Five hundred years ago, a forbidden book, a defiant queen, and a king’s desire collided to change the course of history and put the Bible into the hands of ordinary English speakers for the first time. In this episode of Wilderness Conversations, Peter Osborne unravels the extraordinary true story behind the 1526 English New Testament: how William Tyndale risked everything to translate Scripture from Greek, how Anne Boleyn, a continental-educated Reformation sympathiser branded “a Lutheran” by foreign ambassadors strategically influenced Henry VIII with Tyndale’s own writings, and how their combined legacies broke the Catholic Church’s monopoly on biblical interpretation. Both Anne and Tyndale were executed in 1536, yet just three years later, Henry decreed that an English Bible built on Tyndale’s translation be chained to every church pulpit in England. This is a tale of forbidden texts, political intrigue, and the printing press as a divine weapon – a story that asks: what would our faith look like today if the English Bible had remained illegal?
Peter Osborne lives in Brisbane, Australia, and is a member of the Christadelphian ecclesia that meets at Wilston.
At the recent Christadelphian Family Conference in Brisbane, a special Bible exhibition was held, featuring a series of public presentations that explored the remarkable history of the Scriptures. One of those presentations, “Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and the English Bible,” uncovered some of the fascinating and often lesser-known events that shaped the journey of the Bible into the English language.
Peter joins us today on Wilderness Conversations to explore this compelling story and the enduring legacy of those who risked everything to bring the Bible to the English-speaking world.
Peter joins us on Wilderness Conversations.
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