2025 marks the 500th anniversary of the first publication of an English translation of the New Testament from the original language of Greek. Although this version was incomplete, Tyndale’s accomplishment puts him as the first of all translators who brought the original text of Scripture to the English-speaking world.
Although Tyndale was born more than half a millennium ago, he remains one of the greats of the English people and the English language. In 2002, Tyndale was ranked twenty-sixth on the BBC’s poll of the top 100 Britons. One writer puts it this way:
Among the many memorials to the ‘great and the good’ in London’s Westminster Abbey, there is one made of black marble and inscribed with letters of gold which reads: “This tablet was placed here in thankful commemoration of William Tyndale, B:1490 D:1536, translator of the Holy Scriptures into the language of the English people. A martyr and exile in the cause of liberty and pure religion, he fulfilled the precept which he had taught, ‘There is none other way into the kingdom of life than through persecution and suffering of pain and of very death after the example of Christ.’”
Violet Oakley’s painting of Tyndale’s Bibles being burned, along with Tyndale himself being burned at the stake as a heretic, is one of the artistic beauties of the
Governor’s Meeting Room in the Pennsylvania Statehouse. This portrait is there in recognition of the profound impact that Tyndale’s English translation of the Bible had on Pennsylvania’s founder, William Penn.
Tyndale’s final words as he was to be executed were, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!”
The late Tyndale scholar Dr. David Daniell, in his 2006 lecture at Tyndale House in England, called Tyndale a “genius” and noted that he translated the best-selling
book in the history of the world. Daniell observed that 83 percent of the King James Version of the Bible are words from Tyndale’s translation.
Tyndale’s abiding impact on English biblical studies is seen in that “he coined several new terms, including: ‘Jehovah,’ ‘Passover,’ ‘scapegoat,’ ‘shewbread,’ ‘peacemaker,’ and ‘mercy-seat.’” His impact on the English language is captured in Professor Daniell’s maxim: “No Tyndale, no Shakespeare.”
The Scholar-Martyr
William Tyndale was born in Gloucestershire, England in 1494, just two years after Columbus’s discovery of the New World. He died in 1536, the year that John Calvin’s first publication of Institutes of the Christian Religion appeared. Tyndale’s life sits squarely in the midst of the life of the great Reformer, Martin Luther. Luther was born in 1483, eleven years before Tyndale was born, and Luther died in 1546, ten years after Tyndale’s death. Tyndale was executed as a martyr for his Protestant labors of translating the Bible into vernacular English.
The earliest source of knowledge of Tyndale, other than his sparse personal comments in his publications, comes from John Foxe. Foxe arrived at Oxford a brief time
before Tyndale was martyred in 1536. In his classic Acts and Monuments or Book of Martyrs, first published in 1563, John Foxe twice called Tyndale, “the apostle of England”:
The life and story of this true servant and martyr of God, who, for his notable pains and travail, may well be called the apostle of England in this our later age. . . . The worthy virtues and doings of this blessed martyr, who, for his painful travails and singular zeal to his country, may be called, in these our days, an apostle of England . . .
Foxe explains, “These books of William Tyndale being compiled, published, and sent over into England, it cannot be spoken what a door of light they opened to the eyes of the whole English nation, which before were many years shut up in darkness.”
But Tyndale was not so appreciated by the Roman Catholic leadership of his day. Robert J. Sheehan writes,
During his life (1494 to 1536) William Tyndale was greatly hated by the Roman Catholic establishment. Sir Thomas More, the Chancellor of England, described him as “that beast and hell-hound of devil’s kennel”. King Henry VIII denounced his “venomous and pestiferous works, erroneous and seditious opinions.” His judicial murder in Vilvorde, Belgium, in October 1536, at the age of 42, was viewed by the Catholic hierarchy as a suitable end for an arch heretic. There was no end to their hatred for him.
In spite of opposition and adversity, Tyndale completed his translation of the New Testament in 1525. It was printed at Worms in 1526 and smuggled into England.
