The Enduring Word: From William Tyndale to the English Standard Version

This article is part of the ESV 25th Anniversary series.

Celebrating God’s Faithfulness

October 2026 marks a significant moment in the life of the ESV Bible and Crossway. Twenty-five years have passed since the ESV was first published in 2001, and, remarkably, as we reflect on this anniversary, the ESV has become, perhaps, the most widely distributed Bible in the world, with more than 369 million copies distributed worldwide. The recent success of the ESV would not have been imaginable in the early days of the translation work, or in 2001, when the first ESV Bibles were coming off the press, let alone in 1996, when a small group of Crossway employees committed to seeking the Lord’s leading during a season of prayer and fasting.

October also marks another even more significant anniversary—one that reaches back five centuries to the very beginning of English Bible translations: the 500th anniversary of William Tyndale’s New Testament.

And so as we commemorate these two important anniversaries, we celebrate God’s faithfulness in revealing himself to us through his God-breathed, inerrant Word and for his kindness in preserving the Scriptures for his people today. The Bible is a sacred treasure, containing the very words of God. This sobering reality means we must approach the publication of God’s Word with humility, awe, and reverence. Further, we must seek to make the Bible accessible to the entire English-speaking world. It was with this conviction that William Tyndale translated the Greek New Testament into English, and that conviction continues to guide Crossway today.

William Tyndale and the English Bible

William Tyndale (ca. 1494–1536) was born in Gloucestershire, England, during a time of very limited access to Scripture. He committed his life to making the Word of God available to ordinary people in their own language. In his now-famous proclamation, he declared that if God were to spare his life, he would cause “the boy that driveth the plow” to know more of the Scriptures than the learned clergy of his day.¹

In Tyndale’s lifetime, the Scriptures were limited primarily to Latin and were inaccessible to the common people. But Tyndale believed that God’s Word was meant to be read, heard, and understood—not hidden away. And so he committed himself to translating the New Testament directly from the Greek.

Tyndale’s resulting New Testament was a work of extraordinary brilliance, especially considering that it was done by a single man under continual threat. Tyndale possessed a masterful command of Greek, along with a sensitivity and gift for accurately expressing its meaning. His aim, however, was not for accuracy alone but for rendering the truth of God’s Word and the message of the gospel with beauty and clarity, in everyday language that ordinary people could understand.

And now, 500 years later, his words ring with familiarity. In many ways, Tyndale was not only translating the text but also helping shape the English language, establishing words like Passover and scapegoat, and carefully choosing English words and phrases that have endured in both Scripture and the wider language.

Tyndale’s work also came at great personal cost. He was pursued, betrayed, imprisoned, and eventually executed in the autumn of 1536. His final prayer, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes,” was soon answered, and amazingly, within a few years of his death, the king authorized the printing and distribution of Bibles throughout England.²

Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the ESV

As we commemorate the 25th anniversary of the ESV Bible and the 500th anniversary of William Tyndale’s New Testament, Crossway gives thanks for God’s faithfulness in preserving his Word across the centuries and for generations to come.

A Historic Stream

Tyndale’s New Testament stands at the fountainhead of a historic stream of English Bible translations. Reading the 1611 King James Version, one cannot help but notice its reliance on William Tyndale; indeed, more than eighty percent of the King James New Testament reflects his work. From the King James Version flowed the English Revised Version, the American Standard Version, the Revised Standard Version, and, finally, in October of 2001, the English Standard Version, with Dr. J. I. Packer serving as the general editor and Dr. Lane Dennis as the publisher.

The ESV Bible translation stands firmly in this classic stream, sharing much of Tyndale’s New Testament translation as well as his commitment to literary beauty, accuracy, and clarity. And now, 500 years later, Crossway seeks to carry forward Tyndale’s commitment to making the Bible widely accessible to the English-speaking world.

