William Tyndale

Yesterday was the feast day of William Tyndale, an Anglican priest, born in 1495. He's noteworthy for two reasons. First, soon after become a priest in 1521, he became obsessed with the notion of translating the Bible into English. This was not a popular idea. Christians were not allowed to read the Bible in any language other than Latin. Which, of course, meant most didn't read it at all. The typical parish church didn't possess a Bible in any language, and in those that did, any reading of it publicly was in Latin.

Tyndale strongly believed everyone had the right to read it and in an argument with another priest who opposed him, he said, "If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost." Earlier Wycliff had produced a handwritten translation based on the Latin Vulgate, but Tyndale worked from the much superior Greek and Hebrew manuscripts to produced his. His New Testament was printed in Germany where he was in exile, and was smuggled into England where it was received with great enthusiasm.

Tyndale's translation introduced new words and phrases into the English language which were subsequently used in the King James Version and continue to be used today. Examples include, Jehovah, Passover, scapegoat, and phrases such as "let there be light," "The powers that be," "My brother's keeper," "the salt of the earth," "The spirit is willing," and "Fight the good fight."

Tyndale was also a vocal critic of the Catholic Church. While he was distressed over many of the typical abuses of his time, he also taught, wrote about, and preached about a new concept: salvation as a gift of God. Much as Luther was also teaching, Tyndale asserted that no good works on a human's part would gain a person salvation. Salvation came by grace. It was this teaching that eventually resulted in his death.

While living in Belgium and working on his Old Testament translation, he was betrayed to the authorities by a person he had befriended. He was arrested, tried for heresy, and sentenced to die by fire. At his execution, in an act of mercy the executioner strangled him prior to lighting the fire. But Tyndale revived long enough to say, "May God change the King's heart."

Two years later, Henry VIII did have a change of heart. Mile Coverdale took Tyndale's work and did some revisions. The resulting Bible was published under someone else's name and it was ordered by the King that every parish church have a copy. On the first day a copy was available in England, people took turns reading it aloud all day long to hungry souls. As a result of Tyndale's dedication and persistence, our religious lives have forever been enriched.

Peace,

Jerry+