Of 18,000 copies, according to Daniell, only three extraordinarily valuable copies survive—a damaged copy missing some seventy pages, a copy bought from Bristol
Baptist College for a vast sum by the British Library that is missing the title page, and a mint copy discovered in Stuttgart, Germany that had essentially been forgotten
as it had been bound with other publications.
Tyndale’s labors shaped the values and language of not just England, but of the world, as English is the first, second, or third language of two billion people. This is
all the more extraordinary when one considers Daniell’s observation that before Tyndale’s translation, English was as prominent as Gaelic is today in London. The anniversary of Tyndale’s first translation is clearly worthy of remembrance.
I. Tyndale’s Life Framed by Two
Remarkable Statements
(1) Tyndale’s Mission
When Tyndale was twenty-eight years old in 1522, he was serving as a tutor in the home of John Walsh in Gloucestershire, England. Here, he was able to find time to study Erasmus’s Greek New Testament, which had been printed only six years before in 1516. As Tyndale encountered Reformation truths in the Greek New Testament, he made himself suspect in his Catholic context. John Foxe reports that in a conversation about the Bible at his host’s dinner table with a scholarly priest, the exasperated Catholic clergyman declared, “We were better to be without God’s law than the pope’s.”
Tyndale responded to the priest with his famous words, “I defy the Pope and all his laws. . . . If God spare my life ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the
plow, shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.”
(2) Tyndale’s Famous Last Words
The second statement that frames Tyndale’s life was spoken just before he died. Foxe wrote that Tyndale “was strangled to death while tied at the stake, and then his dead body was burned.” The great translator of Scripture’s final words were spoken “at the stake with a fervent zeal, and a loud voice.” They were reported later as “Lord! Open the King of England’s eyes.”
The traditional date to commemorate Tyndale’s martyrdom is October 6, 1536, but records of Tyndale’s imprisonment suggest that the actual date of his execution
might have been some weeks earlier. Foxe gives October 6 as the date of commemoration but gives no date of death. Daniell states his date of death only as “one of the
first days of October 1536.”
Tyndale’s life in early sixteenth-century Europe encountered dramatic changes as Protestant leaders, such as Tyndale’s predecessor, John Wycliffe, were resisted
in their efforts to reform the Roman Catholic Church according to Holy Scripture.
II. John Wycliff and the Debate over an English Translation of the Bible
The controversy over whether the Bible should be translated into English had begun in England in the 1350s, when the use of English increased, as seen, for example, when Edward III (1312–1377) ordered that anything “pleaded, shewed, defended, answered, debated, [or] judged” in any court whatsoever should be done in English.
The debate about an English Bible translation, however, came to an abrupt end in 1409 when the Constitutions of Oxford were passed in response to Oxford theologian John Wycliffe’s (1320–1384) use of English to spread his “heretical” doctrines to laypeople.
These laws prohibited the translation of any passage of the Bible into English without the express permission of an English bishop. They also prohibited the reading
of any book that contained unauthorized translations of Scripture. This prohibition was severely enforced. A young man was burned alive for having been found with the Lord’s Prayer written in English after these laws were passed.
The Constitutions of Oxford were still in effect in the 1520s when Tyndale unsuccessfully sought the Bishop of London’s approval to make an English translation of
the Bible. His failure to obtain the necessary permission caused Tyndale to lament that he “understode at the laste not only that there was no rowme in my lorde of londons palace to translate the new testament / but also that there was no place to do it in all englonde.”
In the prologue to the Cologne New Testament (1525), Tyndale’s first published work and first Bible translation, he expressed surprise that he would have to justify why he had translated the Bible into English. He wrote, “y [I] supposed yt [it] superfluous / for who ys [is] so blynde [blind] to axe [ask] why lyght [light] shulde be shewed to them that walke in dercknes / where they cannot but stumble / and where to stumble ys [is] the daunger of eternall dammacion.” This moving passage reveals the audience Tyndale hoped to reach, as well as the spiritual benefits he hoped that his translation would have upon them.
III. Tyndale’s Publications
During his lifetime, Tyndale published just over a dozen books that have been organized into two categories: Scripture translation/exegesis and religious polemic.
