Translation of the Bible during the Early Renaissance

Due to the influence of printing and demand for scriptures in the

vernacular, William Tyndale began working on the New Testament
translation from Greek to English in 1523. Because of political and
ecclesiastical pressures, the work could not be continued in England, so
the printing of his translation began in Cologne in 1525. Again due to
pressure by city authorities, it was published in Worms. Tyndale started
to work on the Old Testament translation, but it was captured in
Antwerp before it was completed, and he was executed at Vilvoorde in
1536. Tyndale’s greatest achievement was the ability to strike a
felicitous balance between the needs of scholarship, simplicity of
expression, and literary gracefulness, all in a uniform dialect.
The Bible translation by William Tyndale had begun when he was
arrested in 1535 only included the New Testament, the Pentateuch, and
a few historical books of the Old Testament. Using Tyndale’s work as his
starting point, Miles Coverdale stepped in and filled the gaps with his
translations based on the Vulgate and Luther's German Bible. He
published the complete English Bible in 1535 in Zurich. He made a fresh
translation of the New Testament three years later in 1538 based on the
Vulgate. In 1539, he helped put out the Great Bible, which was very
large. Its real significance is that it was licensed by King Henry VIII of
England, that a copy of the Great Bible should be placed in every church
in the country.