| William Tyndale | |
|---|---|
| Born | c. 1494 Gloucestershire, England |
| Died | uncertain (probably by 6 October 1536) near Vilvoorde, Flanders |
| Alma mater | Oxford University |
William Tyndale (sometimes spelled Tindall, Tindill, Tyndall; c. 1494 – 1536) was an English scholar and translator who became a leading figure in Protestant reformism towards the end of his life. He was influenced by the work of Desiderius Erasmus, who made the Greek New Testament available in Europe, and by Martin Luther.[1] Tyndale was the first to translate considerable parts of the Bible from the original languages (Greek and Hebrew) into English. While a number of partial and complete translations had been made from the seventh century onward, particularly during the 14th century, Tyndale's was the first English translation to draw directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, and the first to take advantage of the new medium of print, which allowed for its wide distribution. This was taken to be a direct challenge to the hegemony of both the Roman Catholic Church and the English church and state. Tyndale also wrote, in 1530, The Practyse of Prelates, opposing Henry VIII's divorce on the grounds that it contravened scriptural law.
In 1535, Tyndale was arrested and jailed in the castle of Vilvoorde outside Brussels for over a year. He was tried for heresy, choked, impaled and burnt on a stake in 1536. The Tyndale Bible, as it was known, continued to play a key role in spreading Reformation ideas across the English-speaking world.[2] The fifty-four independent scholars who created the King James Version of the bible in 1611 drew significantly on Tyndale's translations. One estimation suggests the New Testament in the King James Version is 83% Tyndale's, and the Old Testament 76%.[3]
Contents |
Tyndale was born 1494, possibly in one of the villages near Dursley, Gloucestershire.[4] Within his immediate family, the Tyndales were also known at that period as Hychyns (Hitchins), and it was as William Hychyns that Tyndale was educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford. Tyndale's family had migrated to Gloucestershire at some point in the fifteenth century - probably as a result of the Wars of the Roses. The family derived from Northumberland via East Anglia. He was the son of John Tyndale and Amphyllis Coningsby. Documentation shows that Tyndale's uncle, Edward, was receiver to the lands of Lord Berkeley, and gives account of the Tyndale family origins. Edward Tyndale is recorded in two genealogies[5] as having been the brother of Sir William Tyndale, of Deane, Northumberland, and Hockwald, Norfolk, who was knighted at the marriage of Arthur, Prince of Wales to Katherine of Aragon. Tyndale's family was therefore derived from Baron Adam de Tyndale, a tenant-in-chief of Henry I (and whose family history is related in Tyndall). William Tyndale's niece was Margaret Tyndale who married Rowland Taylor "The Martyr".
Tyndale began a Bachelor of Arts degree at Hart Hall (later Hertford College) of Oxford University in 1512; the same year becoming a subdeacon. He was made Master of Arts in July 1515 and was held to be a man of virtuous disposition, leading an unblemished life.[6] The MA allowed him to start studying theology, but the official course did not include the study of scripture. He was a gifted linguist, over the years becoming fluent in French, Greek, Hebrew, German, Italian, Latin, and Spanish, in addition to his native English.[7] Between 1517 and 1521, he went to the University of Cambridge. Erasmus was the leading teacher of Greek there from August 1511 to January 1512, but during Tyndale's time at the university Erasmus was away.[8] According to Monyahan, Tyndale may have met Thomas Bilney and John Frith whilst there.[9]
Tyndale became chaplain to the house of Sir John Walsh at Little Sodbury and tutor to his children in about 1521. His opinions proved controversial to fellow clergymen, and around 1522 he was called before John Bell, the Chancellor of the Diocese of Worcester, though no formal charges were laid.[10]
Soon afterwards, Tyndale determined to translate the Bible into English, convinced that the way to God was through His word and that scripture should be available even to common people. John Foxe describes an argument with a "learned" but "blasphemous" clergyman, who had asserted to Tyndale that, "We had better be without God's laws than the Pope's." Swelling with emotion, Tyndale responded: "I defy the Pope, and all his laws; and if God spares my life, ere many years, I will cause the boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost!" [11][12]
Tyndale left for London in 1523 to seek permission to translate the Bible into English. He requested help from Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall, a well-known classicist who had praised Erasmus after working together with him on a Greek New Testament. The bishop, however, had little regard for Tyndale's scholarly credentials; like many highly-placed churchmen, he was suspicious of Tyndale's theology and was uncomfortable with the idea of the Bible in the vernacular. The Church at this time did not support any English translation of scripture. Tunstall told Tyndale he had no room for him in his household.[13] Tyndale preached and studied "at his book" in London for some time, relying on the help of a cloth merchant, Humphrey Monmouth. During this time he lectured widely, including at St Dunstan-in-the-West.