Scripture Translation/Exegesis Religious Polemic
1525–New Testament—partial 1527–The Parable of the Wicked Mammon
1526–New Testament—complete 1528–The Obedience of a Christian Man
1526–Introduction to Romans 1530–The Practice of Prelates
1530–The Pentateuch 1531–An Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue
1531–Exposition of I John
1531–The Prophet Jonah: With an Introduction
1533–Exposition upon the v, vi, vii chapters of Matthew
1534–New Testament—revised
1536–A Pathway into the Holy Scripture
Thus, a portion of Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament was published in 1525. The entire New Testament was completed and published by Tyndale in 1526. In 1534, he revised and republished his New Testament translation to assure its accuracy. He was prompted to do so as George Joye had made unauthorized changes to
Tyndale’s New Testament and had published that version earlier in 1534.
IV. Summary of Tyndale’s Contributions
Robert J. Sheehan’s William Tyndale’s Legacy offers a thoughtful summary of Tyndale’s accomplishments. In the Epilogue, Sheehan proposes several enduring impacts that resulted from Tyndale’s labors:
1. Since Tyndale, the English people have had the Bible available to them.
2. Tyndale restored the authority of Scripture in the church.
3. Tyndale restored the individual’s liberty of private interpretation.
4. Tyndale gave emphasis to the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
5. Tyndale laid the foundation for the Puritan commitment to godly living.
6. Tyndale established the Puritan approach to interpreting Scripture.
7. Tyndale encouraged the idea of individual disobedience to tyrants.
8. Tyndale encouraged the freeing of human thought.
9. Tyndale taught men the dignity of labor.
10. Tyndale had an enduring effect on English language and literature.
Sheehan concludes,
William Tyndale was a gift of God to the people of England. The foundations of our Protestant faith, and of our religious, political, and social liberties were laid by him. We do well to hold firmly to what he gave us, to keep the Holy Bible at the heart of our faith, to trust in Christ alone for salvation, and to maintain our Christian liberties, over and against all who would deny them to us. Tyndale’s heirs need Tyndale’s courage, Tyndale’s Bible, and, above all, Tyndale’s Savior.
Tyndale’s final words as he was to be executed were, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!” Although he did not live to see his prayer answered, only three years
later, Henry VIII’s move away from Rome led him to have the Great Bible published in English. Also known as “The King’s Bible,” it was based in substantial measure on Tyndale’s translations and the translations of his assistant Myles Coverdale.
V. Tyndale’s Biblical Hermeneutics and Theological Perspectives
Tyndale’s interpretation of Scripture is seen in his various writings. His approach was shaped by the early Reformation tradition and the insights he gained from reading the Scriptures in their original languages. He was convinced that all the Bible is a Christian Book. Following Luther, he perceived three emphases in Scripture: law, gospel, and biblical examples. Tyndale emphasized that salvation was through faith, that is, a true faith that leads to love. The heart of biblical interpretation was captured by the dictum that Scripture interprets Scripture.
There are theological emphases in Tyndale that can be discerned from his introductions to his translations of biblical books. His doctrine of Scripture affirmed its necessity and authority. He taught justification by faith, reflecting Luther’s insights. But as he became exposed to Zwingli’s theology, Tyndale moved in a more Reformed
direction. Hence, his theology began to manifest the doctrine of sanctification by repentance, manifested by the keeping of God’s law in love. His embrace of Reformed
theological commitments is evidenced by his appeal to the theology of the covenant as well as an affirmation of divine election. His teaching concerning the sacraments
was non-Roman Catholic, with a movement from a Lutheran perspective to a more Zwinglian understanding. Tyndale held a high view of obedience to the magistrate, while recognizing the necessity of resistance to the Catholic Church for reformation to occur. A unique element of Tyndale’s theology was his perspective in his Introduction to Jonah. He argued that the book of Jonah offered important insights for the work of reforming the church.
