Miles Coverdale (1488-1568) was an English Bible translator. He was born in Yorkshire and studied philosophy and theology at Cambridge. He was ordained priest at Norwich in 1514 and then entered an Augustinian monastery. In 1528 he left the monastery to begin preaching and working on a translation of the Bible. In 1535 he published the first complete English translation, called the “Great Bible.” This was followed by a revision in 1540. The remainder of his life was eventful but did not have the same impact. Between 1543 and 1547 he served as a Lutheran minister in Strasbourg. As the Protestant bishop of Exeter, he was imprisoned by Queen Mary but escaped to Denmark. When he returned, during Elizabeth’s reign, he was not reinstated to the bishopric but, instead, spent most of the remainder of his life as a minister in London. His English translation was the first to contain the entire Bible and it laid the foundation for the subsequent work of translators.
