Moffatt: by popular demand

March 7, 2009
    Feast of Perpetua, Felicity & their Companions, Martyrs at Carthage, 203

Meditation:
    And they sang a new song: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth."
    -- Revelation 5:9,10 (NIV)

Quotation:
    The popular craving [for an English Bible] could not be stifled, and the sixteenth century saw the pioneering works of Tyndale and Coverdale; then, two years after Coverdale, the real “authorized version” appeared in 1537, when a mysterious translator called “Thomas Matthew” had his works not only dedicated to but licensed by Henry VIII. In the long run, what put the Bible into the hands of the common people was the influence exerted on public opinion and authority by the reformation of the church.
    ... James Moffatt (1870-1944), A New Translation of the Bible, Harper & Brothers, 1935, p. xxxviii.

Quiet time reflection:
    We desire You, O God.

    See the Christian Quotation of the Day and the Quotations Bible Study