∑ William Tyndale – “The Translator”, (October 1484 - October 6, 1536)

William Tyndale was born in October 1484, probably in the village of North Nibley,near Slimbridge about the borders of Wales. Details of his early years, his education, his family background and the other influences on him remain unknown,and probably unknowable. Indeed, we have to wait eighteen years before reliable facts become available in the registers of Magdalen College Oxford. Young William began studying at the University, at Magdalen College in Oxford England at the age of 12. Master Tyndale took his BA on July 4, 1512. After four more years William took his MA. Tyndale departed from Oxford in 1516 for Cambridge. He went there for what he terms ‘scriptural reasons’, say ‘doctrinal reasons’, for Cambridge was associated with Lutheranism in a way that Oxford was not.

Indeed, we cannot travel to the England of some five hundred years ago without noticing many marked differences from the England we know nowadays. It is a land in which there is gross ignorance; illiteracy is the rule and not the exception. It is a land dominated by a Church which owned at least one quarter of the nation's wealth. It was a nation in which the ratio of clergy to laity was something like 1 to 125. Theology was still the queen of sciences and academics were in the main clergy. There was a questioning spirit in the air. New learning and new questions were being explored by both humanists and reformers. The clergy were criticized by many,whether fairly or not, both for their lifestyles and for their lack of education.

Above all the discovery of the printing press just a few years earlier was bringing about a revolution which would mould the modern era. The printing press was first on the scene just 22 years before Tyndale’s birth, the city of Mentz was invaded and the knowledge of printing could no longer be kept a secret by its founders. Gutenberg had died only 16 years before Tyndale was born.Only eight years before Tyndale’s birth, a printing press had been set up in England by William Caxton. By Tyndale’s birth, printing presses had been set up in more than 120 cities of Europe. By the time Tyndale was 32 years old, the Greek New Testament had been printed.

Tyndale believed that one key to true reformation lay in the wider accessibility of the scriptures. At Oxford Tyndale first began to explore the ideas which were to lead initially to his life's work and eventually to his death. To use his own picturesque language. Tyndale's oft-quoted words to a learned cleric: ‘If God spare my life ere many years, I will cause a boy that drives the plough shall know more of the scriptures than thou dost.’

Scripture ‘maketh a man's heart glad
and maketh him sing, dance and leap for joy.’

He left the intellectual life of the university town for the sleepy village of Little Sodbury Manor where he became tutor to the two boys of Sir John Walsh a ‘Knight of Gloucestershire’ and Lady Walsh. Walsh was a famous warrior who had been knighted as the king’s champion at the coronation of Henry VIII. Tyndale remained with this household for about two years. His great work was formed within him as the quietness and space of the manor house gave him room to study and translate the text of the New Testament. However, he was not entirely a recluse. Tyndale, who was about 36 years old when he came to Sodbury Manor, preached in open-air meetings as well as in homes in the villages nearby, and he debated with the local Catholic priests. Every week he traveled thirteen miles to Bristol to preach in the open air to the crowds who gathered on College Green, close to the present Cathedral.

Tyndale’s Attempt to Translate the Scriptures in England
A few years in Little Sodbury was enough to prepare him for the next step -to set about getting the Bible to the common people of the land. England had been very slow to have a Bible freely available compared with the rest of Europe. Tyndale traveled to Europe in January 1524 to complete his masterpiece for the English-speaking world. The need for a translation of the Bible was apparent to many but little had been done about it officially. He was, of course, ideally equipped to take on the challenge. His outstanding command of languages was admired by his contemporaries. Buschius, one of the scholars who contributed to the ‘Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum’ referred to him as‘an Englishman who is so skilful in seven tongues, Hebrew, Greek, Latin,Italian, Spanish, English, French that whichever he speaks you think it is his native tongue.’ It is odd that he did not add German as well.

