EACH VOLUME IS NEWLY AND CAREFULLY EDITED WITH A COMPLETE RESETTING OF ALL TYPE. THESE EDITIONS ARE NOT FACSIMILES, PHOTOCOPIES OR HASTILY ASSEMBLED SCANS.
In the late Fourteenth Century, John Wycliffe and his followers, at great peril to themselves, became the first to translate the complete text of the Bible into English. This "Beggars Bible," as it became known, became a key event in the subsequent Protestant movement because it allowed not just Books of Hours and other fragments of the Biblical text but the entire Bible to be placed into the hands of the common people for the first time. This new text-only edition of Part Two of The Old Testament is based upon the extremely rare first complete printing of the John Wycliffe Middle English translation of The Holy Bible (Oxford: University Press, 1850), a printing that has been largely unavailable since the late 1800's. This Volume contains the Books of I and II Kings (I and II Samuel), III and IV Kings (I and II Kings), I and II Paralipomenon (I and II Chronicles), I Esdras (Ezra), II Esdras (Nehemiah), III Esdras, Tobit, Judith, and Hester (Esther). While Middle English spelling of words has been retained, alphabetic and runic symbols which are no longer in current usage have been replaced by their modern equivalents. This gives the modern reader the opportunity to experience the vigorous and idiomatic language of the first great English-language Bible first-hand, and to discover the sense of wonder its first readers must have felt. Three companion volumes of The Old Testament (Parts One, Three & Four) and The New Testament are also currently available.