King James and the Authorized Version of the Bible and Its Ties to the Reformation

This year is the 504th Anniversary of The Reformation and the 410th Anniversary of the King James Bible. Along with the Reformation igniting a widespread return to biblical faith throughout Europe, with the realization that it is Jesus Christ who saves and not the religious institution, there were also a number of Bible translations that came forth. This would result eventually in the publication of the King James Bible later in England. 

The following is a brief overview of how that came about. 

King James and the Bible 

King James had been taught from his earliest days by a Protestant tutor. Thus raised as a Protestant, the new King in England, who for the first time ruled both England and Scotland, was approached by a group of Puritans who brought forth a number of requests known as the Millenary Petition, a document signed by one thousand Puritans. 

The Puritans originally were a revival movement in England that came out of the Reformation, whose name indicated a desire to purify the Church and return completely to the New Testament. 

Though raised as a Protestant, King James still had a lot of his own ideas, and he viewed the Puritans as quite extreme. 

He would, however, grant one of the Puritans’ requests and publish an authorized official version of the Holy Bible. 

This one request King James granted became his most enduring legacy. The King James Bible, known in England as the Authorized Version and in America as the King James Version, became renowned throughout the English-speaking world for centuries, and from its publication to our present day it has been widely used. 

Martin Luther’s Influence on the English Reformation 

Martin Luther was reading the book of Romans when he experienced the grace of God that is given through faith in Christ. Luther had suffered under the burden of performing the ongoing rituals prescribed by the Catholic Church to merit salvation. However, he came into a place of liberty and freedom in Christ having the heavy burden lifted off when he read about the forgiveness and grace given to us when we just put our faith in Christ and receive the grace and forgiveness He gives through His work on the cross. 

Luther began teaching on this amazing grace after his born-again experience and also drew up a list of things he wanted to challenge and debate with other theologians regarding the errors the Catholic Church was teaching. He tacked this list, called the Ninety-Five Theses, to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg on October 31st in 1517. 

Luther’s Theses sparked The Protestant Reformation, igniting a widespread return to faith in Christ in Europe, with the realization that it is Jesus Christ who is the one who saves, not the religious institution. The New Testament teaching that salvation is a gift given through faith in Christ by grace, not by religious performance of rituals, spread far and wide in Europe. 

Repercussions Across the Channel 

The Reformation’s impact eventually began to come across the English Channel into Great Britain and it was regularly discussed at Cambridge University. 

One of the places in Cambridge that held lively discussions on the topic was a pub known as the White Horse Inn, where long discussions would take place late into the evenings. Cambridge became known as a Little Germany and Little Wittenberg due to the adoption of Reformation truths. 

Those that were able to read the New Testament, saw that Luther was just drawing from its central teaching and merely saying that Christ has paid for our sin on the cross already, which is to be received by faith and is not something that we can earn or work for by performing religious rituals, nor can this forgiveness and salvation be merited by any other religious performance nor work. 

Here lay an important problem though, as the religious institution of the day, the Catholic Church, saw to it that the Bible was not available. 

They had made it illegal for common people to own or possess the Scriptures in any way. In fact, at the Synod of Toulouse in 1229, the Catholic Church officially forbade the laity to possess the Bible, and from that time onward people were burned at the stake—including women and children—for possession of illegal Bibles or sometimes merely having just some pages of the Bible. 

They also opposed translations into the common vernacular languages. The Catholic Church wanted the Bible kept only in Latin so as to limit who could read it or have access to it. Latin was a long dead language at this point and the vast majority of people, including most of the clergy in the Catholic Church, could neither read it nor understand it. Scholar David Daniell says: “The Bible might as well have been in Chinese for all the good it did forcing it to be kept in Latin.” Because Luther had been studying to be a lawyer before he entered the monastery, he was able to read Latin. 

Luther had made a translation of the New Testament into German while hiding in the Warburg Castle escaping those who wanted his death. His translation further fueled the Reformation. Now people could read for themselves that the New Testament taught that salvation is a gift from God given through faith in Christ. He later finished translating the rest of the Bible into the German language once he was able to return home to Wittenberg. 

William Tyndale 

William Tyndale had been a Catholic priest in England, and like Luther, had also experienced a conversion to Christ and was touched by the grace of God. 

