William Tyndale and The Making of the English Bible

Sermon preached at St Mark's, The Gap
on November 8 1998, (7.30am and 9am)
by Michael Gourlay

In today's reading from the New Testament letters Paul writes

“So then brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings
we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.”2 Thess.2:15

Introduction – Challenges to Belief

Some of you may have read an article entitled “Seeking the essential Jesus” in this month's “Focus”, which presents the claims of certain scholars that only 18% of sayings attributed to Jesus and only 16% of the stories told about him appear to be authentic.

Such challenges to our deeply held beliefs can be very disturbing and their truth or otherwise needs to be carefully assessed.

Four years ago next Saturday (14 November 1994) I was confronted with the results of some recent scholarly research about the history of the Church. However, in this case the scholar's work provided reassurance that the understanding I had gained as a university student of certain tumultuous and traumatic events in the past was indeed true.

I was visiting the British Library in London and, after walking through the manuscripts room past Magna Carta, the Gutenburg Bible and many other priceless items, I entered a small room in which there was a special exhibition, the centre piece of which was an octavo size book of 700 pages. The latter had been acquired by the Library a few months previously at a cost of 1,000,000 pounds – rather more than A$2,000,000 at that time.

This exhibition, entitled “Let there be Light” celebrated the 500^th Anniversary of the birth of William Tyndale, the man would gave us the New Testament and half the Old Testament in the English language.

His work has been often overlooked and certainly undervalued. Indeed one book I have on the history of the church in his times gives him only three lines. But he is, in my opinion, arguably the man whose work has most influenced English-speaking Christians.

This morning I want to do three things

• look at the communication of the gospel in earlier times;
• outline William Tyndale's life and work; and
• indicate some of the consequences and implications of his work.

Of necessity, I shall have to try to be brief! Otherwise I may end up preaching one of those hour long sermons which Ron likes but which I suspect are not appreciated by everyone.

Communication of the Gospel

Let us consider the question –

Michael Bennett in his study from Revelation last Wednesday night referred to John recording the vision that he received on the island of Patmos. He wrote it on a scroll which was carried by a messenger to each of the seven churches in the region near Ephesus, following the connecting roads in a clockwise direction.

In New Testament times this was how the gospel was communicated. The apostles, particularly Paul, used the superb road network of the Roman Empire to move around while preaching the gospel and overseeing the life of the churches. Handwritten letters were carried by messengers to their destination. For example, Tychius and Onesimus carried Paul's letters written in Rome to the church at Colossae and to Philemon, a member of that church.

During the first 1500 years of the Christian era the New Testament Scriptures were only available in hand copied manuscripts, originally written in Greek, but later mostly written in Latin and available only to clergy, scholars and the rich.

Most persons heard about Christ from someone else who may have heard about him from someone else………

Oral transmission does not always pass on gospel truth reliably.

An example of bad communcation during first world war – “Send us reinforcements we are going to advance” became “Send us three and four pence we are going to a dance”. The message became what they would like to do – not what they were supposed to do.

Christian beliefs and liturgies need to adapt to changing circumstances but they also must be firmly based upon the historical records of Jesus' life and his and his apostles' teaching in the Scriptures. After 1500 years this was no longer the case – the gospel message had been distorted and many of the beliefs and practices of the Church bore little resemblance to the teachings of Jesus and his apostles.

The Spirit of God was about to change this situation but before he could enlighten and empower his people, a new means of communication was needed for them to learn again the fundamentals of the gospel. This became possible with a combination of new technology and new learning.

In the 1400s the invention of the printing press with movable metal type provided the first mass medium of communication

• books, including the Scriptures, were now potentially available to everyone who could read, and
• since books were more plentiful and cheaper, there was the incentive for more people to learn to read.

Also at this time the Islamic Turks conquered the Greek Christian city of Constantinople and Christian scholars fled to western Europe carrying with them copies of the Scriptures in their original languages – Greek and Hebrew. The Dutch scholar Erasmus published the Greek New Testament, making it readily available to scholars, in the early 1500s at the same time as Martin Luther and others were re-examining and challenging many of the beliefs and practices of the Church.

William Tyndale and His Work

William Tyndale was the man who took advantage of this new communications technology and scholarship to translate the New Testament and half the Old Testament into plain, easily understood English language.

He was born in 1494 in England near Dursley between Bristol and Gloucester on the western edge of the Cotswold hills overlooking the valley of the Severn River and the village of Slimbridge near where, in recent years, Sir Peter Scott established his Wildfowl Trust. The area was a centre for the woolen cloth industry and lay on a trade route linking northern England and the Midlands to Bristol and to Europe.

