The Matthew's Bible brings together the work of two giants of sixteenth century English Bible translation. William Tyndale and Myles Coverdale shared a vision of making the scriptures available to ordinary believers concerned that their authority might be undermined in a time when kings and clerics alike opposed translating them into English. William Tyndale's New Testament (1526) was the first English translation made from the original language, and it made the most of the emerging English tongue. Knowing neither Hebrew nor Greek, Myles Coverdale consulted Latin, English and German sources to guide his work. The vocabulary of Tyndale, John Wycliff, and other appears in the Coverdale Bible (1535), which was the first complete Bible in English. John Rogers combined Tyndale's and Coverdale's texts -- supplying some translation work of his own -- to create the Matthew's Bible. In was attributed to a fictitious "Thomas Matthew," concealing the inclusion of Tyndale's text so King Henry VIII would license the volume's publication. So popular became the Matthew's Bible that bishops were encouraged to order copies for their parishes. This book is a facsimile of one of the finest existing copies of the Matthew's Bible. It features clear, legible type and faithfully reproduced, color pages with a new introduction by Dr. Joseph W. Johnson. -- Back cover