The 1560 Geneva Bible

THE GENEVA BIBLE was the Bible of the Protestant Reformation in Great Britain, and as such was the Bible of the Puritans and Pilgrims. It was the first Bible taken to America in 1607 for the founding of the first English Colony in Jamestown, Virginia, and it was also the Bible the Pilgrims brought with them to Plymouth, Massachusetts on the Mayflower in 1620. In fact, it was the Geneva Bible, not the King James Bible, upon which America's first English settlers relied. After all, most of the early English colonists, who were fleeing the religious oppression of the Anglican Church (Church of England), wanted nothing to do with the King James Bible that had become the official Bible of the Anglican Church.

Unique facts about the 1560 Geneva Bible

The Geneva Bible was itself the direct outcome of intense religious persecution perpetrated by a Catholic monarch. Its story begins in the year 1553 with the ascension of Mary Tudor (daughter of King Henry VIII) to the British throne. As Queen, Mary was committed to eliminating every vestige of the protestant reformation from England and restoring Roman Catholicism as the official religion of the realm.

Mary's reign was a time of such vicious and unrelenting persecution of all Protestants that it became known as the "Marian Persecutions" and in turn earned her the nickname "Bloody Mary."