William Tyndale

William Tyndale (sometimes spelled Tindale) (circa 1494 - October 6, 1536) was a 16th century religious reformer and scholar who translated the Bible into the Early Modern English of his day. 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. In 1535 Tyndale was tried for heresy and treason and then strangled and burnt at the stake.

Much of Tyndale's work eventually found its way to the King James Version (or Authorised Version) of the Bible, published in 1611, which, though the work of 54 independent scholars, is based primarily on Tyndale's translations.

Biography

William Tyndale was born around 1494, probably in North Nibley near Dursley, Gloucestershire. The Tyndales were also known under the name "Hytchyns", "Hitchins" or "Hutchins", and it was under this name that he was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford (now part of Hertford College), where he was admitted to the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1512 and Master of Arts in 1515. He was a gifted linguist (fluent in French, Greek, Hebrew, German, Italian, Latin, Spanish and of course his native English) and subsequently went to Cambridge (possibly studying under Erasmus, whose 1503 Enchiridion Militis Christiani - "Handbook of the Christian Knight" - he translated into English), where he met Thomas Bilney and John Fryth.

He became chaplain in the house of Sir John Walsh at Little Sodbury in about 1521. His opinions involved him in controversy with his fellow clergymen and around 1522 he was summoned before the Chancellor of the Diocese of Worcester on a charge of heresy. By now he had already determined to translate the Bible into English: he was convinced that the way to God was through His word and that scripture should be available even to 'a boy that driveth the plough'. He left for London.

Tyndale was firmly rebuffed in London when he sought the support of Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall. The bishop, like many highly-placed churchmen, was uncomfortable with the idea of the Bible in the vernacular. Tyndale, with the help of a merchant, Humphrey Monmouth, left England under a pseudonym and landed at Hamburg in 1524. He had already begun work on the translation of the New Testament. He visited Luther at Wittenberg and in the following year completed his translation.

Following the publication of the New Testament, Cardinal Wolsey condemned Tyndale as a heretic and demanded his arrest.

Tyndale went into hiding, possibly for a time in Hamburg, and carried on working. He revised his New Testament and began translating the Old Testament and writing various treatises. In 1530 he wrote The Practyse of Prelates, which seemed to move him briefly to the Catholic side through its opposition to Henry VIII's divorce. This resulted in the king's wrath being directed at him: he asked the emperor Charles V to have Tyndale seized and returned to England.

Eventually, he was betrayed to the authorities. He was arrested in Antwerp in 1535 and held in the castle of Vilvoorde near Brussels. He was tried on a charge of heresy in 1536 and condemned to the stake, despite Thomas Cromwell's attempted intercession on his behalf. He was mercifully strangled, and his dead body was burnt, on 6 October 1536. His final words reportedly were: "Oh Lord, open the King of England's eyes."

Works

Biblical translations

Many of Tyndale's translations - of the entire Pentateuch, the Books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, First and Second Samuel, First and Second Kings, First and Second Chronicles (contained in Matthew's Bible of 1537), and of the Book of Jonah - formed the basis for respective portions in the Authorized Version, in which they constitute nine-tenths of the said chapters. Moreover, his translations make up significant portions of the Revised Version.

His Biblical translations appeared in the following order: New Testament, 1525-26 ; Pentateuch, 1530; Jonah, 1531. There is no general title of the Pentateuch; each separate book (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) has its own title.

History of the publication of the New Testament

The story of the publication of the first complete English translation of the New Testament is an interesting one, and sheds light on the progress of the English Reformation. Tyndale began to publish in Cologne in 1525 with his helper William Roye, but of necessity was using the same printing press as an enemy of the Reformation, Johann Dobneck, also known as Johannes Cochlaeus. The printers told Cochlaeus about the New Testament and he informed the authorities. Before action could be taken however, Tyndale and Roye fled up the Rhine, taking their work with them. The complete New Testament was published in February 1526 in Worms, a mere five years after Martin Luther had been asked to explain himself at the imperial Diet. This edition of the New Testament was much plainer and simpler than the attempted Cologne edition: for instance, the long introduction and all the marginal notes and comments were omitted; however, Tyndale added a short Prologue at the end.

Non-biblical works

In addition to these biblical translations he wrote and published a number of other works.

His first original composition, A Pathway into the Holy Scripture, is really a reprint, slightly altered, of his Prologue to the quarto edition of his New Testament, and had appeared in separate form before 1532. Two other seminal works were The Parable of the Wicked Mammon (1527) and The Obedience of a Christian Man (1527-28).

These several publications resulted in the Catholic Sir Thomas More's Dialogue of 1529, which painted Tyndale and other Lutherans as heretics.

Tyndale's Practyse of Prelates appeared in 1530, and in 1531 his Answer to More's Dialogue, his Exposition of the First Epistle of St John, and the famous Prologue to Jonah. In 1532 he published An Exposition upon the V. VI. VII. Chapters of Matthew.

Finally, in 1536, A Brief Declaration of the Sacraments, which seems to be a posthumous publication.

His translations of Joshua and the Second Book of Chronicles also were published after his death.

Tyndale's legacy

In translating the Bible, Tyndale introduced new words into the English language:

"Jehovah" (from a Hebrew construction in the Old Testament)
"Passover" (as the name for the Jewish holiday, Pesach or Pesah),
"''Atonement (= at + onement), which goes beyong mere "reconciliation" to mean "to unite" or "to cover", which springs from the Hebrew kippur, the Old Testament version of kippur being the covering of doorposts with blood, or "Day of Atonement".
"scapegoat" (the goat that bears the sins and iniquities of the people in Leviticus Chapter 16)

He also coined such familiar phrases as:

"let there be light"
"the powers that be"
"my brother's keeper"
"the salt of the earth"
"a law unto themselves"

It has been argued that Tyndale's place in history has not yet been sufficiently recognised as a translator of the Scriptures, as an apostle of liberty, and as a chief promoter of the Reformation in England. His influence has been frequently under-valued.

Almost all histories assume that Tyndale translated from the Vulgate and Martin Luther. The Tyndale Society adduce considerably evidence to suggest that his translations were made directly from the original Hebrew and Greek sources he had at his disposal. For example, the Prolegomena in Mombert's William Tyndale's Five Books of Moses suggest that Tyndale's Pentateuch is a translation of the Hebrew original.

Miscellaneous

A bronze statue by Sir Joseph Boehm commemorating the life and work of Tyndale was erected In Victoria Embankment Gardens on the Thames Embankment, London in 1884. It shows the reformer's right hand on an open Bible, which in turn is resting on an early printing press. There is also a memorial tower, the Tyndale Monument, erected in 1866 and prominent for miles around, on a hill above his birthplace of North Nibley.

References

Adapted 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 links

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