Paul never spoke gibberish

I have a class on Medieval manuscripts this term. I am sitting in the basement of the library working on one of the assignments for the class, designed foster appreciation for how said manuscripts all had little differences (as all were copied by hand), so modern publications ("critical editions") of the stories and texts they hold have to carefully consider each version. The assignment? Look at 15 versions of the Bible and create my own critical edition (of a chapter, not of a whole Bible).

I have probably taken the assignment too far, but the more I find out, the more fascinated I am. At this point I could probably tell you more than you ever wanted to know about the early English translations (I'm no expert...but like I said, I think I've taken things too far).

I was searching for more background on the King James Version (a revision of the Great Bible, based largely on Tyndale's [or Tindale's] translation, which in turn was based on Luther's German translation, Erasmus' Latin translation, and Greek) when I found that, in its original introduction, the self-described "Translators of the Bible" give a layman's explanation of translation. "There were 5 languages to the Greeks, all the rest were tongues," they explain. "This was not gibberish but people speaking their own minor dialect where everyone believed that their own tongue was sacred and must be used for liturgical purposes. Paul never spoke gibberish."

Thank you, translators.

They later write about "the Grecians being desirous of learning," and how they "were not wont to suffer books of worth to lie moulding in Kings' libraries."