Tyndale Founder, Creator of The Living Bible, Dies

[The Straight Story]

ife Mission Was to Make Bible Accessible and Available to Everyone

Wheaton, Ill., June 10, 2005 (The Religion Wire™) — Tyndale House Publishers founder Kenneth Taylor, whose translation called The Living Bible helped millions of people discover they could read and understand Scripture, died today, Friday, June 10 at age 88 in his Wheaton home.

”Making Scripture accessible for all people was my father’s passion,” said his son and Tyndale President Mark Taylor. Many, many people have told him, ‘I became a Christian when I read The Living Bible,’ or ‘My first Bible was the green padded Living Bible.’ Even at 88 years old, his enthusiasm and fervor for his work never waned.”

Taylor founded one of the country’s largest Christian publishing houses, known recently as the publisher of the Left Behind series, and authored numerous children’s books. He is best known, however, as the creator of The Living Bible, a paraphrase of Scripture that was embraced by Billy Graham, and became the nation’s best-selling book for three years. To date it has sold more than 40 million copies. The Living Bible has also been accepted internationally, with portions or entire Bibles available in more than 100 languages.

The Living Bible was born out of Taylor’s deep desire for his ten children to understand God’s Word. He found the King James Version of the Bible -- the most commonly used translation at the time – especially difficult for his young children to understand.

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