to know the Bible better and that the more it was read and studied, the better off the people and the world would be.
That was when he had a very daring dream: to translate and publish the entire Bible into the Spanish language. Until then no one had done so and there were only fragmentary versions, a few individual books and a translation of the Old Testament by the Jews of Spain. In addition, none of these writings were accessible to the people.
Casiodoro had powerful tools, since his erudition included knowledge of the Biblical languages (Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek) and Latin, a language that was very useful at that time. Even more essential and to the point, he had the firm conviction that this undertaking was necessary in order for the Gospel to spread and escape from the prison in which it was chained.
He was a monk who converted to Protestantism, who was condemned as a heretic and fled before the Inquisition would burn him at the stake. Together with him, the community of monks from the convent of San Isidro del Campo left the city at night and headed for Geneva. On April 26, 1562 a figure representing him went up in flames in Seville (it was called “burning in effigy”); but others were not as lucky and were murdered in person. Casiodoro was able to reach Frankfurt, but his life was still in danger. King Philip II put a price on his head and infiltrated the circles he frequented with spies, once again forcing him to leave. He was in London, Strasbourg, Ambers and other cities. On his journeys he carried the translation of the Bible, which grew at a fast pace.
While he translated, he also accomplished other tasks. He published Bible commentaries, wrote a catechism and translated several works into Spanish. In 1567 he wrote and published in Heidelberg the first book against the Inquisition and signed it with the pseudonym Reginaldus Gonsalvius Montanus.
But Casiodoro’s goal was to publish the Bible and he worked endlessly toward that end. In 1567 the translation was ready and he hired one of the best publishers of the day, but he died before beginning the work. This delayed publication, forcing him to find another publisher and more money. Finally, on June 24, 1569, from a printing house in Basel, the Book of the Bear came to light, thus called because of the engraving of a bear on the cover. Two thousand six hundred copies were printed. Only a few books from that first edition survived; first the Inquisition—which condemned it to bonfire and destroyed hundreds—and then the natural passing of time decimated the rest of the copies. Today a few remain scattered across Europe and in Buenos Aires.
After publishing his translation of the Bible, he lived in the city of Ambers, in present-day Belgium, until the Spaniards conquered it and he was once again forced to flee. He returned to Frankfurt, where he earned his living selling cloth and tapestries. During his stay in London he had been ordained as pastor in the Anglican Church, and in that city he found a Spanish-speaking congregation who received him as such.
Casiodoro was born in Seville in 1520 and died in Frankfurt in 1594. He left us a translation of the Bible that endures—with adaptations—in our churches to this day.
The Bible of the Bear
When the phrase “In a village of La Mancha whose name I do not wish to recall. . .” was not yet familiar to anyone because many years were still to pass before it was written, the first complete translation of the Bible into Spanish appeared in a print shop in Basel.
Casiodoro de Reina had worked for years to give Spanish-speaking believers a Bible text they could read in their own language. Until its publication in 1569, the Bible could only be read in Latin (the translation known as the Vulgate), a language most common folk didn´t speak, and even if they did, they didn´t have access to any copies.
The editor was called Samuel Biener (his surname means “beekeeper” in German) and in the editorial seal that illustrated the cover he used the figure of a bear towering over a tree, trying to reach a container full of honeycombs. When he published the Bible, he added on the seal, at the foot of the tree, an open book with Hebrew letters spelling YHWH, the name of God in that tongue, which in the Bible text appears as Jehovah. In addition, he placed the following text at the foot in Hebrew and Spanish: “The word of our God remains forever,” taken from Isaiah 40:8.
Because of this seal on the cover, it is known as “The Bible of the Bear.” This translation, with the small corrections made by Cipriano de Valera, is the one that Evangelical people still recognize today as the translation that is most widespread and commonly used in the churches.
There are some characteristics that make this translation a masterpiece. Protestantism insisted in returning to God’s word, and to do so, it encouraged translations into modern languages that would allow its wide distribution among people.
Casiodoro decided to translate the Bible from Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, the original languages of the Bible text. He avoided translating it from Latin, which would have been simpler but did not ensure maximum fidelity to the message. If, as we know, all translation implies some distance from the original text, how much more distance would there be in a translation from a translation?
Casiodoro’s version includes the so-called apocryphal books in its edition. In this it follows the books found in the Vulgate Bible, since at that time the Protestants had still not established their position on whether or not they should remain as Bible text or be considered works of spiritual edification and useful to the faith but not part of the Sacred Scriptures. At the Council of Trent, held between 1545 and 1563, the Catholic Church had just decreed that several of these books would remain in their Bibles, but in the Protestant world the excision of these works took place gradually during the 17th century.
Finally, the Spanish style that Casiodoro gave to his translation is worthy of note. At a time when the Golden Age of Spanish literature was just beginning, this Bible is a monument to the beauty and plasticity of the Spanish language. He not only transferred a message requiring delicate translation, but he did so with uncommon grace and accuracy.
The Old Testament is written in Semitic languages with which there are no linguistic contacts and, therefore, it is often expressed in phrases and words that are difficult to transpose to our language; the Greek of the New Testament also posed challenges, especially because of its different syntactical structure and the complexity of the message in some of the books. Casiodoro used other previous translations, but improved them by study, erudition and sensitivity until he achieved a text of the highest quality.
When there were still no models of Spanish prose and poetry to open stylistic paths, Casiodoro opened the way for others to continue elevating the language.
To Casiodoro, the Word must have tasted like the best wild honey.
The Bible of the Jar, the Reina-Valera
In 1602, the first revision of the translation by Casiodoro de Reina was published in Amsterdam. The reviser was Cipriano de Valera, and the Bible would be known first as the Bible of the Jar and, much later, to honor those who worked on it, as the Reina-Valera Bible.
It was called “of the Jar” because the seal on its cover shows a tree and two persons, one of which is pouring water onto the earth from a jar, as if watering a newly planted tree. Above them, illuminating the scene, are the Hebrew letters for God’s name, YHWH.
The Bible of the Jar does not contain many differences from Casiodoro’s text, but there are differences of form and accessory items. Cipriano modified almost all the marginal references from the first edition and reduced some of the introductions and summaries with which the books and chapters began, but added them to the Book of Revelation, which had none. Another important change was the order of the books. In the Bible of the Bear, the apocryphal books are interspersed with the rest of the books of the Old Testament, while Cipriano considered that it was better to group them and place them at the end, before the New Testament.
Cipriano had belonged to the group of monks from the convent of San Isidro del Campo in Seville who had fled to Geneva in 1557 to escape from the bonfire of the Inquisition. The leader of the group was Casiodoro de Reina and they fled together, but then their lives took separate paths: Casiodoro remained an independent Protestant, while Cipriano embraced the doctrines of John Calvin. Their dwelling places were also different. Cipriano settled