In imitation of Luther, William Tyndale boldly translated the New Testament into English in 1525; James I required no fewer than forty-seven experts arguing over every line to create the King James Bible in 1611. Behind these modern Bibles lay a world of uncertainty about biblical texts in ancient languages. In 1707, the Anglican theologian John Mill identified more than 30,000 variations in different versions of the New Testament—in Greek and Latin. No wonder Jefferson read a library of Bibles with scissors in hand! Yet could such rational exercises really shore up belief and dispel doubt? In the absence of a strongly Catholic tradition, with its accumulation of centuries of learned doctrine, authority and institutions offering the path to good answers to life’s questions, faith for many Protestants became increasingly grounded in a personal experience of God.