We now take a look at the history of the English language and the first English Bibles. As Rome's influence dimmed in the West, new political forces re-shaped Europe and brought language changes into England. If you've never heard English in its earliest form, you may be surprised how much the language has changed over the centuries.

We now take a look at a Bible translation whose influence is comparable to that of the King James Version. Developed by a rather unusual man over more than two decades, the Latin Vulgate has a complex history. We'll also see a trend emerging that translators face up to the present day.

Did you know that the Bible has been translated into Latin several times throughout its history? In this podcast, we take a look at Latin's long heritage in European culture. We'll then examine the first Latin Bible, the Vetus Latina. It paved the way to a much more well-known Bible. And we'll tip our hat to author James Hilton and Latin pronunciation.

In this podcast, we continue discussing some of the linguistic principles of translation. We also look at a more general language question: are some languages more capable than others? Listen in and find out!

Translating the Bible into other languages has been going on for thousands of years. But translation isn't as easy it you might think. We're going to take a look at the historical periods during which Bible translation took place. We'll also examine some of the issues of translation itself.

The New Testament manuscripts are a lot more controversial than those of the Old Testament. We're going to examine the oldest available New Testament manuscripts and see where they came from.

Can manuscripts be copied and re-copied for hundreds of years and retain their accuracy and integrity? Today, we'll see how a dedicated group of Jewish scribes preserved the Old Testament through careful copying. We'll also take a look at some linguistic principles and see how they helped bring back a language that was dying out.

We continue our discussion of canonicity with the New Testament books. We'll see how the early church took its time about establishing the canon of the New Testament. We'll also look at the criteria they used to decide what was genuine Scripture and what was just ordinary human writing.

How did the books that make up our Bible come to be regarded as the genuine word of God? We'll take a look at this complex topic today by seeing how the Jewish people assembled what to us is the Old Testament and to them, the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible).

The Bible is the topic of our first season of podcasts. Where did it come from? How did our modern English Bible come to us from the ancient manuscripts? What about translations? We're going to tackle all of these topics and more in the season ahead!