Tyndale was founded in 1962 by Kenneth N. Taylor in order to publish his paraphrase of the Epistles, which he had composed while commuting to work at Moody Press in Chicago.

[1][2] The book appeared under the title Living Letters, and received a television endorsement from Billy Graham.

This ensured the book's great success, and in 1971 Tyndale published Taylor's complete Living Bible.

Taylor named the company after William Tyndale, whose English translation of the New Testament was first printed in 1526.

While its predecessor, The Living Bible, was a paraphrase, the NLT is a translation that was created by a team of 90 Hebrew and Greek scholars.

Coverdale co-published a British edition of The Living New Testament with Hodder & Stoughton in 1974 and merged with another publisher, Victory Press, in 1977.