George Joye

George Joye (also Joy and Jaye) (c. 1495 – 1553) was a 16th-century Bible translator who produced the first printed translation of several books of the Old Testament into English (1530–1534), as well as the first English Primer (1529).

He was born Salpho Bury, Renhold, Bedford, Bedfordshire, England, around 1495. He studied at Christ's College, Cambridge where he graduated as Bachelor of Arts (1513 or 1514). In 1515 he was ordained priest. In 1517 he obtained the degree of Master of Arts, was elected Fellow of Peterhouse and became "inceptor in arte." In 1525 Joye graduated as Bachelor of Divinity. During his years in Cambridge, he came into contact with several people who later became prominent figures of the Protestant Reformation. Under their influence Joye also embraced Luther's ideas. In 1526, when the premises of the university were searched and Joye's copy of Chrysostom's exegetical sermons on the Book of Genesis in Johannes Oecolampadius' translation was discovered, Stephen Gardiner's intercession saved Joye from the authorities, but the following year (1527) he had less luck. When John Ashwell, Augustinian Prior of Newnham Priory, denounced him as a heretic to John Longland, bishop of Lincoln, chancellor of Oxford and confessor to King Henry VIII, Joye was summoned before Cardinal Wolsey at Westminster together with Thomas Bilney and Thomas Arthur. Joye waited for several days in Wolsey's antechamber to be received by the Cardinal, and witnessed the interrogation of Bilney and Arthur, which made him realize that it was safer for him to flee to the Continent.

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