But,skill in linguistics alone is not enough to make a skilled translator. What made Tyndale so remarkable was the quality of his translation. He benefited,of course, from the pioneering work done both by Erasmus on the Greek text and Luther in his German translation but, although Tyndale made considerable use of them, his translation remains distinctively his own. What he produced,at prodigious speed, was not only a translation that was a work of scholarship but also a marvelous piece of written English. It was therefore incumbent to make the Bible intelligent for people. Tyndale's passion was for scripture to speak to the soul. His knowledge of ordinary people and his ear for the cadences of language enabled him, like Shakespeare some several decades later,to produce a prose that was beautiful, poetic and vigorous.
It was part of his genius too, to invent new words when there was no adequate English equivalent available. Take for instance the concept of ‘reconciliation’.It was Tyndale who, having dismissed the other options available, coined the word ‘Atonement’ to do justice to the great act of God in making us ‘atone’ with him.

Rome was directly connected, then, with the persecutions against this noble translator from beginning to end. Tyndale’s views on the sole authority of Scripture and his bold exposure of Rome’s errors soon drew the ire of the Catholic authorities. In 1522, the 38-year-old Tyndale was brought before the Chancellor Thomas Parker, to answer for his "heretical"opinions. The Cardinal who had appointed this Chancellor was none other than Thomas Wolsey, who had been appointed Cardinal by Pope Leo X, and who would continue to persecute God’s people throughout his life.

Even after his confrontation with the authorities, Tyndale attempted to make his translation in England. Tyndale himself required a patron not only wealthy enough to sustain the enterprise but also with the authority to give permission for the task. In 1525 he journeyed to London and presented his plan before Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of London. Tunstall was a learned, cultured and gentle man who had already assisted Erasmus with the second edition of his Greek New Testament ten years earlier. It seemed a reasonable thing to approach such an enlightened man. For whatever reason, he refused his help.

Tyndale quickly found that it would be impossible to complete his project in England because of the oppression against the Word of God during the reign of Henry VIII. He left determined to complete his translation outside of England.He could not have known, though he might have suspected, that he would never return to his beloved native land. He would be exiled for 12 years and then put to death for his great work. He was pursued by unscrupulous enemies,drawn into an unhelpful debate with one of the greatest men of the age, Sir Thomas More, and eventually betrayed by a friend. His gruesome death was as heroic as his life.

A Catholic spy named John Dobneck, better known as Cochlaeus, a man who was a bitter enemy of Martin Luther and the Protestant movement, learned about Tyndale’s efforts to contract a first printing of his New Testament in Cologne. Cochlaeus "was perhaps the most virulent enemy to the Word of God being translated into any vernacular tongue, who ever breathed. He not only strove to prevent the diffusion of the Scriptures,and longed to strangle every attempt at their translation in the very birth,but even gloried in his enmity to all such proceedings."

Tyndale Completes the New Testament

Tyndale had his translation of the New Testament ready for the printer in Cologne by 1525. Cochlaeus learned exactly where the 3,000 copies of Tyndale’s first printing were being completed and made ready for clandestine transport to England. Hastening to make use of this information, Cochlaeus reported this to the authorities, which forbade the printers to proceed with the work. Tyndale and the man who was helping him at that time, William Roy, being forced to flee were able to get away with most of the completed sheets; and,they escaped by boat up the Rhine river to the city of Worms, where the printing was completed. The first copies of the Tyndale New Testament arrived in England in the dead of winter, in January 1526.

Being foiled of his plan, Cochlaeus then sent a description of Tyndale’s translation to religious leaders in England that they might guard against its importation. He carefully described the format of the copies he had seen at the printers before Tyndale made his escape, and urged the authorities to be on the lookout for these. Wisely,though, Tyndale set about to print yet another edition, which was issued before the first printing was completed. That second printing, which was probably sent to England before the first, was made in a format significantly smaller than the first, to more easily avoid detection. Almost immediately copies began to be smuggled into England from the Continent, hidden in bales of merchandise.

After that, Master Tyndale took in hand to translate the Old Testament, finishing the five books of Moses, with sundry most learned and godly prologues most worthy to be read and read again by all good Christians. These books being sent over into England, it cannot be spoken what a door of light they opened to the eyes of the whole English nation, which before were shut up in darkness.

At his first departing out of the realm he took his journey into Germany, where he had conference with Luther and other learned men; after he had continued there a certain season he came down into the Netherlands, and had his most abiding in the town of Antwerp.

