500 years ago, the first New Testament in English was published – and stirred up a hornet’s nest

Five hundred years ago this week, William Tyndale published the first English translation of the New Testament—a move that sounds obvious today but was genuinely dangerous then. For centuries, the Bible existed primarily in Latin, locked away from ordinary people. Tyndale's radical conviction was simple: anyone should be able to read scripture in their own language. According to historians at The Conversation, that idea sparked fierce opposition from religious authorities who saw vernacular translations as a threat to their monopoly on biblical interpretation. Tyndale himself would pay dearly for it—he was eventually executed. But his translation laid the groundwork for centuries of English Bible versions, and the principle he fought for—that sacred texts belong to everyone, not gatekeepers—resonates five centuries later.

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