The name Tyndale, borne by many organisations, buildings and initiatives in the Christian world, honours the pioneer Bible translator and martyr William Tyndale.
Tyndale was born in 1494 in a Gloucestershire village in England to a prosperous family. Well educated and intelligent, Tyndale went to Oxford, graduating in 1512 and continuing there to train as a priest. Tyndale expressed exasperation that priestly training did not include reading scripture; the goal of his life evidently coming into focus.
To understand Tyndale, we must understand his world. In every area – daily life, politics, law and finance – the mediaeval Catholic Church controlled Europe. Its power, authority and terrifying claims to control the eternal destiny of men and women choked any criticism. Yet dark clouds were gathering over the Church and with the lightning flash of Martin Luther’s public protest in 1517, the storm broke. As the demand for reform grew, the Bible became central. The Church upheld the Bible but its version was in Latin and was kept away from ordinary people. Erasmus had just published the text of the New Testament in its original Greek and across the continent there were demands for its translation into the language of ordinary people. This was something that Luther did in Germany, but in Britain the authorities nervously hoped that the English Channel would act as a barrier and brutally enforced a law that punished the possessor of a translated Bible with death.
Tyndale, increasingly sympathetic to Luther’s ideas, took up a quiet, undemanding post in Gloucestershire and began to translate the New Testament. Acquiring a reputation as a preacher, he was soon suspected of heresy and, in a meeting with a church leader, was told to stop his translating. Wycliffe’s response has chimed down through history: ‘If God spare my life, I will cause a boy that drives a plough to know more of the scriptures than you do.’
Aware of his peril Tyndale moved to London but, realising everywhere in England was dangerous, fled to the continent in 1525. There he kept a low profile, protected by loyal supporters and moving around from town to town. Drawing on Luther’s German version, but also making his own translation, he produced a New Testament in English. In 1526 this was published anonymously and, smuggled over to England, found itself immediately banned and frequently burned. There was particular anger by the Church at how Tyndale had replaced keywords by English alternatives: ‘priest’ became ‘elder’; ‘church’ became ‘congregation’; ‘do penance’ became ‘repent’; ‘do charity’ became ‘love’.
Tyndale was a fine scholar of Greek and, later, of Hebrew too. In fact, his English translation was so good that when the Authorised Version was published in 1611, over 80 per cent of the New Testament text was from Tyndale.
Tyndale now turned his attention to the Old Testament and produced a translation into English of the first five books of the Bible that again proved to be masterly. He remained in Antwerp, safe in the house of a merchant. As his New Testament circulated in England, he continued his Old Testament translation. However, in 1535 Tyndale was tricked into leaving the house, was arrested and imprisoned in a castle outside Brussels where he was subjected to long examinations. In 1536 he was condemned as a heretic and sentenced to death. At the stake he cried out, ‘Lord, open the king of England’s eyes!’ and was strangled and then burnt.
History records that Tyndale’s prayer was speedily answered. A year after his death, his Bible translations, with the missing content supplied by others, were legally published in England in what was called Matthew’s Bible. Soon, Bibles in various versions were to be found across England and all were based on Tyndale’s work.
To all of us who value the Bible in our own language, Tyndale is quite rightly a hero.
First, Tyndale was committed to the word of God. Although he wrote books on some of the many issues that were emerging in the Reformation, Tyndale’s priority was always to translate scripture into the language of ordinary people. He was described as a man who was ‘always singing one note’ and that ‘one note’ was the Bible in the language of the people.
Second, Tyndale was committed to communicating the word of God. He had no interest in any translation that was merely academic or some virtuoso display of words. Because God’s word was written for everybody, he sought a translation that could be understood by everybody. In that he succeeded, and in so doing set a pattern that has continued to the present day. Through the influence of Tyndale’s translation, the plough boy did indeed come to know the word of God.
Third, Tyndale was committed to communicating the word of God at any cost. Warned early on that his work of an English Bible could cost him his life, he remained undeterred, spending the best part of his life as a fugitive and ultimately being brutally executed. Yet Tyndale knew the value of his labours. His assessment of scripture is summed up in his delightful explanation of what the word evangelion means. ‘Evangelion(that we call the gospel) . . . is a Greek word and signifieth good, merry, glad and joyful tidings, that maketh a man’s heart glad, and maketh him sing, dance and leap for joy.’
Tyndale’s greatest legacy is not what is named after him, but the way in which those who translate the Bible seek to make their words speak to us in our own language.
J.John
Reverend Canon
