Reformation and New Worlds
Four crowded centuries, pillars 12 to 15, with inventions packed along the top. Follow the three yellow Bibles from left to right and watch Scripture move into ordinary hands.
The numbered pins of this stretch, walked in order, are in the book (pp. 102–103). Here you can zoom and explore it freely.
Three Yellow Books and a Press
A bearded man in red stands at a wooden press near the tall post marked 14, holding up a sheet he has just printed. Bring your eyes close and read it: “And there was light.” Adams could have put any words in Gutenberg’s hand. He chose a line from the first chapter of Genesis, and under the stream of time he adds the plain facts: born 1400, died 1468, “first movable types.” The first printing sits at about 1440. For a Bible reader, the four centuries on pp. 102–103 turn on that one sheet of paper.
Follow the Bible across the stretch and the crowded page falls into order. Near the top left an open yellow book stands between two large numbers. Its pages say the Bible was divided into chapters by Cardinal Hugo in 1227 and into verses by Robert Stephens in 1551, so those numbers belong to the book and are not century pillars. Slide right to the second yellow book, Wickliffe’s Bible, translated in 1380. The note under it, which Adams signs with his source, Hoyt, says it “existed only in M.S. for many years.” Its New Testament was first printed in 1731, its Old Testament in 1848.
Picture what that gap meant: for centuries an English Bible lived only in copies made by hand. Then the press arrives, and on the England stream, inside the box of Edward IV, Adams records it crossing the Channel: “Printing introduced in England 1471.” From here on a page could be printed again and again, and the Scriptures could reach homes that no hand-copied book would ever enter.
The world around the press is changing just as fast. Joan of Arc, “burnt May 31st 1431,” stands just left of Gutenberg. Columbus’ ship sails in under 1492, with Adams’ note that the first settlement, at Jamestown, came only in 1607. Copernicus’ sun and planets fill the sky nearby, and his bar ends in 1543. At the far left, King John “Lackland” has already granted Magna Charta in 1215.
Then Martin Luther stands at Worms in 1521, arms folded, in a monk’s dark robe. His red bar, straight below him, ends at 1546, and the same column after pillar 15 holds Erasmus, Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII: four lives running side by side. Over Henry’s box, where Adams numbers his six wives, a crown reads “Head of the Church 1534.” Henry’s quarrel with Rome was not Luther’s quarrel. Calvin is missing from this stretch; Adams lists him in his appendix (p. 112).
At the right edge a third yellow book closes the stretch, the Bishops’ Bible of 1568, over the box of Elizabeth, “daughter of Anne Boleyn.” It came after Tyndale, Coverdale, the Great Bible and Geneva. Just past the edge, on the next spread, another open book is waiting, and it carries the name of King James.
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”Psalm 119:105 · KJV
Think it through
Keep your Bible open. There are no wrong answers here; the worksheet in the free Companion gives you room to write.
- Chapter and verse numbers came over a thousand years after the Bible’s last book. How does that change the way you read a verse quoted on its own?
- For many years Wickliffe’s Bible existed only in handwritten copies. How did most people meet Scripture before 1440, and who could hold the lamp the psalm speaks of?
- Why do you think Adams put “And there was light” on Gutenberg’s page? What light does Scripture give that nothing else can?
- Luther’s great question was how a sinner is made right with God. Read Paul’s answer, then find Luther’s bar. What changed in Europe because of those verses?
- Luther, Erasmus, Wolsey and Henry VIII share one column. Each wanted something from the church. Which of their reasons were about God, and which were about power?
- Find “Printing introduced in England 1471” inside Edward IV’s box. How many years after Gutenberg’s 1440 is that, and what did it mean for English readers?
Find the white and the red rose on the England stream, left of the green box of Henry VII, with the words “York, white, to 1485. Tudor to 1603.” Which key tells you what changes at 1485, and what does it say?
Show the answer
Key 3 · A new color is a new ruler. The blue of Edward IV gives way, after Richard III’s thin band, to the green of Henry VII, the first Tudor; Adams notes the “30 years war of the White & Red Roses.”
The Word in Ordinary Hands
The three yellow books on pp. 102–103 tell a story Adams never puts into a sentence. The first gives the Bible its chapters and verses, the second puts it into English, and the third, in 1568, comes after a whole line of English Bibles: Tyndale, Coverdale, the Great Bible and Geneva. Between the second and the third stands a man at a press. Seen together, the row is about one thing, the Scriptures moving out of the few hands that could copy them and into the many.
The note under Wickliffe’s Bible is the hinge. Translated in 1380, it “existed only in M.S. for many years,” and Adams gives 1731 and 1848 for its first printings. For centuries, then, that English Bible lived only in handwritten copies. Once printing came, ordinary people could own a copy and test what he heard against it, the way the Bereans of Acts did when they searched the Scriptures daily to see whether Paul’s teaching was so.
That is why Luther’s place on the chart matters so much. His question, how a sinner is made right with God, was answered from the text itself, in words like Romans 1:17 and 3:28. A question like that could spread only where people could read the verses for themselves. On the same column Adams sets a king who made himself head of the church for reasons of his own, and the contrast teaches as much as any caption could.
There is a lesson here for a reader today, too. The chapter and verse numbers are a tool added late, a help for finding the place, not part of the text. Read a verse in its sentence and its chapter, the way the people who first held printed Bibles read them: slowly, as a whole, and with the expectation that God would speak.
Read and reflect
“These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”
What helps you check what you hear against the Bible, and how often do you do it?
“For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.”
Why do you think this one verse could change a whole column of Adams’ chart?
“Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”
What would you say to someone who believes they must earn God’s favor first?
Quiz: ten questions
Pick an answer to see whether it is right and why. Each explanation names the page of the book.
Read the whole chart, stretch by stretch
This site lets you wander; the book walks you through. All seventeen stretches on full spreads at 75% of the real chart, numbered pins explained in order, Adams' Six Keys on every page and a study page for every stretch. Large format, full color.