September 2, 2025 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, The Bible is the best-selling book in history, but it did not arrive fully formed. It was written over centuries, first passed along in fragments, then gathered into the texts we know today. Each step left its mark, from the languages in which it was first recorded to the choices that shaped its canon. The History Guy shares the story of how those writings survived and why the Bible’s history remains as important as its words.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American Stories. Our next story
comes to us from a man who's simply known as
the History Guy. His videos are watched by hundreds of
thousands of people of all ages across YouTube. The History
Guy has also heard here at our American Stories. Let's
take a listen to the History Guy as he tells
(00:31):
the history of an important book here in America and
around the world, The Bible.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are those that mourn, for they
shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall
inherit the earth. These words from the King James version
of the Holy Bible have inspired generations of Christians. Many
historians consider the Holy Bible to be the most read
book in history. Author James Chapman to a survey of
(01:03):
the most read books of the last fifty years and
determined that the Holy Bible is by far the leader,
having sold some three point nine billion copies. By comparison,
the number two book in that period, the Quotations of
Chairman Mountzi Tongue, have sold just eight hundred and twenty
million copies. Third was The Harry Potter series at about
four hundred million copies. This isn't a religious missive. It
(01:26):
is a review of the translation of the most read
and one of the most influential books in history. The
interpretation and translation of the Holy Bible has impacted history
and culture for nearly two thousand years, and the history
of English translation of the Bible deserves to be remembered.
According to biblical scholars, the people who would have experienced
(01:49):
the ministry of Jesus live in a relatively small geographical area,
from Jerusalem in the south to Galilee in the north,
a distance of several days walk. Jesus would have spoken Aramaic,
which was the indigenous language of the area, and quoin
A Greek, the international language of business and education at
the time. As of practicing jew He also would have
known enough Hebrew to read and teach in the synagogue,
(02:12):
but the words of the book's central character did not
start to be written down until thirty years after his
reported death. However, once they got going, many different gospels
or good news stories in Greek were produced by a
variety of authors around the Mediterranean. They wrote in quin
A Greek for a Greek audience, whereas Jesus would probably
have preached in Aramaic. The Gospels of the New Testament Matthew, Mark, Luke,
(02:35):
and John were placed in the order of their theological
importance as determined by early Christian leaders. Mark was probably
written before seventy a d as he doesn't tell us
about the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the
Romans in that year, whereas the other gospel authors must
have been written afterwards. They are aware of this momentous event.
For Jews and Christians of the time, these gospels were
(02:57):
copied and shared between Christian communities, were the letters of
prominent Christian teachers like Paul. Very few of these earliest
manuscripts have survived to our time. A handful of second
century fragments from various New Testament authors have been found,
some of them relatively recently. Like the old campfire game
of telephone, each new letter offered new opportunities to introduce
(03:18):
errors or new material that wasn't in the original. Most
people at the time couldn't read, and so these letters
would have been read to them at gatherings, and early
church officials became concerned about the growing number the authenticity
and the theology of this corpus they sought to control,
or at least to guide what early Christians heard. The
(03:38):
earliest complete copies that we have of the New Testament
today are the Codex Siniaticus and the Codex Bodicanus, both
which date back to the fourth century. The Codex Siniaticus
or Book of the Sinai, was written in Greek at
the monastery of Saint Catharine in the shadow of Mount Sinai.
The text contains all of the scriptures of the Old
and New Testaments, which are accepted by most Christians today.
(04:00):
Scriptures that were considered heretical, like the Gospel of Thomas,
were left out. The Codex Vaticanus, or the Book of
the Vatican, was written in Greek as well, but no
one assure exactly where. Over time, Latin replaced Greek and
Western European Bibles, while Eastern churches continued to use Greek,
although we know Latin translations existed long before this time.
The first complete Latin Bible we still have today was
(04:23):
produced at the Monastery of Weremouth in Jarro in northern England.
The Codex Amietinus, named after its current location in Tuscany,
is a large beautifully illustrated work that is seven inches
thick and weighs in it over seventy five pounds. When
the age of this book was recognized, it was used
to highlight mistakes introduced in later Latin translations. Medieval church
(04:45):
authorities frowned upon those who sought to translate the Bible
from the official Latin texts, responding to what the Roman
Church saw as heretics. Pope Innocent the Third Band translations
of the Bible in eleven ninety nine, but translations were
occurring in any case. The venerable bede and is in
that a cool appellation translated the Gospel of John into
Old English in the seven thirties. This is the first
(05:06):
known translation into English, albeit not a version of English
most modern English speakers would understand. The first serious attempt
to translate the entire Bible into English was made in
the late fourteenth century under the direction of John Wycliffe,
a professor at Oxford University. Wycliffe had the Bible translated
directly from the official Latin. This translation was quite literal,
which made it somewhat ironic that he was later accused
(05:28):
of being a heretic and his Bible banned by Church
and English authorities. Apparently, his crime was to make the
wisdom of the Bible more accessible to the common people, or,
as he said, it helped with Christian men to study
the Gospel in that tongue in which they know best
Christ's sentence. However, his Bible was indeed taken up by
church and social reformers, an association which didn't help his case.
