Posted on 10/06/2021 8:17:12 AM PDT by CheshireTheCat
....As with Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible into German, Tyndale’s English version threatened, and was intended to threaten, papal ecclesiastical authority. In undertaking the work, Tyndale defied the 1408 “Constitutions of Oxford”, an English clerical pact further to the suppression of the Lollards and kindred post-John Wycliffe heresies which expressly prohibited rendering scripture in the vernacular.
In Protestant hagiographer John Foxe‘s Book of Martyrs, a young Tyndale exasperated with a Romish divine memorably declared,
“I defy the pope, and all his laws;” and added, “If God spared him life, ere many years he would cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scripture than he did.”
Tyndale would give his life to, and for, that ploughboy.
On the lam in Protestant Germany, Tyndale produced an English New Testament, and then an Old Testament, of startling poetry.
The scholar also kept a reformist voice in the day’s robust theological pamphleteering — trading fire, for instance, with Sir Thomas More.
Even when the once-staunch Catholic Henry VIII broke with Rome over Anne Boleyn, the English manhunt for Tyndale continued: Henry’s reformation did not share radical Protestant objectives like scriptural authority, and the king was not shy about enforcing his version of orthodoxy.
Tyndale was equally stubborn in defense of his life’s mission to put a Bible in the hands of the English ploughboy. Offered the king’s mercy to return and submit, Tyndale countered by offering his silence and martyrdom if Henry would but publish the Good Book in English.....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
God bless his memory. What a man.
Very informative about how long and how contentious the battle was for an 'English Bible' and the words that were gifted into the language from these efforts. Some of the 'readings' by actor Joss Ackland are not to be missed, very magisterial.
I’ll hold off praise for the hackery that was done to the scriptures in translating from Hebrew\Greek to Latin to English. Most Christians only have a really vague idea of the depth of their faith, the real meaning behind the more problematic phrases, and of course the interjection of Hell and eternal punishment nonsense that was made up. Led to 500 years of misery and consternation in the faith.
Want to learn the bible correctly, study Greek and Hebrew, learn Herumenutics and learn Semitic culture at that time. The Bible will jump off the pages then.
Bkmk
Agreed.
First, the Belgians condemned Tyndale for being a Protestant, not for translating the Bible into English (which they didn't care about).
Second, Henry VIII's agents were pursuing Tyndale in part because Tyndale sided with the Pope over Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn.
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