A Faithful Stewardship

When Clyde and Muriel Dennis founded Good News Publishers in 1938—during the hardships and despair of the Great Depression and the uncertainty of the war—they were driven by a desire to proclaim the gospel during a time of great need. Their vision was carried forward in 1978 by my parents, Lane and Ebeth Dennis, who, after spending time at L’Abri in Switzerland with Francis and Edith Schaeffer, founded Crossway with a commitment to publishing and distributing gospel-centered resources and to reflecting the lordship of Christ in all of life, marked by truth, beauty, and excellence.

One of my strongest memories growing up is of my father, Lane Dennis, the founder of Crossway and the original publisher of the ESV Bible, reading his Bible in the evenings while sitting in his well-worn navy leather chair, with his fingers in his ears to block out all distractions. My dad has always had a profound love for Scripture and a deep abiding appreciation for beauty and craftsmanship. Those two things were never separate in our home.

My parents’ and grandparents’ vision for publishing continues to guide us today as we seek to present the Scriptures with dignity and care. As Clyde Dennis often said, “The best message in the world is worthy of good design and typography.”

This commitment to excellence shapes everything we do, from editorial to design and production. Every Bible we publish is intended to reflect the beauty and authority of the words they contain. Beauty is more than ornamental. It has a theological purpose, pointing beyond itself to the God of beauty himself. Even in a fallen world, beauty bears witness to God’s glory.

With this conviction in mind, we are nearing the completion of a multiyear process focused on redesigning our Bible lines. Throughout this process, we have closely examined the typography, layout, and materials of each Bible, recognizing that each Bible serves a unique purpose. As such, each Bible has its own set of constraints and requires careful decisions regarding size, weight, paper thickness and opacity, portability, and cost. With each Bible, we seek to serve the reader by presenting the biblical text with clarity, care, and a measure of beauty appropriate for the format.

As a part of this effort, we have commissioned a custom typeface through the font foundry Enschedé, working with type designer Peter Matthias Noordzij, to create a font specifically optimized for Bible printing, so that readability can be preserved at small type sizes across more than a thousand pages printed on very thin paper. Our newly commissioned font builds on the legacy of Bram de Does, whose fonts Trinité and Lexicon set a standard for clarity, proportion, and durability in long-form reading. These are the primary typefaces we use in our ESV Bibles.

Every Bible we publish is intended to reflect the beauty and authority of the words they contain.

God Gives the Growth

In recent years, ESV Bible sales have increased significantly, having nearly doubled over the last two years, an encouraging reflection of God’s people reading his Word. More broadly, Bible sales across the industry have grown, even as the overall book market has remained relatively flat. This suggests that many people are asking deeper questions and, in that search, are turning to Scripture. Yet the explanation for such growth is ultimately found not in human effort but in God’s providence.

As the apostle Paul writes, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth (1 Cor. 3:6–7).”

In many ways, we are now reaping the fruit of seeds that were sown in faith by William Tyndale 500 years ago, seeds that have borne a great harvest for Christ and his kingdom. Our job now is to water, but we must remember that it is God who gives the growth.

Our aim is not only to produce Bibles with excellence but to ensure that God’s Word is made widely accessible. This conviction reflects William Tyndale’s desire that “the boy that driveth the plow” would be able to read and understand the Scriptures.

Each year, more than 22 million print copies of the ESV are distributed through Crossway and our ministry partnerships, most of which are given away, bringing the total to over 355 million copies distributed since the ESV was first published in 2001. Beyond print, approximately 8 billion chapters of the ESV are accessed each year, free of charge, in digital text and audio formats worldwide. Tracts also remain an important part of our publishing ministry, with more than 12 million distributed over the past year.

The Lord has also enabled a ministry of distributing Bibles and Bible resources through charitable giving. Through donor-funded efforts led by our Global Ministry team, over the past five years, we have provided more than 2 million print Bibles and gospel resources around the world—freely—to individuals and communities with limited access to Scripture. These efforts are made possible entirely through charitable support and reflect a basic conviction: that the Bible is not ours to keep but to share. Tyndale labored to place the Scriptures into the hands of ordinary people. In our own context, we seek to do the same, making the Bible as widely available as possible, in forms that can be read, heard, and understood.

