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The 14th Century English translation of the Bible which John Wycliffe inspired and organized was limited in its outreach. And although his translation did not achieve a reformation in England unaided, it did prepare many for the movement when it came a century later.

With the invention of printing around 1450 A.D., limited and costly handwritten manuscript copies of the Bible, as in Wycliffe’s day, were replaced with large editions of relatively inexpensive Scriptures. The Church could no longer contain the “heresies” of the Reformers. By 1500 A.D., printed texts of the Latin Vulgate Bible appeared, followed by printed translations of the Bible in German, Italian, Catalan and Czech. The Word in the people’s tongue was spreading.

Following the Renaissance, the publication of the entire Old Testament in Hebrew in 1487 and Erasmus’ edition of the Greek New Testament in 1516, the Reformation translations of Luther in German in 1522 and Tyndale in English in 1526 were based on the original languages rather than the Latin Vulgate version of the Church.

Luther’s translation became the model for translations by his followers into Danish, Swedish, Icelandic and Finnish. Tyndale’s translation began an era of intense translation and Bible publication that changed the course of English history. One version, the Geneva Bible, went through 200 editions, with one or more editions every year for 56 consecutive years.

The King James version in 1611 denominated the field for two and a half centuries and was the basis for the English Revised, the American Standard, and the Revised Standard Versions. Between 1611 and 1946 over 500 different translations of at least one book of the Bible have been published in English.

The enthusiasm for Bible translation started by the Reformation was confined largely to the languages of Europe. Of the 34 languages receiving translations in the next 275 years, threequarters of them were European. This, in spite of continued opposition from the Church. Luther was excommunicated, Tyndale forced to flee to the continent. The French, Spanish, and Portuguese Bibles had to be produced outside their home countries.

The Reformation failed to provide the missionary vision for translation into non-European languages. The Protestant churches were looking inward and settled down to enjoy the Word in their own languages. The majority believed that the Great Commission was for the First Century apostles only.

The era of exploration and colonialism during the 15th to 17th centuries was primarily an expansion of Roman Europe. The Catholic monastic orders, especially the Jesuits, were the missionizing force of the Church. Scripture use was limited to the clergy and in Latin. Translations of liturgical selections, such as the Lord’s Prayer, were made in some languages, but no translation of portions of Scripture is listed for Catholics before 1800 A.D.

Beginning in the 17th Century, Protestant European countries became involved in overseas expansion. The first translation of Scripture in a non-European language for the purpose of evangelism was Matthew’s Gospel in Malay, done by a director of the Dutch East Indies Company in 1629. The first entire Bible in a new language for missionary use was the work of John Eliot of England in the Massachusetts language of America in 1663. Ziegenbalg, a Danish missionary, translated the first Testament in a language of India in 1717.

But the Protestant emphasis in Scripture for the laity in their own language did not develop into aggressive pioneer translation into other languages until the believers of Europe awakened to their worldwide missionary responsibility.

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