Bedell's Bible One Small Step to Better Bible Understanding

FINALLY PUBLISHED

Bedell completed his project about 1640.  But he could immediately publish it. Why?  For one thing, he still faced unrelenting opposition. Detractors vilified Bedell's chief translator, hoping thus to discredit his work.  They even maliciously  had him arrested and imprisoned . As if that were not enough, Bedell found himself in the middle of a bloody and bitter anti-English rebellion, which broke out in 1641. Local Irish people protected Bedell for a time despite his English origins because they recognized his genuine concern for them. Eventually, however, rebel soldiers imprisoned him in very poor conditions. No doubt this hastened his death in 1642. He never saw his work published.

Bedell's work almost perished completely when his home was ransacked and destroyed. Thankfully a close friend managed to rescue all his translated documents.  In time Narcissus Marsh, who later became the archbishop of Armagh and the primate church of Ireland, got hold of them. He received financial support from scientist Robert Boyle and courageously  published Bedell's Bible in 1685.  

Next time: Bedell's Bible One Small Step to Better Bible Understanding -  A SMALL  YET SIGNIFICANT FORWARD STEP

From the Watchtower magazine, 2015