Tyndale Bible - the first bible published in English
William Tyndale's Bible was the first to be published in English and gain a widespread readership. The translation, in the early part of the 16th century, meant Christendom's Holy Book could then be read by a much wider proportion of the population, and this had a major influence on Britain's history.
Compiled from around 1494 to 1536, the Tyndale Bible is credited with being the first English translation to derive directly from the original Hebrew and Greek texts. It was also the first English biblical translation to benefit from mass-production, due to advances in the art of printing.
William Tyndale was an English scholar and gifted linguist who became convinced that the bible should be available to the people of England in their own language. This was heretical to the Catholic Church and threatened their control over the study and interpretation of the scriptures. At the time, the state sentenced anyone found in unlicensed possession of Scripture in English to death.
Tyndale fled abroad and continued to work on his biblical translations, but was betrayed and executed by strangulation in Belgium. At the time of his death in 1536, several thousand copies of his New Testament had been printed; however, only one intact copy remains today at London's British Library.
However, in just a few years' time, the idea of a translated bible became much more acceptable in England, as Henry VIII found that Protestant ideas were helpful in his desire for a divorce from his first wife, which had been refused by the Pope, and this led to the Reformation.
An official Bible in English was subsequently produced based on Tyndale’s work. In 1611, the 47 scholars who produced the famous King James Bible drew significantly on the Tyndale's Bible, and the other translations that descended from his.
From the Elizabethan period, the national literacy rate increased hugely, encouraged by the advent of printing and a desire to read the Bible in English. Tyndale’s work was therefore influential in making England both a Protestant country, and a literate one.
Further reading
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