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| William Tyndale |
This is history. I know .... it can be dry and boring. But hang in there for a few paragraphs – it’s an interesting story and there’s no quiz afterward.
No English translation of the Bible was available until John Wyclif got involved. Wyclif believed people should read the Bible themselves rather than having it distilled through the clergy. The Bible and mass were in Latin, which wasn’t understood by most people. This kept the keys to salvation firmly in the hands of a priesthood unwilling to have its teachings questioned.
Wyclif’s followers, who backbiters nicknamed the "Lollards" (meaning “mumblers who talk nonsense”), translated the Latin Vulgate Bible into English but it was banned by the Church. Luckily for Wyclif, he died before being condemned for his work. The Church posthumously charged him with heresy, dug up his remains and burned them.
Enter William Tyndale over a century later. The Vulgate was found to have flaws in its translation from the original Hebrew and Greek texts. Tyndale was a gifted linguist who made it his life’s mission to accurately translate the Bible directly from the original languages into English. His version corrected the distortions in the Vulgate-based Lollard edition.
The Church again disapproved and pushed Tyndale into exile from England. In the meantime, Henry VIII asked the pope for an annulment of his first marriage (this was before he figured out it was more expedient to trump up charges against his wives and behead them). The pope wouldn’t cooperate, so Henry broke the English Church away from Rome and Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer granted the annulment.
Unfortunately, Henry was as opposed to a vernacular Bible as the Roman Catholic Church. His agents tracked Tyndale down in Brussels and turned him over him to authorities who imprisoned him for a year before burning him at the stake. In an act of mercy his executioners strangled him before lighting the fire.
But Tyndale had already completed the New Testament and the Pentateuch, and the texts were smuggled into England. Archbishop Cranmer ultimately included it in an English Bible that Henry required every parish in England to buy, apparently without realizing he was promoting Tyndale’s work. 19 years later Henry’s daughter - “Bloody Mary” - became Queen and reinstituted a Catholic hierarchy that burned Cranmer at the stake.
England eventually reverted to Anglicanism and in 1603 King James of Scotland sought to reconcile Protestant factions by commissioning an “Authorized Version” to be used by all. Much of it is Tyndale’s work, and it was published in 1611.
The KJV was completed in peace by sanctioned clergymen. But they’re indebted to Wyclif, Tyndale and Cranmer, intrepid pioneers who were burned for striving to make the Bible accessible to everyone.
Image credit: docfennes.com
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