[Alex Murphy]

Although his body was burned at the stake, Tyndale had unleashed an enormous demand for Bibles in “the vulgar English tongue.” A number of translations were printed, including the Bishops’ Bible and the immensely popular Geneva Bible, which was the Bible Shakespeare read and the Bible Puritans carried to New England....When James VI became king of all Great Britain and Ireland in 1603, he called a conference to try to settle differences between Anglicans and Puritans. Out of this conference came the decision to create a new translation of the Bible.

Related threads:
Wycliffe important in Protestant Reformation
The First Annotated English Bible
The Geneva Bible
A big 400th anniversary this year
Wycliffe Raises $250M for Last 2,000 Bible Translations
17th-century bible represents a period that changed history
Pride of place for controversial book discovered at historic site
William Tyndale A hero for the information age

[Campion]

in 1536 killed for the crime of publishing the New Testament in English

False. He was tried and convicted of heresy in Belgium. (The bill of indictment, IIRC, lists several charges, none of which are "published the New Testament in English". And why would people in Belgium care, anyway? They didn't speak English.)

Paradoxically, Tyndale took the Pope's side against Henry VIII over the question of the latter's marriage to Katharine of Aragon. Tyndale was hunted down and "fingered" to the Belgian authorities by an agent of a (by then) Protestant king.

[Lorianne]

When the King Saved God
An unbeliever argues that our language and culture are incomplete without a 400-year-old book—the King James translation of the Bible. Spurned by the Establishment, it really represents a triumph for rebellion and dissent. Accept no substitutes!

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/05/hitchens-201105

[Jedidah]

I visited Berkeley Castle a few years ago, the home of my English ancestors.

John Trevisa, an associate of John Wycliffe and one of the translators of Wycliffe’s bible (which pre-dated the King James by more than two centuries) was vicar at Berkeley in the late 1300s. He is later mentioned in the preface to the 1611 King James translation.

The molding that surrounds the Berkeley Castle chapel ceiling has the words of Revelation engraved on it, as Trevisa wrote them. What he did would have been punishable by death, even with the protection of Lord Berkeley.

These men risked their lives making scripture available to the common man. I felt both awe and great respect for them as I looked that the Berkeley ceiling. They deserve honor and gratitude.

[MrLee]

Languages evolve. Even English.

[headsonpikes]

For anyone sceptical of the centrality of the KJV to English literature I recommend this outstanding work of nodern scholarship:

http://northropfrye-thegreatcode.blogspot.com/

Even the unbeliever will be impressed.

[vladimir998]

Most influential book in history - the Vulgate

[ml/nj]

In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture is a good book for those interested in this topic. (Even though I disagree a bit about the KJV's effect on "fixing" the English language. It was the Oxford English Dictionary that had the greatest impact on fixing the language.)

ML/NJ

[fortheDeclaration]

Amen!

[fortheDeclaration]

A clergyman hopelessly entrenched in Roman Catholic dogma once taunted Tyndale with the statement, “We are better to be without God’s laws than the Pope’s”. Tyndale was infuriated by such Roman Catholic heresies, and he replied, “I defy the Pope and all his laws. If God spare my life ere many years, I will cause the boy that drives the plow to know more of the scriptures than you!”
http://greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/william-tyndale.html