Miles Coverdale

Coverdale was a student at Cambridge University where he was heavily influenced by the teachings of Martin Luther.

In 1528 he left England for Europe where between 1529 and 1535 he worked with Tyndale on Old Testament translations in Hamburg and Antwerp.

Coverdale published his first edition in October 1535. In an attempt to secure the king’s approval he included a long dedication on the title page to Henry VIII and Queen Anne (Boleyn). His timing was good as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, had asked the bishops to begin work on an authorised version. Little had been done in that regard by the time Coverdale published so Henry verbally supported its publication because there had been no real progress by Cranmer’s bishops.

Coverdale’s Bible was never formally accepted as authorised as its prologue and notes betrayed Lutheran leanings and the translation itself was too far from the original texts.

In his dedication Coverdale stated that he had relied heavily on Tyndale’s, the Vulgate, Luther’s German translation, a Swiss-German Bible and a Latin translation by a Dominican priest.

Coverdale was the first English translator to introduce chapter summaries, and to separate the Apocrypha from the other Old Testament books. Only some of his phrasing survives in modern English Bibles.