Tyndale, William

Tyndale, William (about 1494-1536), translator of the Bible, b. probably Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, England.

William Tyndale (or Tindale) became a Greek scholar at Cambridge University and was then, for a time, chaplain to a family in Little Sodbury, Gloucestershire.

He had the idea of translating the New Testament of the Bible into English from Greek. But no one in England would print his Bible, for at that time, the Christian Church in England did not permit it.

So Tyndale went abroad and found a printer for his work in Worms in Germany. Copies of Tyndale's New Testament were smuggled into England.

On the one hand, the Church publicly burned copies and said that Tyndale was a heretic. On the other, people were anxious to read it and paid large sums of money for copies.

Never before had ordinary people had the chance of reading the Bible for themselves.

Further editions were printed and Tyndale began to translate the Old Testament.

In the meantime, agents of Christian rulers were trying to capture Tyndale. In 1535, followers of the Emperor Charles V arrested him in Antwerp. He was held prisoner there for eighteen months and then burned at the stake as a heretic.

Part of Tyndale's first edition of the New Testament can be seen today in the British Museum as well as a copy printed on vellum, a special kind of parchment made from calfskin, kid or lamb. This was sent as a present from Tyndale to Henry VIII's wife, Anne Boleyn.

There is a memorial to Tyndale at Nibley Knoll, Gloucestershire.

See Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ: The Cost of Bringing the Gospel to the Nations in the Lives of William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson, and John Paton (The Swans Are Not Silent) ~ John Piper