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Thanks to this scholarly martyr, we have the Bible in English.

by Bonne Steffen

Shopping for a new Bible? Your choices are mind-boggling. With all translations combined, the Bible continues to be a bestseller. Almost 500 years ago, thanks to William Tyndale, the Scriptures were translated and printed for the first time in English.

Born in 1484 in Gloucestershire, Tyndale grew up in a world that was growing larger. Explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama sailed to new lands while the invention of the printing press opened up mass communication. But it was also a period of corrupt popes and the Spanish Inquisition.

In 1510, Tyndale began his studies at Oxford, then Cambridge, where Erasmus taught Greek. Reading Erasmus's 1516 Greek New Testament, Tyndale's eyes were opened to the doctrine of justification by faith for the first time. Though he was ordained a Catholic priest in 1521, he immediately began challenging the teachings of the Church. Tyndale wanted nothing more than to translate the Scriptures into English so the common man could read it for himself.

In 1523, Tyndale sought permission and funds from the bishop of London to translate the New Testament. The request was denied. Tyndale took his project out of the country.

He traveled to Hamburg, Wittenburg, Cologne, and finally to Worms. There, in 1525, his New Testament emerged: the first translation from Greek into the English language. It was quickly smuggled into England, where it received a less-than-enthusiastic response from the authorities. King Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey, and Sir Thomas More, among others, were furious. A reign of persecution for the English Bible lovers—those who were printing it as well as those who were smuggling and reading it—began.

Authorities bought up copies of the translation (which, ironically, only financed Tyndale's further work) and hatched plans to silence Tyndale.

Meanwhile, Tyndale had moved to Antwerp, a city in which he was relatively free from both English agents and those of the Holy Roman (and Catholic) Empire. For nine years, he managed with the help of friends to evade authorities, revise his New Testament, and begin translating the Old.

During his time in Antwerp, Tyndale befriended Henry Phillips. What Tyndale didn't know was that Phillips was being paid by someone to betray him.

In May 1535, Phillips lured Tyndale away from the safety of his quarters and into the arms of soldiers. Tyndale was immediately taken to the Castle of Vilvorde, the great state prison of the Low Countries, and accused of heresy.

Trials for heresy in The Netherlands were in the hands of special commissioners of the Holy Roman Empire. It took 16 months for the law to take its course.

Finally, in early August 1536, Tyndale was condemned as a heretic, degraded from the priesthood, and delivered to the secular authorities for punishment under the laws of the Inquisition.

On October 6, 1536, Tyndale was brought to the cross in the middle of the town square and given a chance to recant. Refusing, he was given a moment to pray. English historian John Foxe said Tyndale cried out, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes!"

He was bound to the beam, and both an iron chain and a rope were put around his neck. Gunpowder was added to the brush and logs. At a signal, the executioner tightened the noose around Tyndale's neck and strangled him. Then the wood was set ablaze.

Tyndale's dream did not die with him. His work was picked up by two men—Miles Coverdale and John Rogers. The first complete English Bible had been printed almost exactly a year earlier, by Coverdale, using Tyndale's New Testament and Coverdale's Old Testament translation from German and Latin. In 1537, Rogers completed Tyndale's Old Testament work and issued The Matthew's Bible.

In 1539, three years after Tyndale's death, it seems like the translator's last spoken prayer was answered: Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, hired Coverdale at the bequest of King Henry VIII to publish the "Great Bible," the first English Bible authorized for public use.

Nearly a century later, when translators of the Authorized or King James Version debated how to translate the original languages, eight of ten times they agreed that Tyndale had it best to begin with. The King James Bible, published in 1611, contains about 60 percent of Tyndale's original translated text.

A Christian Reader original article.

Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine (formerly Christian Reader).
Click here for reprint information.

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