He then left England and landed on the continent, perhaps at Hamburg, in the spring of the year 1524, possibly travelling on to Wittenberg. This seems likely given that the name "Guillelmus Daltici ex Anglia“ (a Latin pseudonym for "William Tyndale from England") was entered at that time in the matriculation registers of the University Wittenberg.[14] At this time, possibly in Wittenberg, he began translating the New Testament, completing it in 1525, with assistance from Observant friar William Roy.
In 1525, publication of the work by Peter Quentell, in Cologne, was interrupted by impact of anti-Lutheranism. It was not until 1526 that a full edition of the New Testament was produced by the printer Peter Schoeffer in Worms, a free imperial city then in the process of adopting Lutheranism.[15] More copies were soon printed in Antwerp. The book was smuggled into England and Scotland, and was condemned in October 1526 by Tunstall, who issued warnings to booksellers and had copies burned in public.[16] Marius notes that the "spectacle of the scriptures being put to the torch" "provoked controversy even amongst the faithful."[16] Cardinal Wolsey condemned Tyndale as a heretic, being first mentioned in open court as a heretic in January 1529.[17]
From an entry in George Spalatin's Diary, on August 11, 1526, it seems that Tyndale remained at Worms about a year. A mystery hangs over the period between his departure from Worms and his final settlement at Antwerp. The colophon to Tyndale's translation of Genesis and the title pages of several pamphlets from this time are purported to have been printed by Hans Luft at Marburg. A clear link is, however, questionable. Hans Luft, the printer of Luther's books, never had a printing press at Marburg.
Around 1529, it is possible that Tyndale went into hiding in Hamburg, carrying on his work. He revised his New Testament and began translating the Old Testament and writing various treatises.
In 1530, he wrote The Practyse of Prelates, opposing Henry VIII's planned divorce from Catherine of Aragon, in favour of Anne Boleyn, on the grounds that it was unscriptural and was a plot by Cardinal Wolsey to get Henry entangled in the papal courts of Pope Clement VII.[18] The king's wrath was aimed at Tyndale: Henry asked the Emperor Charles V to have the writer apprehended and returned to England under the terms of the Treaty of Cambrai, however, the Emperor responded that formal evidence was required before extradition.[19] Tyndale made his case in An Answer unto Sir Thomas More's Dialogue. In 1532, Thomas More published a six-volume Confutation of Tyndale's Answer, in which he alleged Tyndale was a traitor and a heretic.[20][21]
Eventually, Tyndale was betrayed by Henry Phillips to the imperial authorities,[22] seized in Antwerp in 1535 and held in the castle of Vilvoorde near Brussels.[23] He was tried on a charge of heresy in 1536 and condemned to death, despite Thomas Cromwell's intercession on his behalf. Tyndale "was strangled to death while tied at the stake, and then his dead body was burned".[24] Tyndale's final words, spoken "at the stake with a fervent zeal, and a loud voice", were reported as "Lord! Open the King of England's eyes."[25] The traditional date of commemoration is 6 October, but records of Tyndale's imprisonment suggest the actual date of his execution might have been some weeks earlier.[26] Foxe gives 6 October as the date of commemoration (left-hand date column), but gives no date of death (right-hand date column).[23]
Within four years, at the same king's behest, four English translations of the Bible were published in England,[27] including Henry's official Great Bible. All were based on Tyndale's work.
Tyndale denounced the practice of prayer to saints,[28] He taught justification by faith, believer's baptism, the return of Christ, and mortality of the soul.[29]
Most well known for his translation of the Bible, Tyndale was an active writer and translator. Not only did Tyndale's works focus on the way in which religion should be carried out, but were also greatly keyed towards the political arena.
"They have ordained that no man shall look on the Scripture, until he be noselled in heathen learning eight or nine years and armed with false principles, with which he is an clean shut out of the understanding of the Scripture."
