William Tyndale 1494-!536

William Tyndale 1494-1536

I recently saw an online reference to the Tyndale500 marking the 500^th anniversary of William Tyndale’s New Testament translation, with celebrations in 2025 for the printing of the Cologne Fragment** and extending into 2026 to salute the publication and subsequent smuggling of the full New Testament into England. There will be a variety of events, exhibitions and publications by the Tyndale Society and St Paul’s Cathedral. I did know the famous Tyndale name but far too little about this truly important scholar, linguist and thinker of the early sixteenth century.

Tyndale portrayed in stained glass in Hertford College Chapel
where he was awarded his B.A. in 1512.

William Tyndale (1494-1536) was the first person to translate the Bible into English from its original Greek and Hebrew [in his case, Latin] and the first to print the Bible in English, which he did in exile. He modelled his Bible on the example of Luther who had recently published his translation from the Greek of the first Bible in German. Tyndale had become convinced that all people needed and deserved to be able to read the Bible in their own language but the idea of giving the laity access to the word of God outraged the clerical establishment in England. Tyndale was warned that his actions were threatening his life, then, when he continued to speak and write, he was condemned, hunted, finally betrayed and eventually murdered. However, his masterly Biblical translations form the linguistic basis of all English Bibles subsequently, including the revered "King James Bible", many of whose finest passages were taken unchanged, though unacknowledged, from Tyndale's work. Famous phrases from the 1611 King James Bible such as, 'Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," have echoed in the writings and sermons of countless others but these phrases were coined in the 1530s by Tyndale, not in 1611 by Shakespeare. In fact, the King James Bible has contributed 257 phrases to the English language, more than any other source. Expressions such as, 'a fly in the ointment'; 'a thorn in the side' and 'Do we see eye to eye?' still in use in everyday English, originated in the King James Bible, courtesy of Tyndale.

Tyndale Time-line

John Rogers printed the first Bible in English
published under the pseudonym,
Thomas Matthew

2026 is the quincentenary year of Tyndale's birth, and an appropriate time to consider the story of his life and his immense achievements while exploring his influence on the theology, literature and humanism of Renaissance and Reformation Europe. Born in England, educated at Oxford, trained in logic and an able linguist speaking seven languages, Tyndale was eventually ordained as a priest. When he decided to translate the Bible into English, he knew that it was impossible to do such dangerous work in England where translating the Bible into English was punishable by death. For instance, the Government executed one woman and six men by burning them at the stake for the crime of teaching their own children the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer in English. The clergy were the only ones allowed access to the Bible yet most of them did not even take advantage of this privilege. “I suffer because the priests be unlearned …. Yet many of them can scarcely read,” Tyndale wrote. He moved to Germany, living in exile there and in the Low Countries while he translated and printed first the New Testament and then half of the Old Testament in English. These were widely circulated and denounced in England where the Church and aristocracy certainly did not wish ‘ordinary people’ to be able to read or understand any teachings of the Church except through the medium of the cleric. Scripture was to be kept at arm's length from the common people, mediated through clergy and liturgy with Latin functioning as the chief barrier.

One evening at an aristocrat’s dinner table, Tyndale got into an argument with a high-ranking clergyman and as usual, he referred repeatedly to the appropriate Scriptural text. “We were better to be without God’s law than to be without the Pope’s,” the exasperated clergyman shouted as he pounded the table, thus revealing his true belief to the aristocratic family gathered around the table. Tyndale regarded this remark as blasphemy and gave what has become acknowledged as his most famous remark. “I defy the Pope and all his laws and if God spare my life ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the plow, shall know more of the Scriptures than thou dost." 

Vilvoorde Castle near Brussels

Such talk was heretical but how difficult today to relate to the strong emotions involved in these passions of both Church and society. Yet Tyndale continued to write from abroad, publishing polemics in defence of the principles of the English Reformation. Four years after Tyndale had returned to Antwerp, his whereabouts were betrayed by a friend, Henry Phillips, and he was eventually seized in Antwerp,  imprisoned in Vilvoorde Castle near Brussels, for 16 months, charged with heresy then strangled, immediately before his corpse was burnt at the stake in 1536 in front of a gathering of secular and clerical authorities. His last words were, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes."

Woodcut of Tyndale's death from
Foxe's Book of Martyrs 1563

David Daniell, a leading authority on Tyndale, has discussed at length Tyndale’s achievements as biblical translator, analysing his stylistic influence on writers from Shakespeare on. He argues that Tyndale was a brilliant wordsmith who revolutionised English by grounding it in a powerful but plain Saxon base, using short sentences and strong verbs, making the Bible accessible to all while shaping English prose into what became the global exemplar for the English language. He transformed a “poor and irrelevant island language” into a European prose style. Daniell highlights Tyndale’s skill in crafting memorable phrases, using English syntax to convey deep meaning to make the Bible’s language natural, and asserts that he, Tyndale, was a ‘conscious craftsman with an ear for the rhythm and music of English, imbuing his prose with beauty and meaning’. His translation formed the basis, now estimated at 80%-90%, of the King James Version, embedding his phrases and style into the very fabric of the English language as seen in expressions like, ‘fight the good fight’ or ‘my brother’s keeper’ and 'let there be light'. It was he who gave us 'Jehovah' as the personal name of  God in the Old Testament.

Left, 1525 version; right, 1526 version
of the Tyndale New Testament 
See notes below

A few months after his death, his friend, John Rogers, printed the first English Bible including all of Tyndale's translations and a copy was sent to Archbishop Cranmer who insisted that "the King's most gracious license" was granted to this translation. John Rogers published his translation under the pseudonym Thomas Matthew to try to protect his own safety in view of King Henry's earlier condemnation of Tyndale's work. This first English printed Bible has henceforth been known as the Matthew Bible. 

Frontispiece of the King James Bible 1611

** Thc Cologne Fragment: The printing of the first edition of Tyndale's New Testament was interrupted by authorities seeking to shut down his work. He then produced the New Testament again in early 1526 and this edition did not include the side notes and cross references of his 1525 version. This Cologne Fragment is all that is left of the original 1525 New Testament and gives a glimps of what the now lost oiginal 1525 New Testament looked like. It was probably published by Peter Quentel in Cologne in 1525 with woodcuts by Anton von Worms. 

 Original Copy

There is only one copy of the Cologne Fragment known to exist, which is kept in the Grenville Collection at the British Library. All that has survived are 31 pages which contain Tyndale’s Prologue, the contents page, a woodcut of St Matthew, and chapters 1-22 of Matthew’s Gospel including side notes and cross-references. A facsimile edition was published by Bloomsbury in 1871.