96. The Rheims-Douay Version was completed in 1610 by Roman Catholics who had escaped from England during Queen Elizabeth's reign. They settled in France and published the New Testament in Rheims in 1582 and the Old Testament in Douay in 1610. It is mainly a translation of the Latin Vulgate.
97. While Gutenberg's Bible was the first printed Bible, it was done in Latin, so was limited to a scholarly audience. But in 1522 the church in Spain produced the Complutensian Polyglot, the first Bible with the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek.
98. In 1603, James VI of Scotland became King James I of England and began a program of peacemaking between hostile religious factions of Great Britain. That same year Dr. John Reynolds, the Puritan spokesman at a meeting of religious leaders at Hampton Court, proposed that a new English translation of the Bible be issued in honor of the new king. The 1768 revision is what most people now know as the King James Bible.
99. The King James Bible, which was originally named the Authorized Version, was first suggested by the Puritans in 1604. James, who disagreed with the Calvinist leanings of the Geneva Bible, wanted a version that supported the right of kings to rule over people. He appointed fifty-four scholars, divided into eight teams, and demanded they examine all earlier English versions to aid in translation. Produced in 1611, the translation is marked by beautiful language, an accurate translation, and modesty when faced with embarrassing language and situations.
100. The First Native American translation of the Bible, completed in 1663, was made into the language of the Algonquin tribe, whom the Puritan colonists then promptly wiped out.
101. Stephen Langton, who was Archbishop of Canterbury in the thirteenth century, created chapter divisions for the Bible. He died in 1228, and his work remains visible in the Bibles of today.
102. The Aitken Bible was the first Bible printed in the United States. Congress authorized its publishing in 1781.
103. The Revised Version was begun in 1870 in order to update the King James Version. The effort included both English scholars as well as American ones, and also included various denominations of believers. The English was completed in 1885.
104. The American Standard Version grew out of the Revised Version, which was worked on by Americans and the English. The English advisors had the decisive vote on differences in translation. The Americans agreed not to publish any editions for fourteen years. After that time period was over, the American Revision Committee produced an edition with American preferences in 1901.
105. The Red Letter Bible first appeared in 1928, when an American printer decided to put the direct quotations of Jesus in red ink. The idea caught on, particularly with Catholic printers, who still rely on red letters to note things of importance. The practice led directly to the phrase "red-letter-day" to denote an important day in someone's life.
106. The Revised Standard Version came out by 1952 and deserves mention because it was a modernization of the King James Version using current Biblical scholarship to determine the underlying Greek and Hebrew texts.
107. The Jerusalem Bible (1966), popular among Roman Catholics, contains about a dozen books that Jews and Protestants don't consider part of the Holy Scriptures.
108. The Good News Bible of 1976 became a best-selling version quickly and remains a popular modern version throughout churches today.
109. The New International Bible came out in 1978 and remains one of the most popular versions used today.
110. There are complete Bibles in more than forty European languages and 125 Asian and Pacific Island languages. There are also Bible translations in more than one hundred African languages, with another five hundred African-language versions of some portions of the Bible. At least fifteen complete Native American Bibles have been produced.
