English Bible History King James I With the death of Queen Elizabeth I, Prince James VI of Scotland became King James I of England. His name has become synonymous with the famous printing of the Bible that bears his name, the “King James Bible”…

English Bible History John Knox John Knox is considered to be the greatest Reformer in the history of Scotland. The exact place and date of his birth is not known with certainty, but it is generally accepted to be Giffordgate, 16 miles east of Edinburgh,…

English Bible History John Calvin John Calvin is the author of the most famous theological book ever published, Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. He is considered, along with Martin Luther, to be among the most significant of figures in the Protestant Reformation. His doctrines…

English Bible History John Foxe In the 1550's, the Church at Geneva, Switzerland, was very sympathetic to the reformer refugees and was one of only a few safe havens for a desperate people. Many of them met in Geneva, led by Myles Coverdale and John Foxe…

English Bible History Queen "Bloody" Mary The ebb and flow of freedom continued through the 1540's...and into the 1550's. After King Henry VIII, King Edward VI took the throne, and after his death, the reign of Queen “Bloody” Mary was the next obstacle to the…

English Bible History King Henry VIII It was not that King Henry VIII had a change of conscience regarding publishing the Bible in English. His motives were more sinister… but the Lord sometimes uses the evil intentions of men to bring about His glory. King…

English Bible History Thomas Cranmer In 1539, Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, hired Myles Coverdale at the bequest of King Henry VIII to publish the "Great Bible". It became the first English Bible authorized for public use, as it was distributed to every church,…

English Bible History John "Thomas Matthew" Rogers John Rogers went on to print the second complete English Bible in 1537. It was, however, the first English Bible translated from the original Biblical languages of Hebrew & Greek. He printed it under the pseudonym "Thomas Matthew",…

English Bible History Myles Coverdale Myles Coverdale and John “Thomas Matthew” Rogers had remained loyal disciples the last six years of Tyndale's life, and they carried the English Bible project forward and even accelerated it. Coverdale finished translating the Old Testament, and in 1535 he…

English Bible History Martin Luther Martin Luther had a small head-start on Tyndale, as Luther declared his intolerance for the Roman Church’s corruption on Halloween in 1517, by nailing his 95 Theses of Contention to the Wittenberg Church door. Luther, who would be exiled in…

English Bible History William Tyndale William Tyndale was the Captain of the Army of Reformers, and was their spiritual leader. Tyndale holds the distinction of being the first man to ever print the New Testament in the English language. Tyndale was a true scholar and a genius, so…

English Bible History Erasmus In considering the experiences of Linacre and Colet, the great scholar Erasmus was so moved to correct the corrupt Latin Vulgate, that in 1516, with the help of printer John Froben, he published a Greek-Latin Parallel New Testament. The Latin part…