THE BIBLE INTO ENGLISH: WILLIAM TYNDALE

As we have seen in previous blogs, the Bible was first written in Hebrew and Greek between about 1000 B.C. and 100 A.D. In 410 A.D. the Bible was translated into Latin by St. Jerome because the Western (Roman) Catholic Church was speaking Latin.

However, Latin soon fell out of use in Europe and England so brave scholars like John Wycliffe began to translate the Bible into English so people could read and hear the Bible in their own tongue. As you recall, after his death, he was declared a heretic in 1435 A.D. and his body was exhumed and burned and the ashes thrown into the River Swift.

The next big step forward in translating the Bible into English was taken by William Tyndale in 1526 – 1530 A.D. He translated the New Testament from the original Greek and parts of the Old Testament from Hebrew. Because of the opposition of Church authorities, Tyndale went to Germany to consult with Martin Luther, the great reformer, and to compare his work with Luther’s German New Testament printed in 1523 A.D.

Tyndale, a priest and scholar of Cambridge University, was skillful in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English and French. People commented that whichever language he speaks “you would think it his tongue!” Between 1526 and 1530 A.D., 18,000 copies of his English New Testament were printed. However, in 1830, Tyndale’s original manuscripts were lost in a shipwreck. But his friend and fellow scholar, Miles Coverdale, helped him make new manuscripts.

But Tyndale was bitterly opposed by Church authorities for translating the Bible into English. A priest said to Tyndale, “we were better without God’s law (i.e., the Bible) than the Pope’s, (i.e. Church Law and Tradition).”

Tyndale replied: “I defy the Pope and all his laws, and if God spare my life, ere many years, I will cause a boy who driveth the plow shall know more of the scriptures than thou dost.”

So in 1532 A.D., 50,000 of Tyndale’s New Testaments were published in England. But in 1531 A.D., Sir Thomas More called Tyndale a “beast discharging a filthy foam of blasphemies out of his brutish, beastly mouth.” More continued his tirade calling Tyndale “a shameful, unreasonable, railing ribald,” a “hellhound” fit for the “hogs of hell to feed upon,” and More said Tyndale was the son of the devil himself!

So on October 6, 1536 A.D. Tyndale was tied to the stake to be burned as a heretic. He was strangled first by the hangman, and just before losing consciousness, Tyndale cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.”

That prayer was answered in 1611 A.D. in the new King James translation of the Bible. Much of Tyndale’s Bible was incorporated in the King James Version because Tyndale’s work was of such “high literary merit, in the rhythmical beauty of his prose, skillful use of synonyms for freshness, variety and point, and magical simplicity of phrase.” His diction became “the consecrated dialect of English speech.” And he rightly is called “The Father of the English Bible.”