William Tyndale

\n William Tyndale (ca.1484 - October 6, 1536) was a 16th century priest and scholar who translated the Bible into an early form of Modern English. Although numerous partial and complete English translations had been made from the 7th century onward, Tyndale's was the first to take advantage of the new medium of print, which allowed for its wide distribution. His date of birth is unclear, with sources giving dates varying between 1484 and 1496. About 1494, 1495 or 1496 seem most common. He was born most probably at North Nibley (15 miles s.s.w. of Gloucester), England. He went to school at Oxford University, Magdalen Hall and Cambridge University, and about 1520 became tutor in the family of Sir John Walsh, at Little Sodbury in Gloucestershire. Tyndale studied the Scriptures and began to endorse the doctrines of the Reformation, views which were considered heretical, first by the Catholic Church, and later the Church of England. His open statements of his sentiments in the house of Walsh, disputes with Roman Catholic officials, and especially his preaching, stirred up conflict. He left there and went to London (about Oct., 1523), where he began to preach, and made many friends among the laity, but none among ecclesiastics. With support from Sir Humphrey Monmouth and others, he began his effort to translate the Bible into common English. Because his translation was not authorized by the Church, and contained notes and commentary promoting his Reformation views, he was prevented from working on it in England. He then went to Germany about May, 1524, to continue his translation work there. He appears to have visited Hamburg and Wittenberg; but the place where he translated the New Testament, although conjectured to have been Wittenberg, can not be named with certainty. It is, however, certain that the printing of the New Testament in quarto was begun at Cologne in the summer of 1525, and completed at Worms, and that there was likewise printed an octavo edition, both before the end of that year. Tyndale's translation was banned by the authorities, and Tyndale himself was burned at the stake in 1536 at Vilvoorden (6 miles n.e. of Brussels), Belgium, at the instigation of agents of Henry VIII and the Anglican Church. To translate the Bible, Tyndale introduced new words and phrases into the English language: Jehovah, Passover (as the name for the Jewish holiday), scapegoat, atonement (= at + one + ment), "the powers that be", "my brother's keeper", "the salt of the earth", and "a law unto themselves". \n---- From an entry in Spalatin's Diary,\nAug. 11, 1526, it seems that he remained at Worms\nabout a year; but the notices of his connection with\nHermann von dem Busche and the University of Marburg are utterly unwarranted conjectures; and,\nit being now an established fact that Hans Luft\nnever had a printing-press at Marburg, the colophon\nto Tyndale's translation of Genesis, and the\ntitle pages of several pamphlets purporting to have\nbeen printed by Luft at Marburg, only deepen the\nseemingly impenetrable mystery which overhangs\nthe life of Tyndale during the interval between his\ndeparture from Worms and his final settlement at Antwerp. His literary activity during that interval\nwas extraordinary. When he left England, his\nknowledge of Hebrew, if he had any, was of the\nmost rudimentary nature; and yet he mastered\nthat difficult tongue so as to produce from the original\nan admirable translation of the entire Pentateuch,\nthe Books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, First and Second Samuel, First and Second Kings,\nFirst Chronicles, contained in Matthew's Bible\nof 1537, and of the Book of Jonah, so excellent,\nindeed, that (As of 1911) his work is not only the\nbasis of those portions of the Authorized Version,\nbut constitutes nine-tenths of that translation,\nand very largely that of the Revised Standard Version. His Biblical translations appeared in the following\norder: New Testament, 1525-26; Pentateuch,\n1530; Jonah, 1531. There is no general title\nof the Pentateuch; each book has its own title. In addition to these he produced the following\nworks. His first original composition, A\nPathway into the Holy Scripture, is really a\nreprint, slightly altered, of his Prologue to the\nquarto edition of his New Testament, and had\nappeared in separate form before 1532; The Parable\nof the Wicked Mammon (1527); and The Obedience\nof a Christian Man (1527-28). These several works\ndrew out in 1529 Sir Thomas More's Dialogue, etc.\nIn 1530 appeared Tyndale's Practyse of Prelates,\nand in 1531 his Answer, etc., to the Dialogue,\nhis Exposition of the First Epistle of St. John, and the \nfamous Prologue to Jonah; in 1532, An Exposition\nupon the V. VI. VII. Chapters of Matthew; and in\n1536, A Brief Declaration of the Sacraments, etc.,\nwhich seems to be a posthumous publication.\nJoshua-Second Chronicles also was published after his death. All these works were written during\nthose mysterious years, in places of concealment so\nsecure and well chosen, that neither the ecclesiastical\nnor diplomatic emissaries of Thomas Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII, charged to track, hunt down, and seize the\nfugitive, were able to reach them, and they are even\nyet unknown. Impressed with the idea that the\nprogress of the Reformation in England rendered it\nsafe for him to leave his concealment, he settled at\nAntwerp in 1534, and combined the work of an\nevangelist with that of a translator of the Bible. Mainly through the instrumentality of one Philips, the agent either of Henry or of English ecclesiastics, or possibly of both, he was arrested, imprisoned in the castle of Vilvoorden, tried, either for heresy or treason, or both, and convicted; was first strangled, and then burnt in the prison yard, Oct. 6, 1536. His last words were, "Lord, open the king of England's eyes." Tyndale's place in history has not yet been sufficiently recognized as a translator of the Scriptures, as an apostle of liberty, and as a chief promoter of the Reformation in England. In all these respects his influence has been singularly under-valued. The sweeping statement found in almost all histories, that Tyndale translated from the Vulgate and Martin Luther, is most damaging to the reputation of the writers who make it; for, as a matter of fact, it is contrary to truth, since his translations are made directly from the originals. The Prolegomena in Mombert's William Tyndale's Five Books of Moses show conclusively that Tyndale's Pentateuch is a translation of the Hebrew original. A monument commemorating the life and work of Tyndale has been erected on the Thames Embankment, London.

References

\nAdapted from J.I. Mombert, "Tyndale, William," in Philip Schaff, Johann Jakob Herzog, et al, eds., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1904, reprinted online by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Additional references are available there.

External link

\n* Tyndale society homepage Tyndale, William Category:Saints\n