| Year Printed | Name of Work | Place of Publication | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1525 | The New Testament Translation (incomplete) | Cologne | |
| 1526* | The New Testament Translation (first full printed edition in English) | Worms | |
| 1526 | A compendious introduccion, prologue or preface into the epistle of Paul to the Romans | ||
| 1528 | The parable of the wicked mammon | Antwerp | |
| 1528 | The Obedience of a Christen Man[30] (and how Christen rulers ought to govern...) | Antwerp | Merten de Keyser |
| 1530* | The five books of Moses [the Pentateuch] Translation (each book with individual title page) | Antwerp | Merten de Keyser |
| 1530 | The practyse of prelates | Antwerp | Merten de Keyser |
| 1531 | The exposition of the fyrste epistle of seynt Jhon with a prologge before it | Antwerp | Merten de Keyser |
| 1531? | The prophete Jonas Translation | Antwerp | Merten de Keyser |
| 1531 | An answere vnto sir Thomas Mores dialogue | ||
| 1533? | An exposicion vppon the. v. vi. vii. chapters of Mathew | ||
| 1533 | Erasmus: Enchiridion militis Christiani Translation | ||
| 1534 | The New Testament Translation (thoroughly revised, with a second foreword against George Joye's unauthorized changes in an edition of Tyndale's New Testament published earlier in the same year) | Antwerp | Merten de Keyser |
| 1535 | The testament of master Wylliam Tracie esquier, expounded both by W. Tindall and J. Frith | ||
| 1536? | A path way into the holy scripture | ||
| 1537 | The bible, which is all the holy scripture Translation (only in part Tyndale's) | ||
| 1548? | A briefe declaration of the sacraments | ||
| 1573 | The whole workes of W. Tyndall, John Frith, and Doct. Barnes, edited by John Foxe | ||
| 1848* | Doctrinal Treatises and Introductions to Different Portions of the Holy Scriptures | Tindal, Frith, Barnes | |
| 1849* | Expositions and Notes on Sundry Portions of the Holy Scriptures Together with the Practice of Prelates | ||
| 1850* | An Answer to Sir Thomas More's Dialogue, The Supper of the Lord after the True Meaning of John VI. and I Cor. XI., and William Tracy's Testament Expounded | ||
| 1964* | The Work of William Tyndale | ||
| 1989** | Tyndale's New Testament | ||
| 1992** | Tyndale's Old Testament | ||
| Forthcoming | The Independent Works of William Tyndale | ||
| * | These works were printed more than once, usually signifying a revision or reprint. However the 1525 edition was printed as an incomplete quarto and was then reprinted in 1526 as a complete octavo. | ||
| ** | These works were reprints of Tyndale's earlier translations revised for modern spelling. |
In translating the Bible, Tyndale introduced new words into the English language, and many were subsequently used in the King James Bible:
Coinage of the word atonement (a concatenation of the words 'At One' to describe Christ's work of restoring a good relationship—a reconciliation—between God and people)[31] is also sometimes ascribed to Tyndale.[32][33] However, the word was probably in use by at least 1513, before Tyndale's translation.[34][35] Similarly, sometimes Tyndale is said to have coined the term mercy seat.[36] While it is true that Tyndale introduced the word into English, mercy seat is more accurately a translation of Martin Luther's German Gnadenstuhl.[37]
As well as individual words, Tyndale also coined such familiar phrases as:
The hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church did not approve of some of the words and phrases introduced by Tyndale, such as "overseer", where the it would have understood as "bishop," "elder" for "priest," and "love" rather than "charity." Tyndale, citing Erasmus, contended that the Greek New Testament did not support the traditional Roman Catholic readings. More controversially, Tyndale translated the Greek "ekklesia," (literally "called out ones"[38]) as "congregation" rather than "Church."[39] It has been asserted this translation choice "was a direct threat to the Church's ancient--but so Tyndale here made clear, non-scriptural--claim to be the body of Christ on earth. To change these words was to strip the Church hierarchy of its pretensions to be Christ's terrestrial representative, and to award this honour to individual worshipers who made up each congregation."[39]
Contention from Roman Catholics came not only from real or perceived errors in translation but also a fear of the erosion of their social power if Christians could read the bible in their own language. "The Pope's dogma is bloody," Tyndale wrote in his Obedience of a Christian Man.[40] Thomas More commented that searching for errors in the Tyndale Bible was similar to searching for water in the sea, and charged Tyndale's translation of Obedience of a Christian Man with having about a thousand falsely translated errors. Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall of London declared that there were upwards of 2,000 errors in Tyndale's Bible. Tunstall in 1523 had denied Tyndale the permission required under the Constitutions of Oxford (1409), which were still in force, to translate the Bible into English.
In response to allegations of inaccuracies in his translation in the New Testament, Tyndale in the Prologue to his 1525 translation wrote that he never intentionally altered or misrepresented any of the Bible in his translation, but that he had sought to "interpret the sense of the scripture and the meaning of the spirit."[39]
While translating, Tyndale followed Erasmus' (1522) Greek edition of the New Testament. In his Preface to his 1534 New Testament ("WT unto the Reader"), he not only goes into some detail about the Greek tenses but also points out that there is often a Hebrew idiom underlying the Greek. The Tyndale Society adduces much further evidence to show 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 show that Tyndale's Pentateuch is a translation of the Hebrew original. His translation also drew on Latin Vulgate and Luther's 1521 September Testament.[39]
Of the first (1526) edition of Tyndale's New Testament, only three copies survive. The only complete copy is part of the Bible Collection of Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart. The copy of the British Library is almost complete, lacking only the title page and list of contents. Another rarity of Tyndale's is the Pentateuch of which only nine remain.