He had spent time studying in Cambridge and having discussions at the White Horse Inn, and being influenced by the Reformation and Martin Luther, wanted to make a Bible translation available in the English language. 

Tyndale had transferred from Oxford to Cambridge because Oxford towed the Catholic line and held in its Constitutions prohibition against the Bible being in the common English language. 

Influenced by the impact Martin Luther had in translating the New Testament into the German vernacular, Tyndale sought to do the same for the English-speaking world. 

He set out to create a translation of the New Testament first, and then the rest of the Bible. In an effort to begin his quest, Tyndale left Cambridge and found favor with a couple who provided him a place to stay and work out in Little Sodbury where he began his work of translation. 

Tyndale eventually came over to Germany to meet with Martin Luther in Wittenberg, after leaving England due to persecution. 

It was shortly after this time with Luther that Tyndale began to have his translation of the New Testament printed first in Worms, Germany, then smuggled into England. 

Tyndale’s pocket-sized New Testaments, which could be easily hidden, became a huge hit in the United Kingdom and caused quite a stir, to the consternation of Woolsey, the Catholic Bishop in London who sought to buy them up so he could burn them. 

This plan of Woolsey backfired in numerous ways. The larger population was outraged that a clergyman would have the outrageous audacity to burn the Holy Scriptures. Furthermore, the seller of the New Testaments had the money secretly sent to Tyndale who printed three times as many of his translation of the New Testaments which further flooded into England. 

Woolsley was shocked when he was told he had actually been unwittingly funding Tyndale through his fanatical efforts to liquidate the Word of God. 

One of the great blessings that Tyndale and Luther both had was the work of Didier Erasmus, a Cambridge professor from The Netherlands who assembled and published a Greek text of the New Testament which gave them accessibility to the original text. 

Thus, Luther and Tyndale made their translations of the New Testament from the original Greek. John Wycliffe, a little more than a century earlier, had made an English translation but only had the Latin version to work from. Wycliffe Bibles also had to be copied by hand, as the printing press had not yet been invented, and most copies were rounded up and burned along with many believers. The invention of the printing press greatly accelerated the Reformation and the distribution of the Scriptures. 

Tyndale and His Dying Words 

Tyndale was persecuted, and was eventually betrayed, arrested, and put to death. His dying words, as he was about to be burned at the stake, were a prayer: “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes.” 

A year after the death of Tyndale, King Henry VIII had Bibles placed in churches to be available to be read by the people. The dying prayer of Tyndale went even further though, when King James later granted the Puritans one request, which was the publication of an authorized version of the Bible, which became known in America later as the King James Bible. 

Scholar David Daniell says the sages and scholars King James assembled to do the work used Tyndale’s translation as their framework, and actually 90% of the King James New Testament is Tyndale’s work. The Lord carried forth this reformer’s effort and prayer into an amazing legacy 

We have numerous videos for more on these subjects: 

• Martin Luther and the Reformation 

• William Tyndale and the English Reformation 

• Wycliffe Morningstar of the Reformation 

• John Knox and the Reformation in Scotland 

• Scotland, John Knox and the King James Bible

• Zwingli and the Swiss Reformation 

• Martin Luther and the Priesthood of All Believers 

• Martin Luther Born Again Into Amazing Grace

400 Year Anniversary of the King James Bible

A woman and her children were dragged out of their house and fastened to a pole where dry brush was lit under them and they were burned alive. Their crime: reading the Bible in English, a practice strictly forbidden by the Catholic Church. It was England in the 1500’s when Catholic Bloody Mary had taken the throne and was determined to force Catholicism back upon those who’d been liberated from its idolatry and superstitions. Similar scenes were being repeated all over the country as Protestant Christians were being killed; possessing illegal Bibles in the English language could be deadly.

In January 1555 three pastors, Taylor, Bradford, and Saunders, who had all been former parish priests, were put on trial. They had come into the light of Christ’s grace and now preached the truth, for they had been able to read the truth in the available Scriptures made accessible by the work of William Tyndale, who had translated the Bible into English.

They were required to answer if they would acknowledge the Pope as the head of the Church and submit to His Authority, to which they answered that they acknowledged and submitted only to Christ. Death sentences were pronounced against them and they were taken away to be burned alive at the stake.

