The document discusses William Tyndale's translation of the New Testament into English in the 1520s. It summarizes:
1) Tyndale believed the Bible alone should be the authority over all doctrine, leading him to translate it from Latin into English so ordinary people could read it for themselves.
2) When Tyndale's translation arrived in England in 1526, copies spread rapidly despite being banned, with even poor laborers able to afford one.
3) Tyndale's translation work precipitated persecution, with some of his supporters like Little Bilney and Richard Bayfield being burned at the stake for their beliefs. Many others were imprisoned or tortured for reading his English Bible.
The document discusses William Tyndale's translation of the New Testament into English in the 1520s. It summarizes:
1) Tyndale believed the Bible alone should be the authority over all doctrine, leading him to translate it from Latin into English so ordinary people could read it for themselves.
2) When Tyndale's translation arrived in England in 1526, copies spread rapidly despite being banned, with even poor laborers able to afford one.
3) Tyndale's translation work precipitated persecution, with some of his supporters like Little Bilney and Richard Bayfield being burned at the stake for their beliefs. Many others were imprisoned or tortured for reading his English Bible.
The document discusses William Tyndale's translation of the New Testament into English in the 1520s. It summarizes:
1) Tyndale believed the Bible alone should be the authority over all doctrine, leading him to translate it from Latin into English so ordinary people could read it for themselves.
2) When Tyndale's translation arrived in England in 1526, copies spread rapidly despite being banned, with even poor laborers able to afford one.
3) Tyndale's translation work precipitated persecution, with some of his supporters like Little Bilney and Richard Bayfield being burned at the stake for their beliefs. Many others were imprisoned or tortured for reading his English Bible.
The document discusses William Tyndale's translation of the New Testament into English in the 1520s. It summarizes:
1) Tyndale believed the Bible alone should be the authority over all doctrine, leading him to translate it from Latin into English so ordinary people could read it for themselves.
2) When Tyndale's translation arrived in England in 1526, copies spread rapidly despite being banned, with even poor laborers able to afford one.
3) Tyndale's translation work precipitated persecution, with some of his supporters like Little Bilney and Richard Bayfield being burned at the stake for their beliefs. Many others were imprisoned or tortured for reading his English Bible.
Source: Brian H. Edwards, God’s Outlaw (Evangelical Press, 1998)
“The mark of all the evangelical reformers was that the glory of the redemption gained by Christ on the they were men totally committed to the authority cross. With such teaching the Church was bound to of Scripture. It was their final test and source of all be corrupt; it could be nothing else. But how could doctrine and it towered above princes, prelates and the eyes of the common people be opened unless popes. In 1528 Tyndale wrote in his Parable of the they could read the Scriptures for themselves? Thus Wicked Mammon, ‘Believe not every spirit suddenly, the two fundamental doctrines of men like Tyndale but judge them by the Word of God, which is the trial and Luther—the absolute authority of Scripture, and of all doctrine; and lasteth for ever’. Sola Scriptura, salvation by faith in the death of Christ alone, led Scripture alone, was the watchword of the reformers. to an inevitable conclusion: the Scriptures must be From this followed the doctrine of justification by faith translated. Lesser men might flinch from taking up in the merits of Christ alone. By a papal bull of 1343, the task in defiance of the pope and his councils. Unigenitus (the Latin bulla referred to the pope’s lead Erasmus admitted his own weakness in a letter to seal), Clement VI asserted that Mary and the saints Richard Pace: ‘I follow the pope and the Emperor have been adding to the merits of Christ, and that when they decide well, because it is pious to do so; I this great reservoir of merit in heaven has been given bear their bad decision, because it is safe to do so’. to the Church to dispense to the faithful—at a price. Such men could never change Rome, even if they The reformers rightly saw that such teaching found wanted to. Tyndale was a different kind of man.” no support in Scripture and it savagely attacked — Brian H. Edwards, God’s Outlaw (Evangelical Press, 1998), p. 71
When Tyndale completed his first translation into English of the New Testament, it was shipped to England. At the time, the laws of England prohibited any translation of the Bible except the official Latin Church translation. Here is a bit of background information as to what happened:
“During the spring of 1526 the merchant ships that through the great cities and the two universities into traded between England and the continent began the possession of even the humblest men and women: to deliver their precious cargo to the docks and apprentices, tailors, founders, saddlers, weavers, warehouses of London. For the first time in the long bricklayers, servants, fishmongers; wherever a poor history of the nation, a printed English New Testament man or woman could be found able to read, a few was available for those who could afford to pay one would club together and buy a copy of the Scriptures. shilling and eight pence* for an unbound copy or a The price was relatively cheap, probably not more shilling extra for a bound copy. The merchants were than half a week’s wages for a labourer, and the careful to conceal the contraband amongst more demand grew. Poor men would offer a load of hay legitimate items for import and certainly the first copies for a New Testament.” — Edwards, God’s Outlaw, p. 91 to arrive reached friendly hands in safety. Although Tyndale’s name did not appear on this first edition, * Eight pence (each penny roughly equal to a cent in decimal currency) was about the amount a laborer earned in a day. there was no difficulty in disposing of the copies and eager hands reached out for the precious book. It was not long before the New Testament had passed
Find out more. Read the life of Tyndale. Check your history books or the Internet for details of the English Bible in its early days and other interesting facts.
“The late summer and autumn of 1531 “Tyndale received the weekly reports of arrests, provided a sad and ominous prelude to recantings and burnings with sorrow but never the coming year. Little Bilney was burnt at with recrimination towards those who broke under Norwich in August and Richard Bayfield died pressure. One of the greatest burdens upon the at the Smithfield stake in December. Two of lonely exile must have been the knowledge that Tyndale’s close friends and loyal workers were he had precipitated this cruel persecution by his thus gone. Bayfield had acted as a courier translation and books and that many of those and on at least three occasions conveyed rotting in prison or dying in agony at the stake large consignments of books and Testaments had willingly committed themselves to the great to England. In the same month of December commission so close to his heart. The records reveal a leather-seller named Tewkesbury died at men in every station of life in conflict with the Smithfield. Others recanted . . . a few, like authorities for reading the English New Testament George Constantine, gave in under torture and other proscribed books: a French bookbinder, and revealed valuable information regarding a Dutch printer, a priest, a weaver, servants, tailors, the involvement of certain ship’s masters in apprentices, leatherworkers, painters, and even a the contraband traffic, and the secret marks boy from Colchester who died after being thrown used to identify the bales and boxes that into prison by Thomas Moore, the lists, complete contained forbidden books and Bibles. with names and details of the charges, are almost endless. Men of rank and learning were not spared either.” — Edwards, God’s Outlaw, pp. 124, 125
DISCUSS:
1. What book have you read recently that you would want to read even if it meant dying in this way?
