Commentary on the Gospel of John

Attributed to the Northumbrian monk and scholar Bede, this rendering of the Gospel of John into Old English is the earliest recorded substantial attempt to translate a biblical book into English. Its scope was limited to that single Gospel, and it was made from Latin, taking a Latin Gospel text as its base and standing in relation to the Latin Vulgate tradition, which served as its predecessor or base translation. It is classed as a fresh translation rather than a revision, although the translation philosophy behind it is unknown. Its most distinctive feature is that no manuscript of the translation survives, so that it is known only through report; accounts associated with Bede's death describe him as occupied with such a work in his final days. It is nonetheless conventionally cited as the starting point of the long history of English-language Bible translation.