The monk who gave us the Spanish Bible fled the Inquisition
Casiodoro de Reina fled the monastery of San Isidoro in 1557 and in 1569 printed in Basel the first complete Bible in Spanish.
On April 26, 1562, the Inquisition of Seville burned the effigy of an absent monk: Casiodoro de Reina, author of the first Bible in Spanish. It is documented by the Bible Society and the Pablo de Olavide University.
The claim we are reviewing — "the first complete Bible in Spanish was translated by a monk who had to flee the Inquisition" — is true. The monk printed his work far from his homeland, under persecution.
A monk who fled to Geneva
Reina was born in 1520 and professed as a Hieronymite monk at San Isidoro del Campo, the monastery of Santiponce, near Seville. In that cloister a group of religious studied the Scriptures and embraced the Reformation, according to the Pablo de Olavide University.
«Every time you open your Bible in Spanish, you are also reading the work of a fugitive from the Inquisition»
In the summer or autumn of 1557 he left the monastery for Geneva, driven by the pressure of the tribunal. He did not go alone: several companions accompanied him, among them Cipriano de Valera, from the same cloister.
Valera was not a minor detail. In 1602, from Amsterdam, he produced the first complete revision of that work, known as the Biblia del Cántaro. From those two names comes the surname you now have in your Bible: Reina-Valera (Bible Society).
The bear, the honeycomb and a date
The translation work began in 1565 and the book came off the printing press of Thomas Guarin, in Basel, Switzerland, on September 28, 1569. It took Reina about twelve years, reports the Bible Society.
On the cover there is a bear stretching its paw toward a honeycomb hanging from a tree, and that is why it is called the Biblia del Oso. Under the engraving is a motto taken from Isaiah, written in Hebrew and Spanish, proclaiming that the word of God remains forever (Bible Society).
It was the first complete Bible in Spanish translated directly from Hebrew and Greek. There were Spanish Bibles before, such as the Alfonsine, but they came from Latin (Bible Society).
Two New Testaments in Spanish had already been printed: one in 1543, by Francisco de Enzinas, and another in 1556, by Juan Pérez de Pineda. Neither was the entire Bible nor came from the original languages.
The price of reading it in your language
Persecution continued after the printing press. In 1571, the Council of the Inquisition ordered the collection of copies of "the Bible in romance" that were found, and Reina's name remained on the Index in the category of first-class author (Bible Society).
In 1560, a colporteur named Julián Hernández, nicknamed "Julianillo," had been burned in Seville for introducing New Testaments in Spanish hidden inside wine barrels. They tortured him for three years and he never said who the other believers were, according to the Bridwell Library of Southern Methodist University.
The version you quote today as RVR1960 is a 1960 revision by the United Bible Societies. For the New Testament more than eighty consultants worked, and for the Old Testament, more than sixty. The contributions of pastors and laypeople totaled more than 1700 pages (Argentine Bible Society).
On March 15, 1594, he died in Frankfurt, according to the Royal Academy of History, and his translation was reprinted many times after Valera's revision.
"The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever" (Isaiah 40:8, ESV). That verse appears on the 1569 cover, and it remains the summary of this story.
Every time you open your Bible in Spanish, you are also reading the work of a fugitive from the Inquisition. This week, before you begin your reading, look at the cover and give thanks out loud for those who paid the price so that those words would reach your hands. What would you do today with a Bible that cost others their lives?
Sources
- Sociedad Bíblica (España) — Conoce la historia de la Biblia del Oso
- Sociedad Bíblica (España) — Biblia Reina Valera
- Universidad Pablo de Olavide — Casiodoro de Reina (1520-1594)
- Museum of the Bible — Bible of the Bear
- Real Academia de la Historia — Historia Hispánica, Casiodoro de Reina
- Bridwell Library, Southern Methodist University — Forbidden New Testament
- Sociedad Bíblica Argentina — Biblia Reina Valera 1960
- Bible Gateway — Isaías 40:8 (RVR1960)