| The Bible in English |
| Old English (pre-1066) |
| Middle English (1066–1500) |
| Early Modern English (1500–1800) |
| Modern Christian (1800–) |
| Modern Jewish (1853–) |
| Miscellaneous |
The translators of the Revised Standard Version in the 1940s noted that Tyndale's translation inspired the great translations that followed, including the Great Bible of 1539, the Geneva Bible of 1560, the Bishops' Bible of 1568, the Douay-Rheims Bible of 1582–1609, and the King James Version of 1611, of which the RSV translators noted: "It [the KJV] kept felicitous phrases and apt expressions, from whatever source, which had stood the test of public usage. It owed most, especially in the New Testament, to Tyndale". Many scholars today believe that such is the case. Moynahan writes: "A complete analysis of the Authorised Version, known down the generations as "the AV" or "the King James" was made in 1998. It shows that Tyndale's words account for 84% of the New Testament and for 75.8% of the Old Testament books that he translated.[41] Joan Bridgman makes the comment in the Contemporary Review that, "He [Tyndale] is the mainly unrecognised translator of the most influential book in the world. Although the Authorised King James Version is ostensibly the production of a learned committee of churchmen, it is mostly cribbed from Tyndale with some reworking of his translation."[42]
Many of the great English versions since then have drawn inspiration from Tyndale, such as the Revised Standard Version, the New American Standard Bible, and the English Standard Version. Even the paraphrases like the Living Bible have been inspired by the same desire to make the Bible understandable to Tyndale's proverbial ploughboy.[43][44]
George Steiner in his book on translation After Babel refers to "the influence of the genius of Tyndale, the greatest of English Bible translators..." [After Babel p. 366]. He has also appeared as a character in two plays dealing with the King James Bible, Howard Brenton's Anne Boleyn (2010) and David Edgar's Written on the Heart (2011).
A memorial to Tyndale stands in Vilvoorde, where he was executed. It was erected in 1913 by Friends of the Trinitarian Bible Society of London and the Belgian Bible Society[45] There is also a small William Tyndale Museum in the town, attached to the Protestant church.[46]
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 his right hand on an open Bible, which is itself resting on an early printing press.
The Tyndale Monument was built in 1866 on a hill above his supposed birthplace, North Nibley, Gloucestershire.
A number of colleges, schools and study centres have been named in his honour, including Tyndale House (Cambridge), Tyndale University College and Seminary (Toronto), the Tyndale-Carey Graduate School affiliated to the Bible College of New Zealand, William Tyndale College (Farmington Hills, Michigan), and Tyndale Theological Seminary (Shreveport, Louisiana, and Fort Worth, Texas), as well as the independent Tyndale Theological Seminary [47] in Badhoevedorp, near Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
An American Christian publishing house, also called Tyndale House, was named after Tyndale.
By tradition Tyndale's death is commemorated on 6 October.[48] There are commemorations on this date in the church calendars of members of the Anglican Communion, initially as one of the "days of optional devotion" in the American Book of Common Prayer (1979),[49] and a "black-letter day" in the Church of England's Alternative Service Book.[50] The Common Worship that came into use in the Church of England in 2000 provides a collect proper to 6 October, beginning with the words:
"Lord, give your people grace to hear and keep your word that, after the example of your servant William Tyndale, we may not only profess your gospel but also be ready to suffer and die for it, to the honour of your name; …"
See the List of Anglican Church Calendars.
Tyndale is also honored in the Calendar of Saints of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as a translator and martyr the same day.
In 1937 the first film about the life of William Tindale was made.[51] The second film God's Outlaw: The Story of William Tyndale was released in 1986. A cartoon film about his life with the title Torchlighters: The William Tyndale Story was released ca. 2005. In the film Stephen's Test of Faith (1998) is a long scene with Tyndale, how he translated the bible and how he is put to death.[52]
Around 2006, a documentary film William Tyndale: Man with a Mission was published. This documentary included an interview with David Daniell. Another known documentary is the film William Tyndale: His Life, His Legacy. The U.S. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) broadcast in the Secrets of the Dead documentary series the 2007 documentary "Battle for the Bible" (55 minutes) that features Tyndale's story and legacy and includes historical context. This is an abbreviated and revised version of the 2-hour Channel 4 documentary "The Bible Revolution", presented by Rod Liddle. It details the roles of historically significant English Reformers John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, and Thomas Cranmer. The PBS version uses Liev Schreiber as narrator, and replaces some British footage with that more relevant to American audiences.
In 2011, BYUtv produced a miniseries on the creation of the King James Bible that focused heavily on Tyndale's life.