In Front | John Wycliffe

You know you’re important when your enemies exhume your body 43 years after your death and burn it ceremonially before dumping your ashes in the river. This was the fate of John Wycliffe, and as reviled as he was by the church officials who did this, he has been, for most of history, a hero of Bible translation and distribution.

Although the exact nature of Wycliffe’s involvement in the Wycliffe Bible is unknown, he appears to have guided and inspired the project. The language of the Wycliffe translation is a form of medieval English, known as “Middle English,” which will sound somewhat unfamiliar to modern English speakers. Genesis 1:3-5 reads like this:

And God seide, Liyt be maad, and liyt was maad. And God seiy the liyt, that it was good, and he departide the liyt fro derknessis; and he clepide the liyt, dai, and the derknessis, nyyt. And the euentid and morwetid was maad, o daie.

Although lacking the scholarship or readability that would characterize Tyndale’s translation more than a hundred years later, the Wycliffe Bible was an improvement over earlier English translations in its scope and distribution. And while it earned him the contempt of church authorities in his own time, John Wycliffe is remembered today as a hero of the biblical tradition.

Quote: http://www.studylight.org/desk/?t1=en_wyc&q1=ge%201. Accessed Nov 18, 2020.