Unlike many nonprofits that rely on donations to cover operational expenses, every dollar given to Crossway’s Bible distribution efforts goes directly toward placing resources into the hands of those who might not otherwise have access to God’s Word. And unlike most publishers, we are driven not by profitability but by a desire to serve the church and to support the spread of the gospel.

A good example of this is our current One Million Bibles: Global South Initiative, launched in November 2025 with a special focus on resourcing the Global South with God’s Word and building on the success of our initial One Million Bibles campaign which was launched in 2024 and recently completed.

William Tyndale New Testament, 500th Anniversary Edition

This commemorative New Testament edition marks the 500th anniversary of William Tyndale’s Bible translation. It features the original 1534 text and design, with modern spelling, updated typesetting, and decorative elements.

Celebrating God’s Faithfulness

This fall, we are celebrating God’s faithfulness in the life of the ESV Bible and are honoring these two significant anniversaries with the publication of two special editions: the William Tyndale New Testament, 500th Anniversary Edition and the ESV New Testament with Illuminated Drop Caps. These volumes highlight the connection between Tyndale’s work and the ESV and celebrate the enduring legacy of English Bible translation.

In addition to these special anniversary editions, we are pleased to introduce a newly developed cross-reference system for the ESV Bible. This has been a multiyear project, carried out in collaboration with a team of scholars and technologists with deep expertise in biblical studies, the original languages, and advanced data systems. The system carefully distinguishes between different kinds of connections within Scripture—such as direct references, important context, parallel passages, citations, and shared language or themes—so that each cross-reference serves a clear purpose. Designed with an emphasis on clarity, consistency, and theological usefulness, this updated system seeks to help readers better understand both the meaning of individual passages and the broader unity of Scripture.

We are also excited to release the ESV Symphony of Scripture, Gospel of John. As part of a larger project, featuring the full ESV Bible text scheduled to release in September 2027, our vision for the ESV Symphony of Scripture is that God’s Word will be proclaimed with beauty and excellence through an immersive Dolby Atmos surround sound audio listening experience, bringing together thoughtful narration, richly layered sound design, and a fully orchestrated musical score performed by more than 150 of the world’s best musicians, and shaped by careful exegesis and the unfolding narrative of Scripture. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). Thus, our prayer is that listeners will hear and receive the Word of God with clarity, reverence, joy, and faith as they engage more deeply with the meaning, beauty, and transforming power of God’s Word. With each of these projects, we seek to reflect Tyndale’s vision for making the Scriptures accessible to all people.

The Enduring Word

Five hundred years ago, William Tyndale gave his life so that the Word of God might be placed into the hands of ordinary people, even the plowboy. Twenty-five years ago, the ESV was published to continue that same work in our own generation.

Both anniversaries point to the same enduring reality:

The grass withers, the flower fades,
     but the word of our God will stand forever. (Isa. 40:8)

And so we give thanks for William Tyndale, for the generations of faithful translators who have followed in his footsteps, and for the privilege of stewarding the Scriptures today.

As we look ahead, we do so with dependence, trusting that the same God who has sustained his Word in English across five centuries will continue to make it known for generations to come. So let us again look to the Lord to lead us in the years ahead, and, Lord willing, over the next twenty-five years, as we seek to steward and carry forward the publication of the ESV Bible.

And may we do so, as the ESV preface reads, with this acknowledgment in mind:

We know that no Bible translation is perfect, but we also know that God uses imperfect and inadequate things to his honor and praise. So to our triune God and to his people, we offer what we have done, with our prayers that it may prove useful, with gratitude for much help given, and with ongoing wonder that our God should ever have entrusted to us so momentous a task. To God alone be the glory!

Josh Dennis
CEO and President, Crossway

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