First Online Welsh Bible to Revive a language in decline

An important book for the history of Christianity in the UK went online for the first time recently. The book is the Welsh language Bible which was translated 400 years ago by Bishop William Morgan.

The project was spearheaded by the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. It has added all the 1,110 pages of the Welsh Bible to its website. Lyn Lewis Dafis, metadata manager at the library, said publishing the national treasure had been “a challenge.”

Dafis expressed his hope that the publication of the Welsh Bible can encourage more people in Wales to study the bible, “I very much hope that all the users of our website, especially school and college students, will take advantage of the opportunity to be able to turn the pages of William Morgan’s bible for themselves.”

Britain, as the origin of Protestantism in the West, has been devoted in bible ministries for centuries. Since Henry VII permitted the publication of the Bible in English in 1539, the first New Testament translated in Welsh language was published by William Salesbury in 1551. Later, Parliament passed the law in 1563 authorising that the Bible in Welsh should be available in every parish church in Wales. William Morgan continued the work of Salesbury's Bible translation and the complete version was finally published in 1588.

At that era, the Welsh language was being banned in secular matters. Despite this, the use of the Welsh language is permitted in spiritual matters, showing the language’s importance to the propagation of the Gospel in Britain. Currently, while the Welsh language is not widely prevalent, the National Library noted that the bible could be credited with sustaining the Welsh language in the face of official neglect and animosity.

William Morgan, Bishop of Llandaff, studied Hebrew, Greek and Latin at Cambridge University. Based on Hebrew and Greek originals, Salesbury’s New Testament and the English bishops’ and Geneva versions of the Holy Bible, Morgan has brought forth magnificent achievement in the history of translation of the Bible.