Monday, May 11, 2009

Answers to Quiz on English Language and Early American Bibles

I am posting answers to yesterday's Quiz on English Language and Early American Bibles, with yesterday's quiz questions immediately following, for your easy reference.

ANSWERS
1. d) hundreds
2. King Alfred
3. John Wyclif
4. William Tyndale
5. Myles Coverdale
6. King James Version
7. Geneva Bible
8. King James Bible
9. New International Version
10. Algonquin (Native American) language / John Elliot- missionary to the Algonquins
11. German language
12. English language

QUESTIONS
1. How many English translations of the Bible and the New Testament have been completed over the centuries? a) about a dozen b) about a score or 20 c) about a hundred d) hundreds

2. Who was the great 10th century King of England who translated some of the Psalms into English and is considered by many scholars to have been early England's greatest King?

3. Who, with the help of some others, completed by hand, in 1382, the first English translation of the Bible?

4. Who in 1526 completed, and had published, the first printed English version of any part of the Bible?

5. Who in 1535 finished the first complete printed English Bible?

6. What English Bible, published in 1611, became the best selling book of all time and remained the best selling English Bible in annual sales until the 1980's?

7. What version of the Engish Bible inspired John Bunyan as he wrote Pilgrim's Progress?

8. What English Bible went through 236 editions between 1660 and 1710?

9. What English translation or version of the Bible became the best-selling English Bible beginning in the 1980's?

10. In what language was the first full Bible translation done in America in 1663? What famous missionary did it?

11. In what language was the second full Bible translation in America done? It was printed in 1743 by Christopher Saur.

12. In America in 1782, the full Bible was done in yet a third language? What language was it?
(That particular Bible publication, completed in 1782 by Robert Aitken, was the only Bible publication ever authorized by the U.S. Congress.)

LOOK FOR ANOTHER BIBLE AND BIBLE TRANSLATIONS QUIZ IN ABOUT A WEEK.

TIME TO REAP, by Fred D. Jarvis

I found this poem in an old missions newsletter about Indonesia. It was tucked away in an old Bible. I have decided that the poem has a message that needs to be shared. It challenged me- it challenges all Christians-to share the gospel, the good news of Christ.
Does anyone know anything about the author Fred D. Jarvis, where he lived and when he wrote this?

TIME TO REAP

Now is the time to rise and reap,
The fields are harvest white;
This is the hour, I now repeat,
To spread the Gospel light.

This is the hour to give and work
Until the war is won;
O let us not our duty shirk
Before it is done.

The entire world is Christ's domain,
Yet heathen millions wait;
Let's quickly reap the golden grain
Before it is too late.

We must not let that harvest field
Grow ripe, then rot and die;
Our hearts must heed their strong appeals,
O let us then the sickle wield,
It's murder by neglect.

We dare not pass them by.
Of all the wrongs that we commit,
Perhaps our worst defect,
Is damning souls while we just sit,

It's time to call a halt, dear friend,
It's time to pray and weep;
The sheaves must quickly be brought in;
It's time for us to reap!

...Fred D. Jarvis

Sunday, May 3, 2009

ANSWERS TO THE 2ND QUIZ ON THE BIBLE, THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOK

1. a. Latin (or the Old Latin)

b. Syriac (other satisfactory answers: SyroChaldaic, Aramaic, the Peshito)

These were the oldest (first) translations of the New Testament from the original Greek.


2. Sir David Dalrymple -- early British scholar who found all but about 11 verses of the New Testament in the then known writings of the Ancient Church Fathers.


3. The Apostle Paul -- wrote his letters between 50-65 A.D. (C. E.)


4. b. 400 B.C. --when the Prophets and Writings were accepted as Hebrew Scriptures along with the Law (Torah, Pentateuch).


5. c. 250 B.C. --when the Hebrew Old Testament was first translated into Greek.


6. Incunabula (the singular is Incunabulum) -- fairly rare books and Bibles printed before 1501 (1445-1500), the first printed books in the western world. (There was some printing done even earlier in China.)


7. The Council of Jamia --in 90 A.D. (C.E.) this Jewish council fixed the Hebrew canon at the same 39 books that are now also in the Protestant Old Testament of the Bible.

8. Erasmus -- in the 1500's produced editions of the New Testament in Greek used by others to make later vernacular translations of the New Testament.

9. Syriac and Coptic -- were sometimes used as translation sources other than the Greek and Latin Vulgate, the latter of which were much more commonly used.

10. Count Constantin Tischendorf (1815-1874) -- German scholar who published the New Testament in Greek in 8 editions between 1841 and 1869, and discovered Codex Sinaiticus at the monastary of St Catherines in the Sinai Peninsula.

The 3rd Quiz, in a day or two, will be on the English Bible and the Bible in the U.S.A.- look for it.