The following passage from Tyndale shows his emphasis on repentance as an essential concern of Christian faith:
Gildas preached repentance unto the old Britains that inhabited England: they repented not, and therefore God sent in their enemies upon them on every side and destroyed them up and gave the land unto other nations. And great vengeance hath been taken in that land for sin since that time. Wicliffe preached repentance unto our fathers not long since: they repented not for their hearts were indurate and their eyes blinded …. And now Christ to preach repentance, is risen yet once again out of
his sepulchre in which the pope had buried him and kept him down with his pillars and poleaxes and all disguisings of hypocrisy, with guile, wiles and falsehood, and with the sword of all princes which he had blinded with his false merchandise. And as I doubt not of the examples that are past, so am I sure that great wrath will follow, except repentance turn it back again, and cease it.
VI. Tyndale’s Arguments for Translating
the Scriptures into English
As we celebrate the 500th anniversary of Tyndale’s first translation of the New Testament (1525–2025), it is fitting that we conclude our survey of his ministry with his perspective on the importance of translating the Bible into English. His arguments for his translation task are well stated in his Preface to his work, “Obedience of a Christian Man” (The Works of William Tyndale, 1:144–162). Fifteen of Tyndale’s persuasive arguments are summarized below.
1. God’s word came to Israel in her mother tongue. But the Old Testament was less clear than the New Testament regarding Christ, as it is earthly and typological, and is explained more clearly in the New Testament. If the Old Testament was in the mother tongue of Israel, and it was explained in the common tongue of people in the New Testament era, why should it not now be in the mother tongue of English speakers?
2. Deuteronomy 6 calls on parents to teach their children God’s truth in day-to-day life. Parents of children must know the Scriptures to do this. Hence, for parents to share the Scriptures with their children, and for the children to understand, the Scriptures must be in their native language.
3. It is objected that reading the Scriptures requires a pure and quiet mind to understand them, and people in daily life are too filled with human activities to accomplish this. But if this is true, then the prelates (bishops) should not have the Scriptures at all, as they are far more immersed in the activities of worldly things than day-today normal people.
4. It is objected that the people will misuse the Bible if read in their normal language. They need the prelates to teach it to them. But if this is so, the prelates need to
know the Scriptures, and they don’t, as most can’t even read the Latin of the Roman Catholic Vulgate.
5. Christ commanded us to search the Scriptures. This is not possible without a Bible in the language of the people, as this is usually the only language in which they
can read.
6. Jesus warned us to be on guard for false teachers. How can we know who false teachers are if we do not have access to Scripture in our own language to evaluate true and false teachers?
7. Schoolmasters are paid to be present to teach their school children. The Catholic bishops and Pope are absent from their areas so often that there are teachers being forcibly paid to do their work, yet even these are not doing the work of teaching their spiritual students to read the Bible—in any language! The Bible in the mother tongue makes teaching possible.
8. The sermons in the book of Acts were preached in the native tongues of those who heard them preached. This shows that apostolic teaching can be brought in the mother tongues of people.
9. There are many conflicting teachings and interpretations. How can these be evaluated for biblical accuracy, unless the Scriptures are accessible to people in their own language?
10. It is objected that the Scriptures are too difficult to be understood by people, and so doctors are needed. But how do we know which doctors to believe, when they do not agree? In fact, which part of the doctors’ teachings do we follow? For they can change their opinions, as Augustine did; or as when some of their teachings are accepted, and yet the teachings in other parts of their writings are not accepted, as with Origen. How can we evaluate the biblical fidelity of the church’s doctors unless we have the standard of Scripture?
11. It is claimed that one cannot know Scripture without philosophy, especially the philosophy of Aristotle. But how does Aristotle help when so much of what he taught is in direct contradiction to Scripture? Scripture is the standard to test Aristotle’s truthfulness.
12. It is objected that if one follows Tyndale’s desire for all to read the Scriptures and to be taught by the Scriptures, then one will reject all teachers for only self-taught leaders. This is not true as it will be like the practice of learning trades. They who are experienced are the ones who will show those just beginning in faith how to read and study the Scriptures. They will be like apprentices. As a result, they will grow in the direct and accurate use of Scripture.
The heart of biblical interpretation was captured by the dictum that Scripture interprets Scripture.
