Wycliffe Bible Translation Research

The14th and15th centuries are the transitional period of European society. During that period, feudal manorial economy broke up gradually and peasants were liberated and became the labourors with more freedom than ever before, which promoted the development of commercial economy. The capitalist production relations began to spout in the comparatively developed fields of commercial economy. The citizen class of various countries grew stronger and stronger, and they came to ally with the kingship step by step for their own benefit of politics and economy. At the same time, the national consciousness each country began to rise, and the foundation of royal government continuously expanded and consolidated, which made the kingship more powerful. The development of education, especially the development of secular education, broke the monopoly of education by the church, and people’s literacy and their cognitive competence improved on. Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic church was severely seculized, focusing on the property and keeping away from the spiritual save, with which the common people were not intensely content. The pope intervened in the secular authority and the church was corrupted, greety, exploitative and deceived, which aroused the people’s hate and opposition in each nation. The church declined seriously, tipically presented by Avinon Captivity and then the Schism, which provoked the great discussion about the traditional theology and the relation of pope and kingship. During this period, the England church was equally corrupted and secularized seriously; the pope levied heavely taxes on England and brought them into the Avinon vault set up in France. What’s more, the pope also appointed the foreigners in England church and gave the tandency to France, which gave rise to the discontent of England people in different classes. At the same period, education in England developed further, English language revived quickly, national consciousness was continuously strengthened, parliament authority was expanded gradually and kingship was increasingly consolidated and reinforced. Therefore, there was a significant change in the balance of power between the church and kingship and the balance was broken, which led to the intensified contradiction between king and the pope, and futher caused England religious crisis and active anti-clericalism movement. In order to reform the church and safeguard national interest, Wycliffe put forward a series of reformational ideas, such as authority of the Bible, Disendowment, establishing the low-cost national church, and so on. He considered that the Bible is the only principle of the faith and each disciple has the right to read the Bible. Wycliffe energetically initiated the Bible translation and preaching, and so the Bible in Latin was translated into English under his organization and guidance. Therefore, the first Englsh Bible was completely formed from the Latin in the Christian history, that is Wycliffe Bible. The version is designed to restore the true colours of the Bible itself and the Christianity, and to offer the easily-understanding scriptures to the low-class priests and common people. Lollard Movement, centered on Wycliffe Bible, scared the church and secular, and so was jointly supressed and persecuted by them.The biblical translation in English by the Wycliffe provoked the heated debate on whether the Bible can be translated into vernacular or not, that’s Oxford Debate on Bible Translation, which led to Oxford Constitution issued in1409.The Constitution prohibited the Bible reading and translation without permission from the bishop,and the free preaching unpermitted. However, the Lollard did not stop disseminating the bible knowledge and Wycliffe’s reformational thoughts. They continuously wandered about the streets and countryside with English bible and religious tracts, and organized the group of reading the Scripture to disseminate Wyclife’s new ideas on reformation.Wycliffe Bible and his reformational thoughts spread to various places in England, Scotland and many countries and regions in European continent, which not only prepared the consencus propaganda and new thought for the England reformation by Henry Ⅷ, but also inspired and promoted Hus Movement and European Reformation.Based on the study of social history background of European continent and England and the balance power between the church and the king, the thesis elaborates Wycliffe Bible, put into European national language bible translation age and the history of English biblical translarions, including its process, two versions, historical influence and its dissemination accompanied by his reformational thoughts.The paper uncovers the internal relation between Wycliffe Bible and his reformational thoughts, and the two-way interaction between them during their dissemination.The Bible is the teachings of the Christianity, and Wycliffe Bible is the natural logic result of his theological and reformational thoughts.The version is completed under his direction of new ideas on religion, and is a new interpretation of the Bible in Latin. With the dissemination of English version, Wycliffe’s reformational thoughts contained in the English Scriptures also spread; at the same time, the dissemination of reformational thoughts promotes in return the development of biblical translations,the better quality of versions and its amplified quantity. It is thus clear that there is the two-way interaction between Bible translation and the dissemination of Christian thoughts. A history of Bible translation is the history of dissemination of Christian thoughts, and vice versa.