He was well educated, attending Oxford University for several years where he received both bachelor and master's degrees. Holders of master's degrees were allowed to study Theology. The year after Tyndale obtained his MA – 1516 – Erasmus published his Greek New Testament. A few years later (1522), Luther published his German New Testament, translated from the Greek.

By this time Tyndale had conceived his project to translate the Greek New Testament into English and he went up to London to do it, seeking the support of the then Bishop of London, Cuthbert Tunstall, a scholar and friend of Erasmus. That support was not forthcoming, so after a year Tyndale decided that he could not do his work in England and, with financial support from a wealthy merchant, sailed to Germany.

He first attempted to print his New Testament at Cologne but agents for English opponents of his work disrupted this operation. Fortunately Tyndale had been tipped off and he fled up the Rhine valley to Worms, where the first English New Testament translated from the original Greek was printed in 1526. Copies were smuggled in bales of cloth carried in boats down the Rhine and across to England. Of the original 3000 copies only one complete copy has survived – the one I saw in the British Library.

How was this achievement greeted in England?

On the one hand with enthusiasm:

• those who could get a copy were now able to read in their native tongue about the works and teachings of Jesus, the theology of Paul and the other apostles.

On the other hand with enmity:

• the church authorities saw this book as a dangerous challenge to their position, just as the Pharisees and Saducees of Jesus time were threatened by Jesus teaching.

In November 1526 the Bishop of London preached at a ceremony in old St. Paul's cathedral in which copies of Tyndale's New Testament were burnt. Indeed the bishops bought up as many New Testaments as they could to burn them before people could read them. Tyndale and others used the proceeds to print more.

New Testaments were smuggled into “Christian” England in the same way that Bibles were smuggled into Communist Russia and China during the cold war in recent times.

Tyndale moved to Antwerp in Flanders and was studying Hebrew. In 1530 he published his translation of the Pentateuch – the first five books of the Old Testament, having previously lost his first attempt at sea on the way to the printers in Hamburg. He had to start again.

Following the burning of his New Testaments he commenced writing against the abuses in the Church and this aroused further opposition against himself and his bible translation from religious conservatives such as Sir Thomas More.

A second edition of his New Testament was published in 1534, including revisions based upon Tyndale's new understanding of the many Hebrew forms underlying much New Testament Greek and by the following year he had translated Joshua to 2 Chronicles, although they were not published until after his death.

In 1535 Tyndale was betrayed and imprisoned for 16 months in a dungeon in a castle near Brussels. A letter from his prison-cell, probably written as the winter of 1535 approached, asks for some comforts, including a light, and his Hebrew material. It has echoes of Paul's request also from prison to Timothy “When you come, bring the cloak I left with Carpus in Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments.” 2Tim.4:13.

After various trials for heresy, Tyndale was handed over to the secular authorities “and on the morning of 6 October 1536, before a specially-assembled company of senior officials and Church dignitaries, taken out and ceremonially strangled, and then burned.”

Consequences and implications of Tyndale's work

Tyndale's bible translation forms the basis of the greater part of the King James version. Many well known phrases from the latter are Tyndale's.

For example –

There were some differences. His translation of John 1:1 was much closer to the original Greek which Michael Bennett explained to us recently. Tyndale's version read –

“In the begynnynge was the worde ad that worde was with god: and god was thatt worde.”

Tyndale's translation was in clear, every day, spoken English – not formal literary English – but in the same style of language as the original Greek. It also codified the English language in a common readable form which was used by Shakespeare and succeeding writers.

As a consequence of Tyndale's work, the English bible became one of the most significant influences upon the life and thought of English speaking peoples. In many humble families the Family Bible was the only book.

Sadly in late 20^th century Australia, the bible is not read in the way it used to be – even by Christians. Daily bible reading, both by individuals and families, has declined, as has knowledge of the Scriptures and their teachings.

But God is equal to the challenge to communicate the gospel in these post modernist times.

Before he left England, Tyndale challenged one of his opponents with these words

In these words Tyndale expressed his mission in the content of the agriculturally based society in which he lived.

If he were here today he would undoubtedly see the new communications opportunities in our information technology-based society and particularly the potential benefits of the computer and the internet.

He probably would say to us  

God will find a way to communicate his word to us, but he needs persons with the vision, gifts and perseverance of William Tyndale to accomplish his purpose.

Let us pray:

APBA Collect page 600.

Sources

Daniell, D. , Let there be light – William Tyndale and the making of the English Bible . The British Library, 1994

Daniell, D., William Tyndale – a Biography. Yale University Press, 1994

Acknowledgements