The very first English translation of the Bible were hand written manuscripts done by John Wycliffe in the 1380’s AD. John Wycliffe was an Oxford professor, scholar, and a theologian who was known through out Europe of being against the teachings of the organized Churches during this time period. He saw a difference in the organizational church practices and teachings than what he understood to be the correct teachings of the official Bible.
John Wycliffe translated the first official Bible scriptures from Latin to English. A follower of Wycliffe was John Hus. According to Hus, he too believed in the teachings of all people should be able to read the Bible in their own languages. This again went against the Roman church and that anyone owning a Bible that was non-Latin should be executed. In 1415 John Hus was burned at the stake with the Bibles that were of non-Latin writings. The first man to translate the Bible into German was Martin Luther in 1517. Although there were those who were teaching their children the Bible in English, the Bible was not officially translated into English until 1496. John Colet was the son of the mayor of London and an Oxford professor whom had started learning the Bible in Greek, but would translate it into English for his students. Although John Colet taught the Bible in English, it was William Tyndale whom actually succeeded to put the New Testament into print between 1525 and 1526.
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It had been believed by the church officials and kings that if everyone understood the teachings of God in their own languages that this would crumble the whole church system of power and money, so many were executed just for possession of any Bible outside of the Latin written Bible.
By 1535 Myles Coverdale and John “Thomas Matthew” Rogers finished translating the Old Testament into English and the very first Old and New Testament English Bible was officially printed on October 4th, 1535. Through time there were slightly different variations of the English Bible, but close to 90% was still based upon the original translations of William Tyndale.
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