(05:49):
The Church was able to confront and control the Wycliffe Bible,
but the next major translation effort would change the history
of the Western Christian Church down to the present day.
Martin Luther, like White, was also a professor. He saw
the Roman Church as corrupted and in need of reform.
The Roman Church sought to suppress Luther's reform initiatives and
had placed him under official ban. Retiring to Wartburg Castle
(06:11):
in Germany, Luther translated the Bible into German, and like Wycliffe,
Luther went back to the original Greek texts as the
basis of his work. Luther and his Bible sparked a
religious reformation, broke up the Roman Church, and led to
the formation of Protestant churches. While it isn't in the
direct lineage of today's English Bibles, it was Martin Luther's
translation that sparked the first translation of the Bible into
(06:34):
modern English. Henry the Eighth famously broke ties with the
Catholic Church and became the Supreme Head of the Church
of England in fifteen thirty four. In fifteen thirty six,
he authorized Thomas Cromwell, his keeper of the Privy Seal,
to create a Bible in English. Cromwell tapped Matthew Coverdale
and a publisher named Richard Grafton to complete the work.
Prior to this Bible, other English Bibles had been printed illegally,
(06:56):
including a version by William Tyndale, upon which the King's
New Bible was based. The vision for the New Bible
was not just an English translation to make it accessible
to the everyday people, was also a statement of Henry
the East's political power and new authority as had of
the Church separated from Rome. It was a large book
eleven inches wide by sixteen and a half inches long,
and because of its size was called the Great Bible.
(07:20):
The domaands for this new Bible required fancy paper and
color printing, which Cromwell had difficulty finding in England, so
the first pages of the Great Bible were actually created
in Paris, but the authorities in Rome learned about this
new printing and seized whatever materials and printers they could
discover who were involved in the process. Everything that could
be recovered was smuggle back to England, and the Great
Bible was finally completed in April fifteen thirty nine. There
(07:43):
were six additional editions created and an estimated nine thousand
copies printed by fifteen forty one. By royal decree, every
church in England was required to have a copy of
the Great Bible set up in some convenient place within
the church that ye have care of. It was incredibly popular,
so much so that Henry had issue a proclamation to
forbid the reading of the Great Bible during church services
(08:05):
because worshippers were reading the English Bible rather than listening
to sermons. Despite the mass of popularity the Great Bible,
only a few years after its publication, Henry had Parliament
pass anac which decreed no manner of persons after the
first of October should take upon them to read openly
to others, and any church or open assembly when in
any of the King's dominions, the Bible or any part
(08:27):
of the Scripture in English unless he is so appointed
thereunto by the King on pain of suffering one hundred
months imprisonment. This act would essentially be reversed by his children.
Under the reign of Queen Elizabeth, some of the more
popular Biblical editions were the Bishop's Bible and the Geneva Bible,
which were written by Protestants sheltering in Geneva. Because of
the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary, neither of these
(08:49):
received royal approval. Then Elizabeth's successor, James, the first commissioned
around fifty scholars to write an English Bible. Because the
versions and existence were criticized for their inaccuracy and potential
deviations from the Latin editions. They utilize existing versions of
the English Bible, such as the one by William Tyndale
and commentary by Hebrew scholars to create the new edition.
(09:11):
The commissioned by King James was published in sixteen eleven.
About twenty years after its publication, a version of the
King James Bible was printed without the word not in
the ten commandments of Thou shalt not commit adultery. The
edition was called the Wicked Bible when the printer was
fined for the mistake. In the modern era, the Holy
Bible has gone through numerous translations and versions, including the
(09:32):
Revised Standard Version and the New International Version and the
New Revised Standard Version. Many of these use the discipline
of textual criticism and provide substantial markup to help the
modern reader understand in ancient meanings. Technology today allows us
to translate the Bible more quickly than ever before. Some
scholars predict that we will have a Bible translated into
(09:53):
every language in existence by twenty seventy two. It is
clear that one of the most influential books in history
will continue to raise challenges well into the future.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
And a great job on the production as always by
Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to the History Guy
telling us the story of the Bible, the most important
book ever written in world history. Now, whether you agree
with its contents or not separate point, but its impact
on the world, on literature, on the arts, on everything
as well, it's almost impossible to calculate. If you want
(10:28):
more stories of forgotten history, please subscribe to The History
Guy's YouTube channel, The History Guy. History deserves to be remembered.
