The king’s principal adviser, Thomas Cromwell, backed by Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, soon saw the need for a revised edition of Matthew’s Bible. So he again appealed to Coverdale to revise the complete manuscript. King Henry licensed this new version in 1539 and ordered copies of it​—called the Great Bible because of its size—​to be put in churches for all to read. This Bible was received with joyful enthusiasm countrywide.

Nonetheless, he did subsequently include God’s name, Jehovah, three times in the Great Bible.

Coverdale’s Great Bible “was the culmination of all the work in English Bible-making . . . from the day that Tyndale set about his translation of the New Testament,” says The Bibles of England. Essentially, it was Coverdale’s translation that helped to make it possible for English-speaking people of his day to read the Bible.