Persecutions Begin in England and the Destroying Tyndale’s New Testament
Catholic authorities in England forbade Tyndale’s translation; those who attempted to distribute copies were hounded and persecuted; and stacks of the printed copies were burned. Cardinal Wolsey was actively employed in hunting down and burning the "heretical" books that were pouring into England. At Cambridge,too, and in London, secret search was made for books and Scriptures, and those found were instantly apprehended, together with their owners. Spies were appointed to locate Bible lovers. On February 11, 1526, the first pile of Scriptures and theological books was burned in London, under the approving eye of that aspiring pope, Cardinal Wolsey. That same year William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Cuthbert Tunstall Bishop of London, also denounced Tyndale’s New Testament and condemned copies to the flames. During 1526 and1527, the authorities arrested and tormented many Bible readers. "Public Registers are filled with these cruel depositions.

"The fierceness and destructiveness of the opponents of Tyndale’s translation systematically followed up and destroyed the thousands of copies that had been widely sold through England and Scotland" (Price, The Ancestry of Our English Bible,pp. 247,48). This hatred of Tyndale’s Bible was so aggressive and thorough that though thousands of copies were printed (Simms says no less than 18,000 between 1525 and 1528), only ONE complete copy. [The recent acquisition by the British Library of the only extant complete copy of Tyndale's 1526 Worms Bible was acquired for a mere one million pounds] and ONE partial copy,and ONE fragment of the first edition are known to be in existence today.

Not being satisfied with the destruction of Tyndale’s New Testaments in England itself, Wolsey and others resolved to search for books in Europe. In February 1526, Henry VIII and Wolsey addressed letters to various authorities in Antwerp,asking them to pursue and destroy all copies of Tyndale’s New Testament. Princess Margaret of Antwerp "pointedly commanded her officers to search the country for these books, intending to proceed in all rigors against those whom they found culpable". In 1528 the Catholic authorities in England made alliance with their fellow persecutors on the Continent to arrest the men who were printing and selling the English New Testaments.

Attempts to Arrest Tyndale

In December 1529, a committee of bishops was appointed to deal with "heretics"and their books. A proclamation was issued throughout the land. About then,attempts began to be made by English authorities to arrest Tyndale and other men connected with the printing or importation of Scriptures. These attempts were increased in 1531, at which time King Henry VIII was fiercely desirous of capturing Tyndale. Various individuals were commissioned to seize the Translator, or to attempt to entice him back to England.

In 1530 one of the bitterest foes of the English Scriptures died. This was Cardinal Wolsey. He was put to death for treason, a charge probably well deserved from a political viewpoint, but unquestionably deserved from a spiritual viewpoint, as he had certainly committed treason against the Word of God. With his dying lips he continued to spew forth hatred toward those who loved the Bible, requesting the king to be vigilant against the "heretics" which had begun in the days of John Wycliffe and John Oldcastle and were overrunning the country in his day. Persecutions continued in England in 1530-32. Great numbers of men and women were arrested for possessing Tyndale’s New Testament and other Scriptures and Gospel books.

On March 26, 1534, the English Parliament renounced all dependence upon the "Court of Rome." The long expected break with the pope was finally made, though King Henry VIII never turned from Catholic doctrine. After this, the persecutions continued and even increased, but they changed character somewhat. Before the watchword was heresy. Now it was treason.

The persecutions also continued in Scotland in these days.On August 27, 1534, David Stratoun and Norman Gourlay were burned in Fife,Scotland, for their faith in the Word of God. In June 1535, THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT DECLARED THAT ALL PERSONS POSSESSING NEW TESTAMENTS OR "HERETICAL"BOOKS" MUST "DELIVER THEM UP TO THEIR ORDINARY WITHIN FORTY DAYS, under the penalty of confiscation and imprisonment". .). In May 1536, "THE READINGOF THE SACRED VOLUME IN THE ENGLISH TONGUE WAS PUBLICLY PROHIBITED."

