Bible Translator Myles Coverdale on This Day in History

 

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This Day in History: English ecclesiastical reformer and Bible translator Myles Coverdale died on this day in 1569. In 1535, Coverdale produced the first complete printed translation of the Bible into English.

Coverdale was also involved in translating The Matthew's Bible (1537), The Great Bible (1539) and The Geneva Bible (1557).

On inspecting my copy of Coverdale's Bible at Exodus 3, I notice that Coverdale does not translate ‘ehyeh asher ehyeh’ in verse 14 as "I am that I am." He instead translates this as "I wyl be what I wyll be', and in doing so breaks the connection to John 8:58 where Jesus says "I am." (Many use the connection between these two Scriptures as proof that Jesus is Jehovah). Coverdale may have drawn on William Tyndale's translation of Exodus 3:14 where he writes, "I wilbe what I wilbe."

While your mainstream standard Bible may say "I am that I am" many of them will feature the truer reading in the margins or footnotes [American Standard Version - "I WILL BE"; NIV Study Bible - "I WILL BE"; Revised Standard Version - "I WILL BE"; New Revised Standard Version - "I WILL BE"; New English Bible - "I WILL BE"; Revised English Bible - "I WILL BE"; Living Bible - "I WILL BE"; Good News Bible - "I WILL BE."].

Many alternative Bibles do not translate Exodus 3:14 as I AM, but rather "I will be," such as The James Moffatt Translation and Smith & Goodspeed's An American Translation. The Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation By Adele Berlin, Marc Zvi Brettler says that Exodus 3:14 is "probably best translated as 'I Will Be What I Will Be'" and Robert Alter in his Hebrew Bible concludes as well that "I Will Be Who I Will Be" is the most plausible construction. Frederic Huidekoper in his "Genesis, Chapters I.-XI.: In Parallel Columns" also believes "I Will Be What I Will Be" "is the only translation." https://tinyurl.com/se9cupw . Even Walter Martin in his The Kingdom of the Occult at footnote 25 in the Eastern Mysticism and the New Age section that "the original words literally signify 'I will be what I will be.'"

"There is high probability that ehyeh is mistranslated as “I am” (as was pointed out by M. Buber in the New Bible Dictionary)." Source

See also: I Am, or, I Will Be at Exodus 3:14?

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