Taylor spoke before his death: “Good people, I have taught you nothing but God’s Holy Word and that which is from God’s blessed book the Holy Bible. I have come here today to seal it with my blood.” Taylor was able to say this because he had the Bible in his own language. Tyndale, who had translated it, was also killed for his efforts a couple of decades before. As the flames were lit and Taylor was about to be burned, he recited the 51^st Psalm in English when he was struck in the face: “You Knave, pray in Latin! I will make you!” the ultra-Catholic executioner told him.

Latin was the only language allowed for the Bible, prayers, or any other religious activity according to Catholicism and the Pope’s decree, and they fought viciously to keep it that way. Very, very, few knew any Latin at all however. Horrified with the realities of an English Bible and that the truth of Christ would be known, exposing their perversions of God’s Word, they launched a campaign of killing, maiming, and torture, to suppress any and all who would dare to even read or own an English Bible.

This year we celebrate the 400-year anniversary of the King James Bible. To properly understand this story, we must look back where the story takes shape—with the onset of the Protestant Reformation—to really understand the whole scene and the intense struggle of how such a work ever came about.

The Reformation, which had begun in Germany with Martin Luther, was now beginning to spread over other parts of Europe. Luther was a simple monk that was merely trying to find peace with God when he came into the revelation that Jesus had paid for his sins and he didn’t have to try and pay for them himself with works like prayer and fasting. While reading the Bible he came into revelation and understood Christ’s finished work for him on the cross. It was now all clear: simply by faith does one believe and receive what Jesus did for him on the cross, accepting his forgiveness and coming into his grace.

Luther had been born again while reading the Scriptures in the New Testament, specifically the books of Romans and Galatians. Seeking to find peace with God, he finally understood the finished work of Christ and the payment He made for sin.

That revelation spread throughout Europe, eventually leading men like William Tyndale to lay their lives down to reach others with God’s Word. Tyndale had been directly affected by seeing the great fruit of Luther’s efforts in Germany and the effect of Luther’s translation of the Bible into the German language to turn many to true faith in Christ.

After Martin Luther was born again he began to see serious problems with the institutional Catholic Church. He began to preach on Christ’s payment for sin and the grace He offers and also to write about the errors the church had embraced in resisting this truth. Then in 1517 he posted his 95 Theses on the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany. Luther posted his Theses solely for the means of debating the issues, as is commonly practiced in university settings even to this day.

Some years before this the printing press had been invented by Gutenberg and students now got a hold of his Theses, reprinted them without permission—if copyright had been an issue back then like now there would have been no Reformation—and distributed them all over Europe. Before Luther knew it he was an international figure in the middle of a conflagration. The Reformation began to spread all over Europe and eventually came to England.

Thomas Cranmer began to read Luther’s writings. As Archbishop of Canterbury—England’s head of the church—he began to bring forth reformation teachings, ideas, and practices to the English Church, breaking away from Catholic superstitions, traditions, and doctrines.

King Henry VIII of England had been unable to bear a male child to inherit the throne. Henry had been basically forced to marry his deceased brother’s widow when only a teenager by the political powers of his day—the Pope had broken Catholic canon law and granted a special dispensation for political purposes for this marriage. Henry when he came of age wanted a divorce so he could marry another woman he actually had affection for, Anne Boleyn, but, because the Pope refused to grant him the divorce, he chose to break away from the Catholic Church instead. Though human motives took place on Henry’s part God was using it for His larger purposes.

Together with the confluence of Luther’s teachings and Cranmer’s adoption of the same, King Henry’s actions in some ways helped fan the flames that eventually, together with the confluence of Luther’s teaching spreading into Oxford and Cambridge, a widespread reformation movement within England began to arise. It continued under Henry’s successor Edward.

In time groups like the Puritans began to spring up, who were not trying to become “purer” than others but rather wanted to purify the church from unbiblical Catholic idolatry, traditions, and superstitions. They desired to see a foundation of grace and the work of the Spirit take place in believers’ lives and are known today as the first Protestant mystics. They merely desired a return to New Testament ideals, both in word and deed by preaching about living for Christ and walking in His Spirit.

As the English Reformation spread however, persecution arose when Henry VIII’s daughter, Mary, or “Bloody Mary” as she later came to be known, took the throne. She was a dyed-in-the-wool Catholic who severely persecuted Protestants, seeking to turn England back to Catholicism while putting hundreds and hundreds to death, thus earning her moniker, even having the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer killed as well.

