One book. One phrase. 500 years in the making. Come to Oxford and feel the light of Tyndale's words, half a millennium later.

TYNDALE500 : Let there be Light

Five hundred years ago, one book was smuggled, hunted and burnt. The words contained in this book changed the English language forever. This October, you can experience the drama for yourself.

TYNDALE500: Let There Be Light is a commemorative event marking half a millennium since William Tyndale's 1526 New Testament, the first English Bible translated directly from the Greek, printed in secret, smuggled into England, and burned in public for the "crime" of letting ordinary people read scripture in their own tongue. Held at Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford, this is an afternoon where music and the spoken word are woven together into a single, unbroken experience: Tyndale's own prose read aloud, framed by vocal and piano repertoire chosen to echo themes of light, sacrifice and courage, and building to the world première of a new original composition, Let There Be Light, written for this quincentenary and performed by Tyndale's own descendant: Jack Tyndale-Biscoe.

Why now? 2026 marks exactly 500 years since Tyndale's New Testament first reached English readers in 1526, a translation so impactful and so musical in its cadence that roughly four in five words of the King James Bible's New Testament remain his own, and phrases he coined ("let there be light," "the powers that be," "my brother's keeper," "fight the good fight") remain part of everyday English today.

Why Oxford? Tyndale studied at Oxford as a young scholar, and it was here that his gift for language began to sharpen into purpose. Corpus Christi College carries that story forward: in the years following the 1604 Hampton Court Conference, portions of the King James Bible, including the Book of Isaiah, were translated within the college itself.

Places are limited and offered on a complimentary basis. Reserve your ticket now to be part of a once-in-500-years afternoon.

Description supplied by the event organiser.