6 October 1536 A.D. William Tyndale Strangled and Burned
6
October 1536 A.D. William Tyndale Strangled and Burned
No author. “Translator William Tyndale Strangled and
Burned.” Christianity.com. N.d. http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1501-1600/translator-william-tyndale-strangled-and-burned-11629961.html. Accessed 30 May 2014.
How many Bibles do you have in
your house? For most of us, Bibles are easily accessible, and many of us have
several. That we have the Bible in English owes much to William Tyndale,
sometimes called the Father of the English Bible. 90% of the King James Version
of the Bible and 75% of the Revised Standard Version are from the translation
of the Bible into English made by William Tyndale, yet Tyndale himself was
burned at the stake for his work on this day, October 6,
1536.
Back in the fourteenth century,
John Wycliffe was the first to make (or at least oversee) an English translation
of the Bible, but that was before the invention of the printing press and all
copies had to be hand written. Besides, the church had banned the unauthorized
translation of the Bible into English in 1408.
Over one hundred years later,
however, William Tyndale had a burning desire to make the Bible available to
even the common people in England. After studying at Oxford and Cambridge, he
joined the household of Sir John Walsh at little Sudbury Manor as tutor to the
Walsh children. Walsh was a generous lord of the manor and often entertained
the local clergy at his table. Tyndale often added spice to the table
conversation as he was confronted with the Biblical ignorance of the priests.
At one point Tyndale told a priest, "If God spare my life, ere many years
pass, I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the
Scriptures than thou dost."
It was a nice dream, but how was
Tyndale to accomplish this when translating the Bible into English was illegal?
He went to London to ask Bishop Tunstall if he could be authorized to make an
English translation of the Bible, but the bishop would not grant his approval.
However, Tyndale would not let the disapproval of men stop him from carrying
out what seemed so obviously God's will. With encouragement and support of some
British merchants, he decided to go to Europe to complete his translation, then
have it printed and smuggled back into England.
In 1524 Tyndale sailed for
Germany. In Hamburg he worked on the New Testament, and in Cologne he found a
printer who would print the work. However, news of Tyndale's activity came to
an opponent of the Reformation who had the press raided. Tyndale himself
managed to escape with the pages already printed and made his way to the German
city Worms where the New Testament was soon published. Six thousand copies were
printed and smuggled into England. The bishops did everything they could to
eradicate the Bibles -- Bishop Tunstall had copies ceremoniously burned at St.
Paul's; the archbishop of Canterbury bought up copies to destroy them. Tyndale
used the money to print improved editions!
King Henry VIII, then in the
throes of his divorce with Queen Katherine, offered Tyndale a safe passage to
England to serve as his writer and scholar. Tyndale refused, saying he would
not return until the Bible could be legally translated into English. Tyndale
continued hiding among the merchants in Antwerp and began translating the Old
Testament while the King's agents searched all over England and Europe for him.
Tyndale was finally found by an
Englishman who pretended to be his friend but then turned him over to the
authorities. After a year and a half in prison, he was brought to trial for
heresy -- for believing, among other things, in the forgiveness of sins and
that the mercy offered in the gospel was enough for salvation. In August 1536, he was condemned; on this day October 6, 1536 he was strangled and his body
burned at the stake. His last prayer was "Lord, open the King of England's
eyes." The prayer was answered in part when three years later, in 1539,
Henry VIII required every parish church in England to make a copy of the
English Bible available to its parishioners.
Bibliography:
Bowie, Walter Russell. Men of Fire.
New York: Harper and Brothers, 1961.
Daniell, David. William
Tyndale, a biography. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
Dictionary of National
Biography. Edited by Leslie
Stephen and Sidney Lee. London: Oxford University Press, 1921 - 1996.
Kunitz, Stanley L. British Authors
Before 1800; a biographical dictionary. New York: H. W. Wilson,
1952.
Mozley, J. F. William
Tyndale. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; New
York: The Macmillan company, 1937.
Sampson, George. Concise
Cambridge History of English Literature. Cambridge, 1961.
"Tyndale or Tindale,
William." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F.
L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
Wild, Laura Huld. The Romance of
the English Bible; a history of the translation of the Bible into English from
Wyclif to the present day. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran,
1929.
Various encyclopedia articles.
Last updated July, 2007
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