Cranmer was persecuted and pressured by the Catholics to sign a document recanting principles of Protestantism. However, when he was brought before trial, he decided to repent of his actions. So when it came time for his execution, he chose to place the offending hand that had signed the document into the fire first before he was killed by being burned alive at the stake.

Meanwhile, an avid scholar from Oxford named William Tyndale had been converted and influenced by the reformation, and was a contemporary of Martin Luther’s. Tyndale eventually began to work on a translation of the Bible, seeing the need for it to be in the common English tongue of the people and not just in the Latin of the scholars and the learned which resulted in keeping the Bible inaccessible.

Luther had translated the Bible into the common German tongue and Luther's translation began to have a great effect in spreading the Reformation and the understanding of Christ’s finished work and God’s grace.

Tyndale began a similar venture for the English people. Tyndale began work on an English translation of the Bible from the original Hebrew and Greek.

John Wycliffe had done an earlier English translation a century before, but he and his Lollard movement were severely persecuted by the Catholic church and most of his followers, including women and children, were put to death just for having Bibles. Though the Catholic Church severely persecuted and killed many of Wycliffe’s followers they never actually caught Wycliffe himself. And yet in a perverse act of vengeance, they dug up his bones and burned them after his death.

Tyndale saw the need for another attempt at getting the Bible into the common everyday language of the English people. So Tyndale began work on a translation into the English from the Greek and Hebrew, using Luther’s German translation as well as Erasmus’ Greek text for assistance.

As an extraordinarily gifted scholar who spoke eight languages, he was able to bring forth, by God’s grace, a remarkable work. Nevertheless, no good deed goes unpunished, and for his efforts he was severely persecuted and had to flee England. He went and stayed in Wittenberg for a time with Martin Luther. A recent discovery confirms his time in Wittenberg even though he was attempting to hide there incognito. After some time there and many meeting with Luther, including time at the White Horse Inn where they would discuss theology and share a pint, he fled to Antwerp.

He finished his New Testament translation and was well on his way with the Old Testament, but spies and assassins who had been sent to eliminate him were hot on his heels.

As Tyndale smuggled New Testaments into England, they became hugely popular with the people but increased his position as a target of the Inquisition—the practice of torturing, consficating property, and killing those who strayed from the Catholic Church’s tenets. The Inquisition began in the 1100’s at the 2^nd and 3^rd Lateran Councils and fully inmplemented as official Catholic doctrine at the 4th Lateran Council in 1215 where torture and murder were made official doctrine by a so-called Christian Church continuing its hideous practices even until the late 1800’s. The early reform movement in France known as the Waldensians were its first mass victims.

Translating the Bible into the common tongue of the people was verboten and brought forth the Inquisition to those who attempted it:

Some reasons that the Catholic Church wanted the Bible kept in Latin and not translated in the common tongues of the people were:

• They could prevent the common man from knowing what was really in the Bible and thus always hold power and sway over him/her, keeping them dependent upon the priests and the man-made religious system they had created of masses and rituals. This brought in enormous amounts of money through things like indulgences, i.e. forgiveness for payment rendered.

• By keeping the Bible in Latin they made sure only certain high ranking clergy could read it—which they rarely did—but also false doctrines could be buttressed up by the inability of people to access the Word of God for themselves. The murky and largely inaccessible translation in Latin helped them keep false doctrines like penance and purgatory alive.

• One of the early insights by Martin Luther in Germany was the discovery of a purposeful mistranslation of Christ’s words by the Catholic Church where they had changed the word “repent” to “do penance.” As Luther looked deeper into the meaning he saw vast implications: Repent meant merely “to change your mind” meaning that you agree with God that you are a sinner who needs and accepts His work of redemption on your behalf. “Do penance” on the other hand, meant to seek to work off the payment of your sin through your own works and rituals and efforts – exactly what the New Testament itself condemned as a slap in the face to Christ’s work on the cross for us at Calvary where he paid for our sins once for all.

Tyndale’s Bible spread the Reformation even more as people got hold of Bibles in English. Sadly, the assassins eventually caught up to Tyndale who was betrayed by a so-called friend. On October 6, 1536, in the town of Vilvorde, Netherlands, William Tyndale was tied to a stake, strangled, and then burned at the stake for doing God’s work of translating the Bible into the language of the English people so they could read it for themselves.

