William Tyndale was the first man to successfully create a mass-produced English Bible. Tyndale was a Catholic Priest in England, born at the turn of the fifteenth century. At the time of William Tyndale’s life, the possession of Bibles by the common man had already been outlawed by the Roman Catholic church for almost three hundred years:

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“Canon 14: We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament; unless anyone from motive of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books.” (COUNCIL OF TOULOUSE, 1229 AD).

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The only people who were capable of reading scripture were ordained Roman Catholic clergy, and only after they had been tutored extensively in Roman Catholic dogma. Tyndale would express his frustration over this reality around the time he graduated with a Master of Theology from Oxford and was still denied access to the Bible.

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“They have ordained that no man shall look on the Scripture, until he be noselled in heathen learning eight or nine years and armed with false principles, with which he is clean shut out of the understanding of the Scripture.” —William Tyndale

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Tyndale would go on not only to become a Catholic priest, but to also become fluent in eight languages, including English, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. William Tyndale decided to test the water by formally requesting permission to create an English translation of the Bible. He was denied. This would serve as the beginning of his story, rather than the end, though. Tyndale was not happy in his position as a clergyman, and his unrest was forced to a peak upon being told by a fellow priest that:

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“We had better be without God’s laws than the pope’s.”

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Tyndale famously replied with:

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“I defy the Pope, and all his laws; and if God spares my life, ere many years, I will cause the boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost!”

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Tyndale fled to Germany to create his own unauthorized version of the English New Testament. Predictably, the Roman Catholic Church confiscated his work, burned any copies they could get ahold of, and branded him a heretic. Unfortunately for Tyndale, being a heretic was condemnable by death in England. So, the Roman Catholic church, after stripping him of his priesthood, conveniently handed him off to English authorities to be executed. Tyndale was strangeled and burned at the stake, his last words being:

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“Lord! Open the King of England’s eyes.”

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Ironically, King Henry VIII would produce an official English translation of the Bible that was almost entirely sourced from Tyndale’s illicit works. At the beginning of the 16th century, Tyndale’s translations would become the basis of the King James Bible, based on their incredible accuracy.