4. The First Printed English Bibles
4
THE FIRST PRINTED ENGLISH BIBLES
Having realized the importance of translating the Bible into German, Martin Luther wasted no time in getting on with this task. In September 1522, Luther published his German translation of the New Testament. The work, which represented a translation directly from the original Greek into German, was elegantly produced at the press of Hans Luft in Wittenberg. It was a landmark in European religious history, and can be shown to have been of considerable importance in consolidating the progress of the Reformation in Germany. In the summer of 1523, the same press produced Luther's German translation of the Pentateuch—the first five books of the Old Testament.
There were many who cast admiring glances in its direction, and wondered if it might be possible to equal Luther's achievement in their own native languages. One such admirer was William Tyndale (1494–1536), now widely acknowledged as the most formative influence on the text of the King James Bible.