***William Tyndale was the Captain of the Army of Reformers, and was their spiritual leader. Tyndale holds the distinction of being the first man to ever print the New Testament in the English language.***
Y’all are really funny. Let’s be honest here and look at the history of English Bibles. And Wyclif preceded Tyndale by 150 years.
But John Wycliffe with his 1382 version of the Bible was not the first person to give English speaking people the Bible in their own tongue, as a popular misguided myth would have it. We have copies of the work of Caedmon from the 7th century, and that of the Venerable Bede, Eadhelm, Guthlac, and Egbert from the 8th (all in Saxon, the prevalent language at that time). From the 9th and 10th centuries come the translations of King Alfred the Great and Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury. Early English versions include that of Orm around 1150, the Salus Animae (1250), and the translations of William Shoreham, Richard Rolle (d.1349), and John Trevisa (c.1360).
Other languages are also represented in the list of “vernacular” Catholic Bibles. We can find a translation of the Bible from 1290, written in French, a translation into Dutch (about 1270), and a translation into German (about 1350). Between 1466 and the onset of the Protestant Reformation in 1517, at least fourteen editions appeared in High German, and five in Low German. From 1450 to 1550, for example, there appeared (with express permission from Rome) more than 40 Italian editions or translations of the Bible and eighteen French editions, as well as others in Bohemian, Belgian, Russian, Danish, Norwegian, Polish, and Hungarian. Spain published editions in Spanish starting in 1478.
It is important to remember, that ALL of these vernacular Bibles were “Catholic” Bibles. Remember, the Reformation had not yet occurred. The key issue for the Catholic Church was NOT translating the Bible into vernacular languages, as some say, but simply insuring that the translations were accurate translations.
No, you are not correct, the Roman Catholic authorities were intent on keeping vernacular Bibles out of the hands of the common people.