This is our American stories
And we continue with our American Stories. Our next story
comes to us from a man who's simply known as
the History Guy. His videos are watched by hundreds of
thousands of people of all ages across YouTube. The History
Guy has also heard here at our American Stories. Let's
take a listen to the History Guy as he tells
(00:31):
the history of an important book here in America and
around the world, The Bible.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are those that mourn, for they
shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall
inherit the earth. These words from the King James version
of the Holy Bible have inspired generations of Christians. Many
historians consider the Holy Bible to be the most read
book in history. Author James Chapman to a survey of
(01:03):
the most read books of the last fifty years and
determined that the Holy Bible is by far the leader,
having sold some three point nine billion copies. By comparison,
the number two book in that period, the Quotations of
Chairman Mountzi Tongue, have sold just eight hundred and twenty
million copies. Third was The Harry Potter series at about
four hundred million copies. This isn't a religious missive. It
(01:26):
is a review of the translation of the most read
and one of the most influential books in history. The
interpretation and translation of the Holy Bible has impacted history
and culture for nearly two thousand years, and the history
of English translation of the Bible deserves to be remembered.
According to biblical scholars, the people who would have experienced
(01:49):
the ministry of Jesus live in a relatively small geographical area,
from Jerusalem in the south to Galilee in the north,
a distance of several days walk. Jesus would have spoken Aramaic,
which was the indigenous language of the area, and quoin
A Greek, the international language of business and education at
the time. As of practicing jew He also would have
known enough Hebrew to read and teach in the synagogue,
(02:12):
but the words of the book's central character did not
start to be written down until thirty years after his
reported death. However, once they got going, many different gospels
or good news stories in Greek were produced by a
variety of authors around the Mediterranean. They wrote in quin
A Greek for a Greek audience, whereas Jesus would probably
have preached in Aramaic. The Gospels of the New Testament Matthew, Mark, Luke,
(02:35):
and John were placed in the order of their theological
importance as determined by early Christian leaders. Mark was probably
written before seventy a d as he doesn't tell us
about the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the
Romans in that year, whereas the other gospel authors must
have been written afterwards. They are aware of this momentous event.
For Jews and Christians of the time, these gospels were
(02:57):
copied and shared between Christian communities, were the letters of
prominent Christian teachers like Paul. Very few of these earliest
manuscripts have survived to our time. A handful of second
century fragments from various New Testament authors have been found,
some of them relatively recently. Like the old campfire game
of telephone, each new letter offered new opportunities to introduce
(03:18):
errors or new material that wasn't in the original. Most
people at the time couldn't read, and so these letters
would have been read to them at gatherings, and early
church officials became concerned about the growing number the authenticity
and the theology of this corpus they sought to control,
or at least to guide what early Christians heard. The
(03:38):
earliest complete copies that we have of the New Testament
today are the Codex Siniaticus and the Codex Bodicanus, both
which date back to the fourth century. The Codex Siniaticus
or Book of the Sinai, was written in Greek at
the monastery of Saint Catharine in the shadow of Mount Sinai.
The text contains all of the scriptures of the Old
and New Testaments, which are accepted by most Christians today.
(04:00):
Scriptures that were considered heretical, like the Gospel of Thomas,
were left out. The Codex Vaticanus, or the Book of
the Vatican, was written in Greek as well, but no
one assure exactly where. Over time, Latin replaced Greek and
Western European Bibles, while Eastern churches continued to use Greek,
although we know Latin translations existed long before this time.
The first complete Latin Bible we still have today was
(04:23):
produced at the Monastery of Weremouth in Jarro in northern England.
The Codex Amietinus, named after its current location in Tuscany,
is a large beautifully illustrated work that is seven inches
thick and weighs in it over seventy five pounds. When
the age of this book was recognized, it was used
to highlight mistakes introduced in later Latin translations. Medieval church
(04:45):
authorities frowned upon those who sought to translate the Bible
from the official Latin texts, responding to what the Roman
Church saw as heretics. Pope Innocent the Third Band translations
of the Bible in eleven ninety nine, but translations were
occurring in any case. The venerable bede and is in
that a cool appellation translated the Gospel of John into
Old English in the seven thirties. This is the first
(05:06):
known translation into English, albeit not a version of English
most modern English speakers would understand. The first serious attempt
to translate the entire Bible into English was made in
the late fourteenth century under the direction of John Wycliffe,
a professor at Oxford University. Wycliffe had the Bible translated
directly from the official Latin. This translation was quite literal,
which made it somewhat ironic that he was later accused
(05:28):
of being a heretic and his Bible banned by Church
and English authorities. Apparently, his crime was to make the
wisdom of the Bible more accessible to the common people, or,
as he said, it helped with Christian men to study
the Gospel in that tongue in which they know best
Christ's sentence. However, his Bible was indeed taken up by
church and social reformers, an association which didn't help his case.