He was condemned by reason of a decree made by the Ultra-Catholic Holy Roman Emperor Charles V—the same Emperor who Luther took his stand before during the Diet of Worms, in Germany in 1521 where he cried out: “I cannot and will not recant anything. For to go against Scripture and conscience is neither safe nor right.”

Luther had escaped the death sentence by being hidden in the Wartburg Castle—specifically where he had done his Bible translation work. Tyndale however, sealed his own faith and efforts with his own blood.

As time progressed Bloody Mary’s half-sister Elizabeth eventually took back the throne, deposing Mary. Elizabeth, as Queen of England, was much more sympathetic to Protestants.

With the more open environment, Tyndale’s Bible spread even further. Over time, the popularity of the Bible grew and different groups like the Puritans even published various commentaries in the margins of Bibles.

When Elizabeth died she had no heir—populary known as “The Virgin Queen” she had no one waiting to take the throne. In an ironic twist of fate, it was actually Bloody Mary’s nephew who we know as “King James” who eventually came to power and would publish an Authorized Version of the Bible.

Known both as James VI of Scotland and James I of England he saw the need for an authorized version of the Bible for the whole of England.

Quite ironically, it was specifically because he was the son of Mary Queen of Scots that James had been raised in Scotland.

In an interesting turn of events it was in Scotland that religious freedom had actually been attained sooner than in England. After the killing by the Catholics of Patrick Hamilton and George Wishart, two popular Protestant leaders and preachers who were martyred for their faith, a popular rejection of Catholicism began to arise in Scotland. In turn John Knox later arose and helped lead the Scottish Reformation as well as the development and formation of the Scottish Presbyterian Church.

When James I of England a.k.a. James VI of Scotland took the throne, he was undoubtedly more sympathetic to Protestants than his mother but still remained quite traditional in his religious views. Those with power and means often live above the fray of common sentiment.

Thus, the Puritans, though appreciative of him for producing the Authorized Version of the Bible a.k.a. the King James Version, still found themselves on the short end of the stick with religious freedom in England. Being still persecuted specifically because they were seen as too radical a Protestant group, the Puritans eventually made their way to the New World and the American Colonies with King James Bibles in hand.

King James had assembled 54 scholars who worked on an Authorized Translation, which they completed and released in 1611.

However, they had continually referred back to the amazing and groundbreaking work that Tyndale had done as their reference point and the literal foundation of their work, directly incorporating so much of his translation in their work that, according to most scholars, including well-known Tyndale scholar David Daniell, fully 90% of the King James Bible’s New Testament is actually William Tyndale’s work. The same goes for the Old Testament from Genesis to somewhere around the Psalms—as far as he got when he was killed.

Thus, William Tyndale, the outlaw, the refugee, the man who did not and would not submit to the authority of the Pope nor the King, but instead chose to “obey God rather than man” (Acts 5:29), is the true unsung hero behind the publication of the King James Bible. It cost him his fortune and his very life but he laid it all down to do God’s will. Even today, generations are still reaping the benefits of his sacrifice to Christ’s purpose and calling.

The King James Bible not only helped spread the knowledge of God’s Gospel of grace that was regained in the Reformation, but was also carried across the sea to the American colonies by the Puritans, helping to lay a foundation of biblical faith in the new world of America.

Not insignificantly, the King James Bible gave the English-speaking world a codified, coherent, and unified language and lexicon, as well as a little thing that helped change the western world called literacy, changing in fact the course of human history.

One thing that is often overlooked in this whole scenario is that the King James Bible, this historic translation of God’s Word, is a direct product of the Protestant Reformation.

A reformation that started with a simple monk named Martin Luther who was merely trying to find peace with God when he came into the revelation that Jesus had paid for his sins and he didn’t have to try and pay for them himself with works like prayer and fasting. Rather, just by faith, believe and receive what Jesus did for him on the cross…That revelation spread throughout Europe leading men like Tyndale to lay their lives down to reach others with God’s Word…Glory!!!

Today you have the Bible in your hands, which others have paid for with their very lives and blood: READ IT !!!

*Special Note: The preceding article contains what may be for some disturbing historical facts. However, for the sake of mere political correctness or sensitive religious consciences one cannot rewrite nor water down historical realities to fit the religious and sociological political correct pressures of our day. A more mild view of history may do that and curve to those pressures, but then an important ingredient called truth would be lost. And this, Jesus said, is what “sets us free.”