by Doug Kutilek
For a decade after William Tyndale’s English New Testament was printed in 1526, it was violently suppressed by the Church in England. Then, in 1536, Tyndale suffered martyrdom for his work as a Bible translator. His dying prayer was “God, open the king of England’s eyes,” a prayer that found quick answer, for Henry the VIII, no later than 1537, granted Miles Coverdale the right to publish in England, an English translation of the Bible.
Since those monumental days almost five centuries ago, we English-speaking people have not been without access to the Bible in our own language, though it was not always readily accessible to the lower classes, primarily due to the cost of such a printed volume. The large folio and quarto editions usually printed were priced far beyond the means of the great majority of the people, and even the least expensive small New Testament editions were an extravagance for many.
Joseph Hughes (1769-1833) was London-born and studied for the ministry at Bristol Baptist College and in Aberdeen and Edinburgh. He was ordained pastor of the Baptist church at Battersea, on the far western edge of metropolitan London, in 1797. There he remained for the rest of his life. Hughes had a lifelong testimony of unblemished character and doctrinal soundness.
Pastor Hughes became a founding member of the Religious Tract Society in 1797, and served as secretary of the society from 1799 on. The society’s purpose was to provide Christian literature to the many people who thronged London and other parts of England.
In 1802, an urgent request came to the society for Welsh Bibles — thousands of them. As the committee of the society deliberated on how to meet this pressing need, Hughes took a larger view, noting that not only Wales, but many other parts of the British Isles — and for that matter, the rest of the world — were in desperate need of ready access to the printed Word of God, and he therefore proposed a Bible society be formed to address this need and disperse the seed of the Word far and wide among all nations. (There had been some earlier small and scattered efforts and organizations working toward this noble end, but nothing world-encompassing). The British and Foreign Bible Society, named by Hughes, was organized in March 1804 at a meeting of some 300 supporters. Hughes was elected one of its secretaries, and remained such for life. In emulation of the British example, Bible Societies were soon formed in many nations, including the American Bible Society (1816). Scriptures by the thousands and tens of thousands began going out in an ever-increasing number of languages.
From its founding, the British and Foreign Bible Society was non-denominational, as evidenced by its decision to publish and distribute Bibles with only the Biblical text, and without notes or comments. Within a couple of decades, the non-denominational position led to a crisis. Certain missionary translations made in Asia and funded at least in part by the Society rendered the Greek word baptizo by native words as “immerse” (because that, after all, was what the Greek word meant). Funding for these versions was cut off, over the strong objections of Baptists.
A second crisis in the Society’s first half century was over the question of whether Unitarians should be allowed into membership. A majority, in the interest of a misguided broad-mindedness, said yes, and so some members withdrew support for the Society and formed the still-functioning Trinitarian Bible Society in 1831. In subsequent decades and centuries, the British Society, like most of its sister organizations, became quite ecumenical, and very latitudinarian in theological perspective, resulting in the sponsorship and publishing of more than a few translations that were tainted with modernist denials of fundamental doctrines (while still publishing some conservative versions as well). Other doctrinally sound societies (such as the Gideons and the New York Bible Society) were organized by those who could not conscientiously cooperate with those who denied fundamental Biblical truths.
Of course Joseph Hughes, whose association with the British and Foreign Bible Society lasted a scant three decades, is not to blame for the issues and problems that developed long decades and more after his death. His heart’s desire of scattering the seed of the Word as far and as wide as possible remains worthy of our emulation today.
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John Leifchild wrote A Memoir of the late Rev. Joseph Hughes, A.M. (1835; 496 pp.). A brief account of Joseph Hughes’s life can be found in William Cathcart, The Baptist Encyclopedia. Both M’Clintock-Strong, Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature, and Schaff-Herzog, Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge have articles on “Bible Societies.” Thomas Armitage, A History of the Baptists (pp. 893ff), details 19th century Baptist involvement in Bible societies in England and especially America