(05:49):
The Church was able to confront and control the Wycliffe Bible,
but the next major translation effort would change the history
of the Western Christian Church down to the present day.
Martin Luther, like White, was also a professor. He saw
the Roman Church as corrupted and in need of reform.
The Roman Church sought to suppress Luther's reform initiatives and
had placed him under official ban. Retiring to Wartburg Castle
(06:11):
in Germany, Luther translated the Bible into German, and like Wycliffe,
Luther went back to the original Greek texts as the
basis of his work. Luther and his Bible sparked a
religious reformation, broke up the Roman Church, and led to
the formation of Protestant churches. While it isn't in the
direct lineage of today's English Bibles, it was Martin Luther's
translation that sparked the first translation of the Bible into
(06:34):
modern English. Henry the Eighth famously broke ties with the
Catholic Church and became the Supreme Head of the Church
of England in fifteen thirty four. In fifteen thirty six,
he authorized Thomas Cromwell, his keeper of the Privy Seal,
to create a Bible in English. Cromwell tapped Matthew Coverdale
and a publisher named Richard Grafton to complete the work.
Prior to this Bible, other English Bibles had been printed illegally,
(06:56):
including a version by William Tyndale, upon which the King's
New Bible was based. The vision for the New Bible
was not just an English translation to make it accessible
to the everyday people, was also a statement of Henry
the East's political power and new authority as had of
the Church separated from Rome. It was a large book
eleven inches wide by sixteen and a half inches long,
and because of its size was called the Great Bible.
(07:20):
The domaands for this new Bible required fancy paper and
color printing, which Cromwell had difficulty finding in England, so
the first pages of the Great Bible were actually created
in Paris, but the authorities in Rome learned about this
new printing and seized whatever materials and printers they could
discover who were involved in the process. Everything that could
be recovered was smuggle back to England, and the Great
Bible was finally completed in April fifteen thirty nine. There
(07:43):
were six additional editions created and an estimated nine thousand
copies printed by fifteen forty one. By royal decree, every
church in England was required to have a copy of
the Great Bible set up in some convenient place within
the church that ye have care of. It was incredibly popular,
so much so that Henry had issue a proclamation to
forbid the reading of the Great Bible during church services
(08:05):
because worshippers were reading the English Bible rather than listening
to sermons. Despite the mass of popularity the Great Bible,
only a few years after its publication, Henry had Parliament
pass anac which decreed no manner of persons after the
first of October should take upon them to read openly
to others, and any church or open assembly when in
any of the King's dominions, the Bible or any part
(08:27):
of the Scripture in English unless he is so appointed
thereunto by the King on pain of suffering one hundred
months imprisonment. This act would essentially be reversed by his children.
Under the reign of Queen Elizabeth, some of the more
popular Biblical editions were the Bishop's Bible and the Geneva Bible,
which were written by Protestants sheltering in Geneva. Because of
the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary, neither of these
(08:49):
received royal approval. Then Elizabeth's successor, James, the first commissioned
around fifty scholars to write an English Bible. Because the
versions and existence were criticized for their inaccuracy and potential
deviations from the Latin editions. They utilize existing versions of
the English Bible, such as the one by William Tyndale
and commentary by Hebrew scholars to create the new edition.
(09:11):
The commissioned by King James was published in sixteen eleven.
About twenty years after its publication, a version of the
King James Bible was printed without the word not in
the ten commandments of Thou shalt not commit adultery. The
edition was called the Wicked Bible when the printer was
fined for the mistake. In the modern era, the Holy
Bible has gone through numerous translations and versions, including the
(09:32):
Revised Standard Version and the New International Version and the
New Revised Standard Version. Many of these use the discipline
of textual criticism and provide substantial markup to help the
modern reader understand in ancient meanings. Technology today allows us
to translate the Bible more quickly than ever before. Some
scholars predict that we will have a Bible translated into
(09:53):
every language in existence by twenty seventy two. It is
clear that one of the most influential books in history
will continue to raise challenges well into the future.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
And a great job on the production as always by
Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to the History Guy
telling us the story of the Bible, the most important
book ever written in world history. Now, whether you agree
with its contents or not separate point, but its impact
on the world, on literature, on the arts, on everything
as well, it's almost impossible to calculate. If you want
(10:28):
more stories of forgotten history, please subscribe to The History
Guy's YouTube channel, The History Guy. History deserves to be remembered.
This is our American stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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