Reasons For Translation
When Wycliffe took on the challenge of translating the bible he was breaking a long held belief that no person should translate the Bible on their own initiative, without church approval. His frustrations drove him to ignore this. Wycliffe believed that studying the Bible was more important than listening to it read by the clergy. At that time people mainly heard the Bible at church since they did not know how to read and the Bible was costly (before the printing press). He believed every Christian should study the Bible. When met with opposition to the translation he replied “Christ and his apostles taught the people in that tongue that was best known to them. Why should men not do so now?” For one to have a personal relationship with God, Wycliffe believed that need to be described in the Bible. Wycliff also believed that it was necessary to return to the primitive state of the New Testament in order to truly reform the Church. So one must be able to read the Bible to understand those times. The Bible being in Latin did not work as well in England, unlike many of the other European nations whose language stemmed from Latin (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, etc.) Eventually the Catholic Church did approve an English translation (1582–1610), produced by a group of English exiles in good standing with Rome.
Read more about this topic: Wycliffe's Bible
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