Tyndale Is Betrayed and Arrested

As early as 1527 Tyndale stated that he knew his enemies would be satisfied with nothing less than his life, if God allowed it. As it turned out, it was God’s will for the faithful translator to give his life as a testimony for Christ and for His Word. William Tyndale was betrayed to his enemies in May 1535, in Antwerp, by Henry [also called Harry] Phillips, a man pretending to be his friend, and by Gabriel Donne, a Catholic monk who was posing as Phillips’ servant.

For sixteen months the godly Bible translator remained in the cold, lonely prison. This encompassed one long winter. He was imprisoned at Vilvorde, near Brussels, for all of the sixteen months. Though Tyndale was bound, the Word of God was not. Even during his imprisonment, three editions of his New Testament were printed, as well as editions of some of his books.

The imprisoned Tyndale was convicted of heresy by the Romanist authorities under the laws of the Inquisition and condemned to die. We do know that Tyndale was condemned and burned on the authority of the Roman Catholic clergy. At last, after much reasoning, when no reason would serve, although he deserved no death, he was condemned by virtue of the emperor's decree, made in the assembly at Augsburg.

On the morning of October 6, 1536, he was brought forth or led to the place of execution. He was tied to a stake, strangled by the hangman, then consumed with fire [burned] at the town of Vilvorde. At his death crying at the stake with a fervent zeal, and a loud voice Tyndale prayed, "Lord, open the king of England’s eyes."

Hall’s Chronicle of 1548 contained the following information: "This year in the month of September William Tyndale otherwise called Hitchens was by the cruelty of the clergy of Louvain condemned and burned in a town beside Brussels in Braband called Vilvorde"(Westcott, History of the English Bible, p. 172).

The death of Tyndale did not stop the persecutions in England or the efforts of the authorities to destroy the Bible believers and their books. Two years later, Tyndale’s former associate, John Lambert, was executed at Smithfield in England for maintaining the same doctrinal positions as Tyndale.

The year 1546 was also that in which Anne Askew became "the first female martyr of rank or family, tormented and burnt to ashes, for no alleged crime, save steadfast adherence to the truth of Scripture" (Anderson, Annals of the English Bible, II, p. 190). In July she was carried to the Tower prison and tortured on the rack repeatedly in an effort to force her to identify other believers.She said, "Then they did put me on the rack, because I confessed no ladies or gentlemen to be of my opinion, and thereon they kept me a long time; and because I lay still and did not cry, my Lord Chancellor and Master Rich took pains to rack me with their own hands till I was nigh dead" (Anderson, II,p. 196). Late in the night on July 16, the sentence was finally carried out.Anne could not walk to the execution because the torture she had endured on the rack a few days prior had dislocated her joints; she had to be carried in a chair.

There were at least a few more books burned after this, but no other men or women were put to death in Henry the VIII’s time. Anne and her two friends have the distinction of having been the last.

Every person who has been blessed through a sound English Bible through the past four centuries owes a large debt to the humble translator who was faithful unto death. The Tyndale Bible literally transformed the nation of England.

Tyndale’s influence on later editions of the English Bible was immense. His was the first printed English Bible and the first translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek. Much of the powerful, direct, energetic style of the old English Bible we still use today, almost five centuries later is Tyndale’s.

The King James Bible is merely a revision of the Tyndale Bible. Comparisons have been made, showing, for example, that nine-tenths of the Authorized Version in First John and five-sixths of Ephesians is directly from Tyndale. "These proportions are maintained throughout the entire New Testament" (Price, The Ancestry of Our English Bible, p. 251). "In the Gospel of St. Mark and the Epistle to the Hebrews [in Tyndale] there are not more than eighty words… which are not found in our Authorized Version of the Bible; that is to say, there are not more than four strangers in every thousand words, or nine in every hundred verses" (Moulton, The History of the English Bible, p. 70).

His joy that the Bible is readily available and still a best seller would be over-shadowed by the neglect of the word. He would be thrilled to learn,that eight million copies of the Bible in Chinese have been published from 1986 – 1994, and that demand is ever increasing. He would be modestly delighted too to know that the English version behind the Chinese one draws heavily on his own translation. His pleasure would, however, be muted by the alarming and increasing ignorance of scripture by today's ‘plough boys’ and ‘plough girls’in the England he knew and loved and throughout the rest of the world.