Did you know… John Wycliffe

It’s rather easy for us to forget that some things very familiar and obvious to us are not so widely known. So we’re going to start a regular ‘did you know’ section to our newsletter, so you can show off to your friends be well informed.

Did you know, that…

Wycliffe Bible Translators is named after the Yorkshire-born Oxford scholar John Wycliffe. He was born about 700 years ago and has been considered a forerunner of the European reformation. He translated the Bible into English, but since the printing press hadn’t been invented (in Europe) yet, every copy needed to be painstakingly hand-copied. And very few English-speaking people knew how to read or write any language at that time! So Bible translation, preaching and literacy needed to go hand in hand. It’s still true today. But publishing is considerably easier!