In 1525, William Tyndale was in Cologne in Germany and got caught trying to produce the New Testament in English. He managed to save the first part of the printed New Testament known as the Cologne Fragment, consisting of the first twenty-two chapters of Matthew's gospel, which were smuggled into England.
Therefore, Christmas 2025 marks the 500th anniversary of when ordinary people could read the Christmas narrative in plain English from a printed book. William Tyndale translated Matthew's gospel from Greek into straightforward English, which is still remarkably understandable today.
The Tyndale Society has provided the Christmas narrative from Matthew 1:18 to 2:23 from Tyndale's Cologne Fragment which included most of Matthew. It starts "The byrthe of Christ was on this wyse..." You can use this in your church or for personal devotions. One copy is printed with its original spelling and the other with modernised spelling. The verse numbers (which were not part of the original) have been added for convenience. It also includes Tyndale's original cross-references and marginal notes.
These resources are free to download and use. Please click on the appropriate button below to view or download these documents (in Portable Document Format).
Happy Christmas!