Description
The Byble, 1537. ISAIAH 30:7-33:7. “Israel Called to Repent”. FIRST EDITION. VERY RARE. Known either as the “Tyndale-Matthew Bible” or the “Matthews Bible” or the “Thomas Matthew Bible,” but published simply as “The Byble.” Edited and Compiled by John Rogers using the pseudo-name Thomas Matthew, for R. Grafton and E. Whitchurch who distributed The Byble in London, 1537. Typeset and printed in Antwerp by Martin Lempereur (well known as a printer for Tyndale’s earlier NT editions). Leaf here is folio size, uncut, 13″ x 9″, Black Letter type. Ref: Herbert 34. Census of extant copies: 45. Very Rare to Extremely Rare. [The text of this leaf, from the major prophet Isaiah, was written c.700 BCE, calling Israel to repent of her sins (Israel was relying on Egypt rather than on God, to save them against the Assyrians) or face exile from the Land — a calling for all people in all times.]
Leaf is in FINE condition overall, text clean with full marginal notes; light stain to upper edge; closed tear 3/16″ to upper edge; minor tape 1/2″ to inner edge due to a previous mounting (see pics). Leaf is Folio X [=10] with three small Chapter Woodcut initials, one inhabited. See the final pictures for an exact comparison to this leaf, from a facsimile of the 1537 Matthews Bible. COA on premium “gold leaf” paper w. gold seal. Leaf and COA are set in a museum quality Bifold Portfolio. Full Description is set in an Archival Booklet.
OF NOTE: Of the original est. 1500 copies of this Bible, only about 45 remain – some 15 complete and some 30 incomplete (compare to about 250 extant 1611 first issue “He” King James Bibles). But how many individual leaves are extant is unknown. Judge for yourself how rare this leaf is! Some history: William Tyndale’s New Testament, the first printed English NT, was published in 1525 (only 3 copies are extant) with several editions thereafter. Because Tyndale translated from the Greek using Erasmus’ Greek text, and portions of the OT from the standard Hebrew text, this English bible is widely considered “the real primary version of our English Bible” (Herbert), with his translations making up about 75% of all English Bibles today. Tyndale translated the entire NT, plus the first five Books of Moses, Jonah, the Apocrypha, and the non-canonical Prayer of Manasseh, prior to his execution on October 1536. While the 1535 Coverdale Bible was the first whole bible in English (only about 15 or so are extant), Coverdale based his 1535 translation on German and Latin sources rather than on the Greek and Hebrew, so that Tyndale’s work is not represented in the Coverdale Bible. In distinction from Coverdale, John Rogers, in compiling “The Byble” of 1537, used Tyndale’s 1535 NT and his completed portions of the OT (but not Jonah) without adjustments or editing, the remainder of the OT (including this leaf from the book of Isaiah) being Coverdale’s own 1535 translations; see Herbert 15 and 34 for this scholarly consensus. As editor, Rogers’ only contribution was the marginal notes, chapter summaries, and prefaces. The Byble of 1537 was thus the first whole Bible to use Tyndale’s unedited translations from Greek and Hebrew sources. Due to Tyndale’s finer English and based on the original biblical languages, only Tyndale’s translations have stood the test of time, forming the basis of the Great Byble of 1539-1541. The Great Byble, strangely enough, contains Coverdale revised Tyndale’s translations from Matthew’s 1537 “The Byble” rather than using his own!! In sum: Tyndale’s translations, not Coverdale’s, proved superior and formed the basis of all major English translations in use today.
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