Great 16th century martyr for holy Bible English version - William Tyndale

Last updated on 21st May 2019

"In 1536, William Tyndale was tried and convicted of heresy and treason. He was strangled and put to death, then burned at the stake. And the apparent reason? His English translation of the Bible.", https://twitter.com/museumofBible/status/1130280986221129730

Ravi: Hmm. That's the price some religious scholars who shared the word of scripture in local/vernacular language, had to pay in the past. This was in England in the 16th century and the religion involved was Christianity.

His wiki page gives additional details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tyndale

I have given some extracts from it below:

William Tyndale (/ˈtɪndəl/;[1] sometimes spelled Tynsdale, Tindall, Tindill, Tyndall; c. 1494 – c. 6 October 1536) was an English scholar who became a leading figure in the Protestant Reformation in the years leading up to his execution. He is well known for his (incomplete) translation of the Bible into English.

Tyndale was influenced by the work of Desiderius Erasmus, who made the Greek New Testament available in Europe, and by Martin Luther.[2] A number of partial translations had been made from the seventh century onward, but the spread of Wycliffe's Bible in the late 14th century led to the death penalty for anyone found in unlicensed possession of Scripture in English, although translations were available in all other major European languages.[3]

Tyndale's translation was the first English Bible to draw directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, the first English translation to use Jehovah ("Iehouah") as God's name as preferred by English Protestant Reformers,[4] the first English translation to take advantage of the printing press, and first of the new English Bibles of the Reformation. It was taken to be a direct challenge to the hegemony of both the Catholic Church and the laws of England maintaining the church's position. In 1530, Tyndale also wrote The Practyse of Prelates, opposing Henry VIII's annulment of his own marriage on the grounds that it contravened Scripture.[5]

Reuchlin's Hebrew grammar was published in 1506. Tyndale worked in an age in which Greek was available to the European scholarly community for the first time in centuries. Erasmus compiled and edited Greek Scriptures following the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Constantinople's fall helped to fuel the Renaissance and led to the dispersion of Greek-speaking intellectuals and texts into a Europe which previously had no access to them.

A copy of Tyndale's The Obedience of a Christian Man fell into the hands of Henry VIII, providing the king with the rationale to break the Church in England from the Catholic Church in 1534.[6][7] In 1535, Tyndale was arrested and jailed in the castle of Vilvoorde (Filford) outside Brussels for over a year. In 1536, he was convicted of heresy and executed by strangulation, after which his body was burnt at the stake. His dying prayer was that the King of England's eyes would be opened; this seemed to find its fulfillment just one year later with Henry's authorization of the Matthew Bible, which was largely Tyndale's own work - missing sections supplemented with translations by John Rogers and Miles Coverdale. Following this came the Great Bible and then the Bishop's Bible, authorized by the church of England. Hence, the work of Tyndale continued to play a key role in spreading Reformation ideas across the English-speaking world and, eventually, to the British Empire.

In 1611, the 47 scholars who produced the King James Bible[8] drew significantly from Tyndale's work, the Matthew Bible, as well as from translations that descended from his.[9] One estimate suggests that the New Testament in the King James Version is 83% Tyndale's and the Old Testament 76%.[10][11] His translation of the Bible was the first to be printed in English and to be translated from the original languages to English; it became a model for subsequent English translations. In 2002, Tyndale was placed at number 26 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.[12][13]

Wiki References:

1. "Tyndale". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
2. Partridge 1973, pp. 38–39, 52–52.
3. Marshall 2017, p. 117.
4. In the 7th paragraph of Introduction to the Old Testament of the New English Bible, Sir Godfry Driver wrote, "The early translators generally substituted 'Lord' for [YHWH]. [...] The Reformers preferred Jehovah, which first appeared as Iehouah in 1530 A.D., in Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch (Exodus 6.3), from which it passed into other Protestant Bibles."
5. Bourgoin 1998, p. 373.
6. Daniell & Noah 2004.
7. Daniell 1994, p. [page needed].
8. King James Bible Preface
9. Harding, Nathan (15 January 2019). "Christ Lost in the Word: A history of the Matthew Bible". www.thematthewbible.com/purchase. Retrieved 15 January 2019.
10. Tadmor 2010, p. 16.
11. Nielson & Skousen 1998.
12. Parrill & Robison 2013, p. 93.
13. "William Tyndale", Historical Figures, BBC, retrieved 25 January 2014.
--- end wiki extracts ---

Ravi: Hmm. So he has been a vital figure in reformation of Christianity in English speaking world. And his work has strongly influenced or large portions of it have been incorporated in King James Version of the Bible.

Tyndale's dying prayer was that the King of England's eyes would be opened (in part at least, about the need for English version of Bible to be made available freely, I guess)!

What an extraordinary and blessed religious scholar-martyr! Even death did not stop him from his work of letting the English literate people read the Bible directly in English and better understand the holy scripture (Bible). And so, even though he died, his work did not die and laid the foundation for English literate people to be able to directly read and understand the holy Bible!

Wow! What a great religious hero! What an extraordinary contribution to his people!
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Terry Reis Kennedy wrote over email and was OK with public sharing:
Sai Ram, Ravi.

Thank you,  I really loved learning this.....  Yes!  What a victory Tyndale achieved. In my undergraduate studies at a Catholic college majoring in English, he was briefly mentioned but that was merely a token nod.  I am happy to learn the larger truth.
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I (Ravi) responded (slightly edited):
Sai Ram Terry,

Glad to know the post was useful to you.
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[I thank wikipedia and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above extract from their website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]