“From 1521 to 1523 he acted as tutor to the children of Sir John and Lady Anne Walsh at Little Sodbury Manor. His duties in teaching the Walsh children would not occupy all of his time and he would be free to pursue other studies. Some are convinced that at Little Sodbury Manor, Tyndale determined to translate and print the Scriptures in the English language.
While at the Walsh home, Tyndale soon acquired a reputation as an excellent preacher and student of the Word of God. This became apparent when he was able to refute the friars when they taught contrary to Scripture. As a result the Walsh family declined to invite the neighboring clergy to their home for banquets and theological discussions. Foxe relates that one of the ecclesiastical officials was so angry with Tyndale for this loss of entertainment and good food that he attempted to bring charges of heresy against him!”
http://www.solagroup.org/articles/historyofthebible/hotb_0004.html
Guess the charge didn’t stick...later:
“However, it was impossible to translate and print the Bible while at Little Sodbury Manor so Tyndale departed for London. He secured an interview with Cuthbert Tunstall, the Bishop of London, whose sponsorship he hoped to attain. The interview was inconclusive as Tunstall explained that, at that time, he had more scholars living in his house than he could accommodate. He counseled Tyndale to seek a place where he could preach and assured him that he would eventually come by some means of support.”
You write, “And, actually, the common man knew scripture - long before Tyndale or Luther...”
Odd, isn’t it, that they knew so much scripture, yet risked their lives to buy unapproved scriptures translated by Luther and Tyndale, while the Catholic Church failed to provide a common language Bible that had been ‘correctly translated’.
Odd too, that the Catholic New American Bible and even the Douay-Rheims follows Tyndale’s horrible translation. Of course, the KJV had already substituted church for congregation and bishop for elder, so all that remained was to replace repent with do penance and the Catholic Church was back to a suitably inaccurate translation.
You wrote:
“Odd, isn’t it, that they knew so much scripture, yet risked their lives to buy unapproved scriptures translated by Luther and Tyndale, while the Catholic Church failed to provide a common language Bible that had been ‘correctly translated’.”
Nope. There were 14 German translations of the Bible BEFORE Luther’s. Those, by the way, were the printed Bibles. No one knows how man handwritten Bibles there were before Luther’s. Protestant scholars in fact did a good job of ignoring the existence of these pre-Lutheran Bibles until about 50 years ago: http://www.jstor.org/pss/3723092
Some say there were 19 before Luther’s: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30B10FD3B5A12738DDDA90A94D9405B868CF1D3
These Bibles were printed again and again. Mentelin’s famous German Bibles was printed 13 times before 1518 (in other words before Luther even thought about his translation).
“Odd too, that the Catholic New American Bible and even the Douay-Rheims follows Tyndale’s horrible translation. Of course, the KJV had already substituted church for congregation and bishop for elder, so all that remained was to replace repent with do penance and the Catholic Church was back to a suitably inaccurate translation.”
Tyndale was a heretic so everything he touched was considered suspect in any case.