The Rules to be obserued in Tranflation
1. The ordinary Bible read in the Church comonly call[e]d the Bishops to be followed be as Little Altered as the Truth of the Originall will permit.
2. The Names of the Prophetts & holy writers with the other Names in the Text to be retayned as neere as may be accordingly as the vulgarly ufed.
3. The old Eccliasticall wordes to be kept, (viz) as the word Church not to be transflated Congregation.
4. When a word hath diverge significations, that to be kept, which hath bene most comonly commonly ufed by the most of the Ancient Fathers, being agreeable to the propriety of the place & the Analogie of Faith.
5. The division of chapters to be Altred ether not at all, or as little as may be if necessity doth require.
6. No marginal Notes at all to be affixed, but only for the Explaination of Hebrew or Greeke wordes; wch cannot wthout some circumlocution s firefly so fittly be explaned in the Text.
7. Such quotations of places to be marginally fitt downe as shall serue for fitt reference of one Scripture to another.
8. Every particular man of each company to take the same chapter or chapters & having amended & tranflated them severally by himself wher he thinkes good, all to meet together, conferr what they have done, & agree for theirpart wt shall stand.
9. As one company hath dispatched any one Booke in this manner they shall send it to the rest to be confidred of serioufly & iudicioufly, for His Majesty is very careful in this point.
10. If any company upon the review of the Booke so sent shall doubt or differ upon any place & withall send their Reasons: to wch [Transcription note not in "The Rules" but for the reader's benefit: the word "wch" then = "which" today] if they consent not, the diffrence to be compounded at the general meeting, wch is to be of the chief Perfons of each company at the End of the worke.
11. When any place of especiall obfcurity is doubted of, Letters to be directed by Autority to any man in the Land for his iudgment on such a Place.
12. Letters to be sent from Every Bishop to the rest of his clergy admonishing them of the Tranflation in hand, & to move and charge as many as being skilful in the Tongues have taken paines in that kinde, to send his particular ofseruations to the Company, either at Westminster, Cambridge, or Oxford.
13. The directors in each company to be the deanes of Westminster & Chester for that place, & the King’s Professors in the Hebrew and Greeke in Each uniuersity.
14. Thefe Tranflations to be ufed wher they agree better with the Text then the Bishhops Bible
Tindalls [Tyndale’s]
Matthewes [Matthew’s]
Couerdalls [Coverdale’s]
Whitchurch
Geneva