Because the Bible could now be mass-produced the price of a copy was so low that the average man could afford having his own. Martin Luther and William Tyndale, who translated from the original languages, not merely from Latin, made the Bible easier to read. Tyndale used words that even ‘a boy that drives a plow’ could comprehend. Instead of “charity” he used “love”; instead of “church,” “congregation”; instead of “penance,” “repentance.” This helped to make the Bible live for the ‘man in the street.’

However, the fight against such Bibles was far from over. For decades after the first Bible began to be produced on the printing press in 1456, there was a virtual war to destroy copies in the vernacular. Tyndale’s Bibles were burned as fast as they could be confiscated by the bishop of London. So intent was he on destroying all of Tyndale’s Bibles that this cleric reportedly paid for copies so that he could burn them! On one occasion, through a friend, Tyndale sold him some defective copies and used the money to finish his revision. This resulted in a greater flood of his version into England!

For years, Tyndale was hunted down like an animal. Finally, he was betrayed and captured. His efforts cost him his life, as he was strangled and burned at the stake.

In England around 1382, John Wycliffe and his associates finished the first complete Bible in English.