HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE - WILLIAM TYNDALE

Way of Life ^ | 2007 | David Cloud

[RaceBannon]

The Tyndale New Testament of 1525 was the first English translation based on the Greek and the first English Bible to be printed. (The Wycliffe Bible was based on Latin and published only in hand-written manuscripts.) The King James Bible is an edition of Tyndale’s masterly translation.

William Tyndale is therefore the most important one name in the history of the English Bible and one of most important names in history of the English people.

TYNDALE’S TIMES

Tyndale was born to a time of great change and turmoil. It was a time of international travel and discovery. When he was eight years old, Columbus discovered America. When Tyndale was fourteen, Vasco da Gama sailed around the Cape of Good Hope to India, and the great era of world exploration had begun.

It was also a time of great persecution. Just three years before Tyndale was born, the Spanish Inquisition was established, and by the time Tyndale was fifteen years old, 8,800 had been burned to death and 90,000 imprisoned under the pope’s Inquisitor General in Spain, Thomas de Torquemada. As Tyndale grew to manhood, terrible persecutions were being poured out upon the Christians in Bohemia and Moravia and against the Waldensians in Italy and France. For example, when Tyndale was four, an army of 18,000 Catholics made war against the Waldensian Christians of Piedmont in Northern Italy, destroying entire towns and villages.

It was also a time for printing. In 1453, just 41 years before Tyndale was born, Constantinople was overrun by the Muslims and the Greek scholars had fled to Western Europe with their valuable manuscripts, including the Byzantine Greek New Testament, which had been preserved for 1,000 years through the Dark Ages.

The first book on movable type, a Latin Bible, had been printed in 1456, less than 40 years before Tyndale’s birth. Only eight years before Tyndale’s birth, a printing press had been set up in England by William Caxton, and by the time he was born printing presses had been set up in more than 120 cities of Europe.

Bibles in the common languages had begun to be printed in 1488 with the publication of the Bohemian Bible, just a few years before Tyndale was born.

[dangus]

>> See, there’s the problem. It’s not an “us vs them” issue. <<

And yet I don’t see you criticizing the ridiculous, ages-old slander of the original post. No, you attack the Catholic for defending Catholicism, instead of the Protestant who slandered Catholics.

[Kandy Atz]

Thank God for so many men, some willing to pay the ultimate price, to get God’s Word into the hands of the people.

Here is my original post. The article was specifically about Tyndale who was strangled and burned. In no way did I attack Catholics, or even reference Protestants only, as I acknowledged "so many men" including some who were willing to "pay the ultimate price." Don't you think Gutenberg, Erasmus, Jerome etc. would be included in the "so many men" category?

Why would you automatically assume I did not know about Gutenberg, or many other contributors, from printers to translators, to scholars? Did I really need a history lesson from you? Why would you take offense to such a benign statement in the first place?

Can I just simply be very thankful to have God's Word in my language and in my possession, and recognize those folks, including Tyndale, who made it possible? Who the heck gets offended by that?

[dangus]

Well, Erasmus, no. He was more Dorian Grey than St. Jerome. But I was largely tweaking you.

But by the way, Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake for opposing the marriage of Henry VIII, not for his bible. Emperor Charles refused to have him exradited to England, citing no evidence of wrong-doing. It’s debatable whether he his alleged crime was heresy for the commentary in his bible or for declaring the King’s marriage immoral. Too bad he wasn’t under the jursidiction of the papal inquisition; they’d’ve prevented the state from calling it heresy.

[dangus]

You’re probably confused why I associated Erasmus with Dorien Grey. I meant Lord Henry FROM Dorien Grey, not the character OF Dorien Grey.