
1539	Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, hired Myles Coverdale at the bequest of King Henry VIII to publish the ``Great Bible''. It was essentially Coverdale's revision of Matthew's Bible. It became the official Bible of the Church of England.
	Richard Taverner published a revised edition of Matthew's Bible.
1543	Parliament banned Tyndale's translation. It also forbade any unlicensed person to read the Bible or explain it to others publicly and for the lower classes to read it privately.
1546	Henry VIII explicitly banned both Tyndale's and Coverdale's versions, despite the fact that the Great Bible combined the work of both men. Martin Luther died in Eisleben and was laid to rest in Castle Church in Wittenberg.
1551	Robert Stephanus, a printer in Paris, introduced the system of verses for the New Testament.
Marian Exile (1553 - 1558) -- The persecution under the Catholic daughter of Henry VIII, Queen Mary Tudor (a.k.a. ``Bloody Mary''). She was possessed in her quest to return England to the Roman Church. She burned reformers at the stake by the hundreds for the ``crime'' of being a Protestant. Many great reformers fled to the free city of Geneva where the translating work began.
1555	John Rogers (``Thomas Matthew'') and Thomas Cranmer were both burned at the stake.
1560	The Geneva Bible was first published. Also known as the Breeches Bible. It was the first Bible to be divided into chapters and verses. It contained extensive notes, many of them strongly Calvinist in content. It became the Bible of the average man, even traveling to America with the Pilgrims on the Mayflower.
1568	Bishops' Bible was introduced. It was a revised version of the Great Bible because a group of English bishops was not happy with the notes that were in the Geneva Bible. It was led under the direction of Matthew Parker. It never gained much of a foothold of popularity among the people.
1582	The Church of Rome began to consider an English Bible -- at least to have an official Roman Catholic English translation. The English Bible was translated using the Latin Vulgate as a source and introduced all the distortions and corruptions that Erasmus had revealed and warned of 75 years earlier. It was known as the Rheims (Rhemes) New Testament because it was translated at the Roman Catholic College in the city of Rheims.
1589	Dr. Fulke of Cambridge published the ``Fulke's Refutation'', in which he printed in parallel columns the Bishops Version along side the Rheims Version, attempting to show the error and distortion of the Roman Church's corrupt compromise of an English version of the Bible.
1603	James I became King of England (also known as Prince James VI of Scotland).
1604	King James I authorized that a new translation of the Bible into English be started after being approached by a conference of churchmen.
1609	The Church of Rome translated the Old Testament at the College in the city of Doway (also spelled Douay and Douai). The combined product (with the 1582 translation of the New Testament) is commonly known as the ``Doway/Rheims'' Version.
1611	King James translation finished and became known as The Authorized Version (or King James Version). It became the standard for English-speaking Protestants.
1629	King James Version first edition.
1638	King James Version second edition.
1663	First Bible printed in America by John Eliot. It was done in the native Algonquin Indian Language.
1703	John Wesley was born in Epworth.
1729	Daniel Mace, a presbyterian minister, published the New Testament in Greek and English.
1755	John Wesley, founder of Methodism, published the Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament.
1762	King James Version third edition. Also called the Cambridge edition.
1769	King James Version fourth edition. Also called the Oxford edition.
1770	John Worsley published the New Testament which was translated from the Greek. He emphasized on using ``present idiom of the English tongue''.
1782	The first English language Bible to be printed in America by Robert Aitken. It was a King James Version.
1791	Isaac Collins vastly improved upon the quality and size of the typesetting of American Bibles and produced the first ``Family Bible'' printed in America. It was a King James Version.
	Isaiah Thomas published the first Illustrated Bible printed in Amercia. It was a King James Version.
1833	Noah Webster published the Webster Bible. It was a revision of the Authorized Version.
1841	The English Hexapla New Testament was printed. It showed 6 different translations in parallel columns: The 1380 Wycliff, 1534 Tyndale, 1539 Great, 1557 Geneva, 1582 Rheims, and 1611 King James versions of the entire New Testament with the original Greek at the top of the page.
1858	Leicester Ambrose Sawyer published the New Testament. It was translated into modern speech from the original Greek.
1880	The Revised Version of the New Testament was published.
1882	John Nelson Darby, an Anglo-Irish Bible teacher, died.
1884	Darby's Holy Scriptures, A New Translation from the Original Languages, New Testament, was published posthumously the first time. This is an English translation of a collation done on his earlier German and French translations.
	The Revised Version of the Old Testament was published.
1890	Darby's Holy Scriptures, A New Translation from the Original Languages, New Testament, was published posthumously the second time, by Morrish. This is an English translation of a collation done on his earlier German and French translations.
1901	American Standard Version (ASV) was first published. It was influenced by the older ``eastern manuscripts''. It is an Amercianization of the English Revised Bible.
1902	Weymouth New Testament was published.
1924	Centenary New Testament was published.
	Moffatt Bible was published.
1927	Smith-Goodspeed Bible was published.
1946	Revised Standard Version (RSV) New Testament was finished.
1952	RSV Old Testament was finished.
1965	New International Version (NIV) began.
	Bible in Basic English was printed by Cambridge University Press without any copyright notice and immediately fell and irretrievably into the public domain in the United States. It was produced by Mr. C. K. Ogden of the Orthological Institute and used the simple form of the English language.
	The Amplified Bible was published.
1970	The New English Bible was published.
1971	The New American Standard Bible was published.
	The Living Bible was published by Kenneth Taylor.
1973	NIV New Testament was published.
1976	Todays English Version was published.
1978	NIV Old Testament was finished.
1982	The New King James Version was published. It was commissioned by Thomas Nelson Publishers.