Tyndale Bible

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The Tyndale Bible generally refers to the body of biblical translations by William Tyndale. The term Tyndale's Bible is not strictly correct, because Tyndale only translated the New Testament and about half the Old Testament. Of the latter, the Pentateuch and Jonah were published during his lifetime. His remaining Old Testament work was first used in the Matthew Bible and then in most subsequent versions.

1 History
2 Character
3 References
4 External links

[edit] History

The original Tyndale New Testament, possibly incomplete, was printed by Peter Quentell in Cologne in 1525 (quarto format, Herbert #1). Only a fragment of one copy has survived. The second, complete, edition of 1526 (octavo format, Herbert #2) was printed at Worms, Germany by Peter Schoeffer. Of this only three copies exist. One, in the library of St Paul's Cathedral, London, has 70 leaves missing. A second, now in the British Library, is complete except for the title page. In 1997 a complete copy was rediscovered in Stuttgart, Germany; its title page was used in the British Library's 2000 reprint. The last revision that Tyndale himself is believed to have worked on was published in 1535 (Herbert #15). There were over 40 printings of Tyndale's New Testament until at least 1566 (Herbert #121). The first to be printed in England (probably by T. Godfray in London) dates from 1536 (folio, Herbert #27).

Tyndale's Pentateuch was published in 1530 (octavo format, Herbert #4). His Jonah probably dates from the following year (octavo format, Herbert #6). Tyndale's other work does not survive except via the various later versions of the Old Testament that made use of it.

Tyndale did not have copies of "original" Hebrew texts. In fact the quality of the Hebrew documents was poor, since no original Hebrew sources earlier than the 10th century had survived. For the New Testament he was able to use recent scholarly editions of the Greek text. He did not hesitate to consult the Vulgate and other translations, e.g. into German.

[edit] Character

The Church objected to Tyndale's translations because they believed purposeful mistranslations had been introduced to the works in order to promote anti-clericalism and heretical views (the same argument they used against Wycliff's translation). Thomas More accused Tyndale of evil purpose in corrupting and changing the words and sense of scripture. Specifically, he charged Tyndale with mischief in changing three key words throughout the whole of his Testament, such that "priest", "church", and "charity" of customary Roman Catholic usage became in Tyndale's translation "elder", "congregation" and "love". The Catholic Church also objected to Wycliffe's and Tyndale's translations because they included notes and commentaries promoting antagonism to the Catholic Church and heretical doctrines—particularly, in Tyndale's case, Lutheranism. Tyndale's notes were based on those in Luther's Bible. A choice example occurs at Num. 23:8, for the text: "How shall I curse whom God curseth not and how shall I defy whom the Lorde defieth not?" Tyndale's comment was: "The Pope can tell how."

Tyndale may be considered the father of the King James Version (KJV) since much of his work was transferred to the KJV. The revisers of 1881 declared that while the KJV was the work of many hands, the foundation of it was laid by Tyndale, and that the versions that followed it were substantially reproductions of Tyndale's, or revisions of versions which were themselves almost entirely based on it. The KJV New Testament is reckoned to be nearly 90% Tyndale, with about one-third being verbatim Tyndale. A similar figure applies to the parts of the Old Testament that Tyndale translated. All this clearly indicates the quality of Tyndale's language. Many of the most familiar and cherished phrases of the KJV actually originated in Tyndale's work, e.g. "Let there be light", "the powers that be", "fight the good fight", "the salt of the earth", "the signs of the times", "the spirit is willing", "a law unto themselves".

[edit] References

A. S. Herbert, Historical Catalogue of Printed Editions of the English Bible 1525–1961, London: British and Foreign Bible Society; New York: American Bible Society, 1968. SBN 564-00130-9.
The New Testament 1526 (reprint, not facsimile, in original spelling), London: British Library, 2000. ISBN 0-7123-4664-3 (hardback).