Myles Coverdale's English version of the bible apparently pre-dates the King James Version by one hundred years.
He knew no Latin, Greek nor Hebrew, had a little German but was undeterred in his translation ambitions. The Etymologicon (2011) says he produced a psalter that is still used in Church of England services today.
In it, Coverdale has the line: "The strange children shall fail: and be afraid out of their prisons."
As the Etymologicon explains, '[the line] is beautiful and mysterious. Who are the strange children? What's so strange about them? And what on earth are they doing in prison?'
The answer is that the line should have been more properly translated as:
"The foreign-born shall obey: and come trembling from their strongholds."'
Coverdale's mistranslation however seems rather more post-modern, filmic even. Oddly I could imagine myself just nodding along to hearing it in a reading in church without even wondering what it means.
