In the year 1534, not many months before his imprisonment, Tyndale had brought out a revised edition of his New Testament, and of that portion of the Old which he had been enabled to complete up to that time, including the prophecy of Jonah and the books from Genesis to Deuteronomy; and it was still during Tyndale's lifetime that Miles Coverdale undertook to bring to completion the task which Tyndale had been unable to finish.
Of Coverdale's background we possess little knowledge, beyond the fact that he was definitely in sympathy with the reform movement; so much so, indeed, that like Tyndale himself, he had to spend a considerable part of his life in exile on the continent of Europe. On the fourth of October, 1535, almost exactly a year before Tyndale's martyrdom, Coverdale published in Zurich (or, possibly, in Antwerp) a small folio volume which is of special interest and importance, for it was the first printed edition of the complete Bible in English ever to be issued. In the preparation of this version, Coverdale followed rather closely that portion of the Scriptures which had already appeared in print under Tyndale's name, but he did not apparently have access to the translation of the books from Joshua to II Chronicles made by Tyndale during his imprisonment; thus, for that part of the Old Testament from Joshua to Malachi (excepting the prophecy of Jonah), Coverdale had perforce to provide his own translation.
Now, unlike Tyndale, Coverdale possessed little, if any, acquaintance with Hebrew, or even with Greek, so he tells us frankly that in preparing his rendering he made free use of certain "Latyn" and "Douche" (i. e., German) versions; while in his dedication to the complete Bible he writes that he has "with a clear conscience purely and faithfully translated the whole" with the aid of "five sundry interpreters." These "interpreters" he does not specify by name, but they are generally supposed to include the Latin Vulgate, a Latin Version by one Pagninus, Luther's famous German rendering, and the "Zurich Bible" prepared by the noted reformer Zwingli, in addition, of course, to Tyndale's work.
