Proclaimer Blog
Geneva Bible prologues
450 years ago, a group of English Protestant scholars exiled to Geneva during the terrible reign of Mary Tudor completed a translation of the Bible. Dedicated to the new (and Protestant) Queen Elizabeth I (“whom God has made as our Zerubbabel”!) it went through more than 150 editions, was the first Bible printed in Scotland and the version taken to America by the Pilgrim Fathers on the Mayflower.
I have just been reading the new edition of the Prologues (‘A Reformation Guide to Scripture’ Banner 2010) to write a review for Evangelicals Now. The Prologues are typically just a page or two of introduction for each Bible book, with an introduction and footnotes giving the meaning of unfamiliar words (e.g. that “grens” are “snares or traps”). This has been beautifully produced by Banner and contains a wealth of insights into how the Reformers understood the Bible.
There are some gems of concise and perceptive summary. I particularly enjoyed this start to a paragraph about Job and his Comforters: “In this story we have to mark that Job maintains a good cause, but handles it evil; again, his adversaries have an evil matter, but they defend it craftily…” Brilliant.
Two qualities stand out for me. First, every Bible book is related clearly and explicitly to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Prologues come from people for whom the genuinely Christian nature of the Bible is deeply ingrained, and it shows. And, second, unlike almost all academic commentary, the prologues often include pointers to how we ought to respond. For example, after introducing the four Gospels, we read that they were written so that “hereby we are admonished to forsake the world, and the vanities thereof, and with most affectioned hearts embrace this incomparable treasure freely offered unto us; for there is no joy nor consolation, no peace nor quietness, no felicity nor salvation, but in Jesus Christ, who is the very substance of this Gospel, and in whom all the promises are Yea, and Amen.” All in all, it informs the mind and warms the heart. Warmly recommended.