The Bible in English is so common nowadays for English-speaking people that it is sometimes surprising to consider how contentious, challenging and even dangerous it was for the first translators -- some of them died for their efforts. Their work and the work of those who followed have allowed English-speaking people throughout the world to hear, read and learn the scriptures.

People in the Episcopal Church in the United States, as well as Anglicans world-wide, are especially indebted to these people because so much of our worship tradition rests on the proclamation of scripture in public worship -- both in the Daily Offices and in the Eucharist. We will do well to appreciate a bit of the history of biblical translation and how reading of the Word of God in the vernacular is and has always been a fundamental part of our worship and thus our formation as Christians.

As stated in the preface to the 1549 Book of Common Prayer:

The people (by daily hearynge of holy scripture read
in the Churche) should continually profite
more and more in the knowelege of God,
and be the more enflamed with the love of his true religion.

 This website invites you to explore some of this history.

This website was developed as a project for the course History and Theology: Medieval and Reformation Christianity, Professor Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski, at The Church Divinity School of the Pacific - May 2008.