Français / French Bible History (2)

**List: French Ministry the Holy Bible ( la Sainte Bible ) French...    "The close relation in which for centuries the court, nobility and clergy of England stood to the corresponding bodies in Northern France lends a special interest for English readers to the Bible versions in French and Norman French which circulated in manuscript form among the literate of both countries prior to the invention of printing.   In fact, it may be said to have lasted even into the sixteenth century.   For the British Museum has a copy of the Le Fèvre French Bible of 1534, bound in England and bearing the initials of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.   This is the very Bible which has been shown to have contributed much matter, in the shape of woodcuts, chapter-headings, mar- ginal notes, and the like, to the so-called "Matthew’s Bible" of 1537, the second English printed Bible.    Le Fèvre, a distinguished humanist of Paris at the dawn of the Reformation, produced the last of quite a series of printed Scriptures made chiefly by revision of earlier French manuscript texts.   These were often little more than paraphrases of the Latin originals.   The first genuine product of the French Reformation was the Bible of Olivetan, a modest but very competent scholar, kinsman to John Calvin.   Calvin himself wrote for it the Latin preface and an introduction to the New Testament, and he took a large part in later revisions of this original Neuchatel Bible of 1535.   An interesting feature is the acrostic verse printed on its last page, which when interpreted spells out the information that the people of the Swiss Canon of Vaud had contributed the funds for its publication because of their love for the Gospel.    Thenceforth the Bible-reading world of all the Protestants who speak French--in Belgium and Switzerland as well as France--was supplied by successive editions of Olivetan’s Bible, revised by Calvin and others.   But Roman Catholic readers pre- ferred a revision of LeFèvre’s text, made by professors of Lou- vain University in 1550, because it was derived from the Latin Vulgate and therefore more pleasing to them than the Neuchâtel text translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.   One of the revisions of Olivetan’s version, brought out by Robert Stephanus (Estienne) at Geneva in 1553, is said to be the earliest entire Bible, in any language, to contain Stephanus’ division of the text into the chapters and verses familiar to us.   The Ostervald Bible, so popular for two centuries among French-speaking Protestants, is a revision of Olivetan’s version, made first at Amsterdam in 1724, and often revised later both privately and by ecclesiastical authority.    Parallel with it runs the history of the De Sacy version, pro- duced by the Port Royal group of Roman Catholics, who are perhaps best known through the defence of them by Pascal in his "Provincial Letters."   At first issued without the notes which are an essential part of every approved Roman Catholic version, it was re-issued with copious notes and obtained ecclesiastical approval.   It has continued to be published, both with and with- out notes, till recently, and in the latter form has ever been circulated by the Bible Societies.   The French Bibles now issued and widely circulated by these Societies are chiefly the nineteenth century version of Louis Segond, a Geneva professor, and the twentieth century "Synodal Version," a revision of Ostervald, prepared at the instance of the Synod of the Reformed Churches."--1000 Tongues, 1939   [Info only] "The ABS and the BFBS have both published Scriptures in the following versions: Martin, Ostervald, Segond and Synodal, and the BFBS also in the De Sacy version.   CP: ABS, BFBS."--1000 Tongues, 1939   [Info only]

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