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William Tyndale's English Bible
Year of Translation
Tyndale worked on his translation of the Bible from the early 1520s until his death in 1536. In historical perspective, this was during the reign of King Henry VIII, shortly after the discovery of the Americas, and at the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
Translator
William Tyndale was a scholar, priest, and one of the first leaders of the Protestant Reformation in England. Born in 1494 or 1495, Tyndale was schooled at Oxford and later Cambridge. He worked for about a year as a private tutor after leaving Cambridge, but soon dedicated his life to translating the Bible into English, an occupation which required the financial patronage of willing supporters, while requiring Tyndale to constantly flee from authorities who opposed his work. Although a native of Gloucestershire in England, Tyndale lived most of his last years on the European continent evading capture by the authorities. In 1536 Tyndale was kidnapped by a bounty hunter, tried for heresy, and executed for the Protestant doctrines he held and promoted.
The importance of the life and work of William Tyndale cannot be overemphasized, and deserves far more space than I can devote here. Tyndale's heroic efforts to get the Bible into English opened the floodgates for all the scholars who followed. His zeal and dedication were well matched with his abilities as a translator. Tyndale was one of the few scholars of his generation with the skills to translate Hebrew into English, and the quality of his translations from Greek are evidenced by the fact that his wordings are still being used five centuries later. By opening the door for others to begin translating the Bible into English, and by creating a quality translation that served as the basis for our most popular and respected revisions, Tyndale can certainly be considered the father of the Bible in English.
Scope
Tyndale's completed work includes all the books of the New Testament and translations of the Old Testament books from Genesis through 2 Chronicles, plus the book of Jonah. Tyndale's ultimate goal was to translate the whole bible into English from the original Greek and Hebrew. Unfortunately, he was executed before he had a chance to finish the Old Testament.
Relation to Other Translations
Tyndale's translation was truly unique. Being the first to translate the Bible into English, he did not have the privilege of comparing his work with that of any other English translation of the Bible. In fact, Bible translation itself was in its infancy, and Tyndale had to work out for himself what principles would guide his translation.
Considering this background, it is amazing how well his work has endured through the years. Tyndale's English translation served as the basis for a number of English Bibles in the sixteenth century, and ultimately was a basis for the King James Version. According to some authorities, approximately 90% of the wordings used in the King James Version are directly from Tyndale, with not all of the changes being for the best. Through the centuries, the King James Version has been the basis for a number of revisions, including the Revised Version, American Standard, and Revised Standard versions. So it is that many of the most respected modern translations trace their lineage directly back to Tyndale's work.
Purpose
Tyndale lived during an era when to be Christian meant to be a Catholic, and the Catholic church was in the prime of its corruption. Many Catholic priests, bishops, and cardinals were completely ignorant of the Bible, lived lives of gross immorality (many priests having "concubines" and children, despite their vows of celibacy), and used their office as a means of financial gain rather than spiritual leadership. Many men of Tyndale's day felt that something had to be done to reform the Church, whether by breaking away from the church (as Tyndale, Luther, Calvin, and others did) or by attempting to reform it from within (like Erasmus and Thomas More). William Tyndale felt that the best way to reform the church was to provide the common man with the true word of God. This way every Englishman could have the true light of God's word to guide him, instead of being bound by the greed and superstition of the clergy. Dedicated to the belief that man should guide his life by "scripture only", Tyndale determined to make that possible for all who could read English.
Tyndale's goal was for the "boy who drives a plough" to be able to read the Bible in his own language, and ultimately to know the Bible better than the clergy of the day. Accordingly, his translation was written in the terminology of the common man. He purposely avoided using ecclesiastical terms such as "charity", "penance", "church" and "priest", since these terms had been co-opted by the Catholic church to relate specifically to actions and practices of the church. Instead, Tyndale translated these words into the common man's English, using the words "love", "repentance", "congregation" and "elder".
Textual Basis
Tyndale based his translation on the Greek text compiled by Erasmus in the early 1500s, which was essentially an early form of the majority text. Greek scholarship was not very strong at this period in history. Erasmus's Greek text was compiled from only five or six Greek manuscripts he had available, and some portions were actually based on Latin, which he translated into Greek. In general, these texts reperesented the majority text.
Special Features
Unlike modern translations, Tyndale's Bible is not divided into verses. His work includes comments in the margins and some commentaries at the beginning of the books, such as a long introduction to the book of Romans.
Sample Readings
Isaiah 53:1-6:Esaias said, Lord, who believeth our sayings, and the arm of the lord, to whom is it opened? He came up as a sparrow before him, and as a root out of a dry land. There was neither fashion or beauty on him. And when we looked on him, there was no godlieness that we should lust after him. He was despised and cast out of men's company, and one that had suffered sorrow, and had experienced of infirmity: and we were as one that had hid his face from him. He was so despisable, that we esteemed him not.
Truly he took upon him our diseases, and bare our sorrows. And yet we counted him plauged, and beaten and humbled of God. He was wounded for our transgression, and bruised for our iniquities. The correction that brought us peace was on him, and with his stripes we were healed. And we went astray as sheep, and turned every man his way: and the lord put on him the wickedness of us all. I have put this passage in modern-spelling format.
1 Corinthians 13:1-7 Love suffereth long, and is courteous. Love envieth not. Love doth not frowardly, swelleth not, dealeth not dishonestly, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh not evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity: but rejoiceth in the truth, suffereth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth in all things. Passage quoted from David Danielle's modern spelling edtion.
John 3:16-21 Passage quoted from David Danielle's modern spelling edtion.
Publication Information
David Danielle has put Tyndale's translations into modern spelling, thus making Tyndale's work more accessible to modern readers. These editions were publised in 1989 by Yale University Press. They are available under the titles Tyndale's New Testament and
Tyndale's Old Testament.
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