2026 is the 500th anniversary of the first New Testament in Swedish. This is the story …
Summary
This year marks the 500th anniversary of the publication of “Thet Nyia Testamentit på Swensko” (The New Testament in Swedish), which was the first complete New Testament printed in the Swedish language.
The book helped lay the foundations of the modern Swedish language, accelerated the spread of the Reformation, and contributed to the emergence of Sweden as a unified nation.
Five centuries later, churches, scholars and Christian organisations across Sweden have been marking the anniversary with services, exhibitions, concerts, lectures and new publications celebrating the enduring legacy of the translation.
Reformation Background
In 1516, Erasmus published the first printed edition of the Greek New Testament, allowing scholars to work directly from the original Greek rather than relying primarily on the Latin Bible used in Western Europe for centuries.
On 31 October 1517, the Reformation started when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg. Over the following years, the combination of the Renaissance, the printing press and the Reformation led to a market for the Scriptures printed in the languages spoken by ordinary people, rather than Latin.
Luther printed the New Testament in the German language in September 1522, which was followed by printed New Testaments in French and Dutch in 1523, and Danish in 1524.
Scholars from different European countries went to Wittenberg University to study Lutheran ideas and learn Greek and Hebrew under Philipp Melanchthon. Among them were the brothers Olaus and Laurentius Petri from Sweden and William Tyndale from England. The two Petri brothers returned to Sweden, preaching justification by faith and the authority of Scripture.
The Reformation in Sweden
King Gustav Vasa had become King of Sweden in 1523. He was the first king of Sweden as a country independent from the Kalmar Union, which had hitherto united the Scandinavian lands under one ruler. King Gustav Vasa ruled at about the same time as King Henry VIII in England, and they had many things in common in connection with the Reformation.
King Gustav Vasa was surrounded by influential men, many of whom were sympathetic to Luther’s ideas and sought ecclesiastical reform. In this context, the New Testament was commissioned to be translated into Swedish.
Translating the New Testament
Sweden was not the first country in Scandinavia to achieve a New Testament. The New Testament had appeared in the Danish language in 1524 at the initiative of King Christian II. It was printed in Wittenberg, and Martin Luther even wrote a preface for it. Copies started to circulate in Sweden, but it was criticised for being a rushed job. Nonetheless, that publication stimulated interest in producing a better translation in Swedish.
The Swedish translation was produced under official ecclesiastical and royal authority at the urging of King Gustav Vasa. The project was officially initiated through a letter issued on 11 June 1525 by Archbishop-elect Johannes Magnus, who invited cathedral chapters and religious communities to assist in translating portions of the New Testament, although work may well have already started.
The translation has traditionally been attributed to Olaus Petri, who played a leading role in its production, but it was likely a collaborative project involving several translators and an editor.
The text of the New Testament was translated largely from Erasmus's Latin translation, with reference to Luther's German New Testament of 1522 and Erasmus's Greek New Testament. Luther's German New Testament also served as a model and inspiration.
The Swedish edition adopted a similar layout to Luther’s New Testament and translated many of Luther's prefaces and marginal notes, but avoided Luther's more overtly anti-Catholic comments.
Printing the New Testament
King Gustav Vasa confiscated the cathedral printing press in Uppsala and had it transferred to Stockholm. He now had a printing press, but his reforming advisers needed an experienced printer capable of producing a large, high-quality New Testament.
The best expertise available to Sweden at the time came from the German Baltic printing centres, especially the Hanseatic Baltic port of Lübeck in northeastern Germany, which was not far across the Baltic Sea from southern Sweden.
In 1525, the German printer Jürgen Richolff the Younger was brought from Lübeck to Stockholm, and he arrived with new typefaces and the latest professional printing skills. The printing of the New Testament was supervised directly by Olaus Petri, the leading Swedish reformer and one of the principal translators.
The New Testament was printed with the title “Thet Nyia Testamentit på Swensko” (The New Testament in Swedish), and the first copy was published on 15 August 1526. It was the Swedish Authorised Version, and the Swedish king's coat of arms appears on the final printed page.
About a thousand copies of the New Testament were printed, which was enough to supply a copy to every Swedish-speaking parish priest in Sweden and Finland, with some copies left over.
Other works printed there in 1526 and 1527 included writings by Olaus Petri, such as his devotional book “En nyttig undervisning” (A Useful Instruction), “Svar på ett okristligt sändebrev” (Reply to an Unchristian Letter) and “Svar på tolv spörsmål” (Reply to Twelve Questions), the last of which was strongly polemical against Catholic teaching.
Later Reforms
A year later, in 1527, there was the Diet of Västerås, which is regarded as the beginning of the Swedish Reformation. At the Diet of Västerås, the crown gained control of much church property and income. Bishops lost much of their political and economic power, and the king asserted authority over the church. At the same time, the programme called for biblical preaching, and so the new translation was important in spreading evangelical ideas.
In 1529, the Örebro Synod adopted a gradual approach to reform. It decreed that sermons were to be based on Scripture alone and that preaching had to be supervised to ensure it was biblical. Saints’ days were reduced, and pilgrimages, relics and statues were retained, but people were taught not to regard saints or relics as channels of grace. In 1531, Laurentius Petri was appointed Archbishop of Uppsala without papal approval.
Church of Sweden
Like Henry VIII in England, King Gustav Vasa oversaw the creation of a national Church, which broke away from Rome in 1536. Also like Henry VIII, he became rich by confiscating Church property and subordinated the church to royal authority. The Church of Sweden was created along Lutheran lines, and, like the Church of England, it kept bishops, church buildings, vestments and ceremonies. The final settlement did not come until the Uppsala Synod of 1593, which formally adopted the Augsburg Confession to establish Sweden as a Lutheran state.
The Swedish Bible
Richolff returned to Lübeck after the New Testament was published, but came back to Sweden in 1540 to print the completed Swedish Bible in 1541, consisting of the Old Testament, the Apocrypha and a revised edition of the New Testament. According to the preface of the 1526 New Testament, the translators had hoped that the full Bible would appear much sooner. The 1541 Bible became the standard text for worship, preaching and education.
Although there are now many translations of the Bible into modern Swedish, many Swedish Christians still say the Lord’s Prayer in the traditional form found in the 1526 New Testament.
Birth of Modern Swedish
The 1526 Swedish New Testament helped to standardise the Swedish written language and marks the transition from Old Swedish to Early Modern Swedish (Nysvenska). It was the first Swedish text to be printed and distributed and so helped standardise spelling and vocabulary, and brought biblical expressions into everyday Swedish. Many phrases that remain familiar today entered Swedish culture through the New Testament, much as Tyndale's translation shaped English idiom.
Adoption of the letter å
The Swedish New Testament helped establish the use of the letter “å”. In mediaeval orthography, it was common to put the letter “o” over a letter, called a ring or overring, to indicate a long rounded sound. The letter å was used in the Swedish New Testament instead of “aa” to save space. The letter å has since been adopted into Norwegian in 1917 and Danish in 1948. This symbol is also found in Czech over the letter u, where the letter ů is used instead of “uo”.
Celebrating 500 Years
The anniversary of the Swedish New Testament is being marked throughout 2026 by a series of national events and exhibitions organised by churches, universities and Christian organisations such as the Swedish Bible Society. The main central celebration took place in Stockholm on 15 August to mark the 500th anniversary of the original printing, with cultural events and an ecumenical thanksgiving service in Stockholm Cathedral (Storkyrkan).
Five hundred years after the Swedish New Testament rolled off a printing press in Stockholm, its position in Swedish history and language is similar to that of Tyndale’s New Testament in England.
