Taverner's Bible
Preserved but no longer current.
An independent trans- lation by a Greek scholar, Richard Taverner, printed in 1539 (the same year as the first Great Bible) by T. Petit for T. Berthelet. It had no influence on the Authorized Version, but is remarkable for its vigorous, idiomatic English, and for being the first English Bible to include a third Book of Maccabees in the Apocrypha.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “Taverner's Bible” mean?
An independent trans- lation by a Greek scholar, Richard Taverner, printed in 1539 (the same year as the first Great Bible) by T. Petit for T. Berthelet. It had no influence on the Authorized Version, but is remarkable for its vigorous, idiomatic English, and for being the first English Bible to include a third Book of Maccabees in the Apocrypha.
Is “Taverner's Bible” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.