Celebrating 500 years for the reason that first printed English New Testament

Celebrations for the quincentenary – five hundredth anniversary – of the English New Testament got underway in Antwerp in July. This is the story …

William Tyndale

It was John Wycliffe and his followers who had translated the Bible into English from Latin within the late 1300s. This led to the Lollards, who were England’s first evangelical movement.  From that movement got here a person called William Tyndale, who had the drive to translate the New Testament into English from Greek, using Erasmus’s printed Greek New Testament.

Printed New Testament 

He accomplished the New Testament 500 years ago in 1525. He had been forced to flee England to finish his enterprise, because he had been refused permission to translate by the English Church authorities, which alerted them to what he was doing. 

He fled to what’s now Germany, and he accomplished the New Testament in Cologne in 1525. Sadly he got betrayed and only the primary 22 chapters of Matthew survived, known today because the Cologne Fragment. Later he went to Worms and began again and published his New Testament which was recorded coming into England and Scotland in late 1525 – which on account of the change within the calendar is now considered early 1526.  

Later he revised it and printed a new edition in Antwerp, which is now in Belgium. There might be events to mark the quincentenary of the English New Testament through 2025 and 2026.  

William Tyndale effectively gave us the trendy English Bible, because what he did led to the King James Version and modern revisions or revisions of it just like the RSV, NRSV and ESV.

The Tyndale Society 

The Tyndale Society was founded in 1995 to research and foster scholarship into William Tyndale. From 8-11 July 2025, the Tyndale Society kicked off celebrations for the quincentenary of the English New Testament with a conference in Antwerp. This was held with the University of Antwerp, the Plantin-Moretus Print Museum and Louvain University. 

The title of the conference was “Tudor England and the Antwerp Book Trade” and there have been nearly 100 people learning and giving papers about William Tyndale and the print world by which he inhabited which helped to supply the English Bible. This also marked the thirtieth anniversary of the Tyndale Society. 

Antwerp

Antwerp has particularly strong links to the English Bible, as each William Tyndale and Myles Coverdale worked on their translations in town, and saw several of their works through the press there. 

Concerts

Concerts got through the anniversary celebrations by the Tyndale Singers, consisting of former and current members of the English Choral Society, including one at Antwerp Cathedral. They sang pieces of music which Tyndale himself is prone to have heard in his day, each in England and in Flanders. 

Surviving copies

For those lucky enough to make the Antwerp event, also included exhibits of sixteenth century books, including the one pristine surviving complete copy of the 1526 New Testament. The copy normally resides on the Landesbibliothek in Stuttgart, but was loaned to the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp for July. This unique item was on display next to an actual letter written by William Tyndale which he wrote from prison in Vilvoorde as he awaited trial or execution. Another copy of the 1526 New Testament is on the British Library however it is missing its front cover, and a partial copy exists at St Paul’s Cathedral. 

Celebrations

Churches and groups around the globe might be marking the quincentenary in other ways. It is an incredible approach to raise awareness of the Bible and discuss it. For more information, you’ll be able to connect with the Tyndale Society via its website.