13. The ministerial training of Tyndale’s day did the exact opposite of training the unlearned in Bible reading, namely, by not allowing them to know the teachings of the Scriptures, creating vast spiritual confusion instead of biblical clarity. This is the result of letting the foolishness of human wisdom get in the way of the interpretation of Scripture, which is really a form of idolatry, the idolatry of the human mind. Instead, when the Scriptures are available to God’s people, Psalm 119:2 can be fulfilled. That verse says, “Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.”
14. The claim is made that the forbidding of the laity to read the Scriptures in their own tongue is due to the church’s love for their souls. Tyndale denies this. If church leaders really cared for human souls, why do they encourage their people to read so much corrupt moral literature, literature that contradicts the values of Scripture? Instead, as has been pointed out repeatedly, the Scriptures are being kept from the people. The real reason for this is to cloak the church’s errors, and thereby
preserve the wealth and power of the pope and his reign.
To illustrate Tyndale’s charge of the nefarious intent of the church’s leaders in keeping the Bible from the laity, consider this passage:
Finally, that this threatening and forbidding the lay people to read the scripture is not for the love of your souls (which they care for as the fox doth for the geese), is evident, and clearer than the sun; inasmuch as they permit and suffer you to read Robin Hood, and Bevis of Hampton, Hercules, Hector and Troilus, with a thousand histories and fables of love and wantonness, and of ribaldry, as filthy as heart can think, to corrupt the minds of youth withal, clean contrary to the doctrine of Christ and
of his apostles: for Paul saith, “See that fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, be not once named among you, as it becometh saints; neither filthiness, neither foolish talking nor jesting which are not comely: for this ye know that no whoremonger, either unclean person, or covetous person, which is the worshiper of images, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” And after saith he, “Through such things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of unbelief.” Now
seeing they permit you freely to read those things which corrupt your minds and rob you of the kingdom of God and Christ, and bring the wrath of God upon you, how is this forbidding, for love of your souls? (161)
15. Tyndale declares that thousands more arguments could be offered. But as he concludes, he appeals to Erasmus’s Paraclesis, or “Exhortation,” which was the Preface to his Novum Instrumentum, Erasmus’s newly published Latin translation of the New Testament that appeared in 1516. With his Latin translation of the Greek New
Testament, for the very first time, the Greek text was also published immediately facing the Latin translation. The full name of the preface written by Erasmus was entitled, “An Exhortation to the Diligent Study of Scripture” (Antwerp, 1529; edited by Frank Luttmer). In essence, Tyndale allows Erasmus to make the case for why everyone should have the Bible in a translation that they can understand.
Erasmus writes,
And truly I do greatly dissent from those men, which would not that the scripture of Christ should be translated into all tongues, that it might be read diligently of the private and secular men and women. Or as though Christ had taught such dark and insensible things, that they could scant be understood of a few divines. Or else as though the pith and substance of the Christian religion consisted chiefly in this, that it be not known. … Christ would that his counsels and mysteries should be spread
abroad as much as is possible. I would desire that all women should read the gospel and Paul’s epistles, and I would to God they were translated into the tongues of all men, so that they might not only be read, and known, of the Scots and Irishmen, but also of the Turks and Saracens…. I would to God, the plowman would sing a text of the scripture at his plowbeam, and that the weaver at his loom, with this would drive away the tediousness of time. I would the wayfaring man with this pastime, would
express the weariness of his journey.
At this 500th anniversary of Tyndale’s first English translation of the New Testament, I am grateful that both the wish of Erasmus and the great commitment of
Tyndale have come to pass. For Erasmus’s “plowman” can now “sing a text of the scripture at his plowbeam,” and his “weaver at his loom” can “drive away” “the tediousness of time” with the Bible. And likewise, I rejoice that Tyndale’s promise has become a reality, in that today there are many “boys that drive the plow” who truly “know more of the Scriptures than” many priests and clergy. May the work of Tyndale continue until all languages possess the inestimable gift that this pioneering scholar and courageous martyr gave to the English-speaking peoples of the world.