The first New Testament printed in English · Chapter 80I. About the translation and the translator
This chapter is not translated yet. You are reading the original.
It is thanks to God for devout man of the word like William Tyndale, that the Scriptures were translated from the original tongue and printed for the first time in English.
A.) About the translation significance Fluent in at least 7 languages, by the grace of God, William Tyndale translated much of the Bible into English from the Hebrew and Greek original tongue sources. In doing so he gave the English language many of its best known phrases.
'In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the deep, and the spirit of God moved upon the water. Then God said: Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good: and divided the light from the darkness, and called the light day, and the darkness night: and so of the evening and morning was made the first day.' (Genesis j.)
Through the years many English speaking believers in the Word adopted and loved the 'Authorised' version of the New Testament, and surely it includes Phrases of lapidary beauty that have been admired :
'heat of the day' (Matthew xvj.)
'They made light of it, and went their ways: one to his firm place, another about his merchandise,' (Matthew xxij.)
'And he put forth a similitude unto them saying: The lands of a certain man brought forth fruits plenteously, and he thought in himself saying: what shall I do? because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said: This will I do. I will destroy my barns, and build greater, and therein will I gather all my fruits, and my goods: and I will say to my soul: Soul thou hast much goods laid up in store for many years, take thine ease: eat, drink and be merry. But God said unto him: Thou fool, this night will they fetch away thy soul again from thee. Then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided? So is it with him that gathered riches, and is not rich in God.' (Luke xij.)
'filthy lucre' (First Timothy iij.)
'in the morning: ye say, today shall be foul weather, and that because the sky is tremulous and red. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the fashion of the sky: and can ye not discern the signs of the times?' (Matthew xvj.)
'scales fell from his eyes' (Acts ix.)
'The powers that be' (Romans xiij.)
'For where ij or iij are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.' (Matthew v.)
'the salt of the earth' (Matthew v.)
'Ask and it shall be given you: Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.' (Matthew vij.)
'clothed and in his right mind' (Luke xviij.)
'Iesus beheld them, and said unto them: with men this is unpossible, but with God all things are possible.' (Matthew ixx.)
'For in him we live, move, and have our being' (Acts xvij.)
'Full of good works' (Acts ix.)
'A law unto themselves' (Romans ij.)
'Fight the good fight of faith; lay hold on eternal life.' (First Timothy vj.)
'Be not weary in well doing' (Second Thessalonians iij.)
'Let brotherly love continue' (Hebrews xiij.)
'Looking unto Iesus, the author and finisher of our faith' (Hebrews xij.)
'The patience of Job' (James v.)
'Behold I stand at the door, and knock' (Revelation vij.)
'And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes' (Revelation vij.)
All these phrases, and many, (specially when it is direct, simply plain and strong,) and many other, were taken by the King James version translators directly from Tyndale.
B.) About the brave translator (William Tyndale 1494-1536 A.D.) Pursuing a vision
Master Tyndale happened to be in the company of a learned man and, in disputing with him ... the man said, "We are better to be without God's laws than the pope's." Master Tyndale, hearing this, replied, "I defy the pope and all his laws;" and added, "If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scripture than thou dost." (Foxe, Book of Martyrs)
At that time, printing had just been invented, although translating the Bible was considered heretical. These were dangerous times for Scripture translations. Even still, Tyndale said, "It is impossible to establish the lay people in any truth, except the Scriptures be laid before their eyes, in their mother tongue." He fled to Germany in 1524, later to Belgium. He continued his work, translating the New Testament from the original tongue; and first began to print his first edition with marginal notes in a quarto edition at Cologne, but he was compelled to halt the printing and flee the city to avoid arrest. {Only a single copy of it (as far as Matthew chapter 22) survives, now in the British Museum.} Tyndale was forced to leave England and finish his work in Worms, Germany, and in the year of our Lord 1526, he printed the version (anonymously) in smaller octavo format. The shrewd religious authorities knowing that they could not stop this version from reaching England's shores, planned to buy up all the copies and burn them. It backfired, as they bought these copies from merchants, the money was given to Tyndale to print up even more copies. And because his enemies did so much carp at it, pretending it to be full of heresies, he wrote to John Frith, as followeth, "I call God to record against the day we shall appear before our Lord Iesus, that I never altered one syllable of God's Word against my conscience, nor would do this day, if all that is in earth, whether it be honor, pleasure, or riches, might be given me."
In 1535, Tyndale had planned to complete the translation of the Old Testament, but was betrayed by a fellow Englishman feigning to be his friend who was really being paid to betray him. This man enticed Tyndale to venture into the streets of Antwerp, where he was ambushed and taken to the prison in the castle at Vilvorde, Brussels. Trials for heresy in the Netherlands were in the hands of special commissioners of the self proclaimed "holy roman empire". It took 16 months for the law to take its course. A letter from him during this time, in Latin, has survived:
'I believe, most excellent Sir, that you are not unacquainted with the decision reached concerning me. On which account, I beseech your lordship, even by the Lord Iesus, that if I am to pass the winter here, to urge upon the lord commissary, if he will deign, to send me from my goods in his keeping a warmer cap, for I suffer greatly from cold in the head, and am afflicted with a continual catarrh, which is much increased in this cell. A warmer coat also, for that which I have is very thin: also cloth for repairing my leggings; my overcoat is worn out: the shirts also are worn out. He has a woolen shirt of mine, if he will please send it. I have also with him leggings of heavier cloth for overwear. He likewise has warmer nightcaps: I also ask to be allowed to use a lamp in the evening: it is indeed weariesome sitting alone in the dark. But most of all I beg and beseech your clemency to be urgent with the commissary, that he will kindly permit me to have my Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Grammar, and Hebrew Dictionary, and that I might employ my time with that study. Thus likewise may you obtain what you most desire, saving that it further the salvation of your soul. But if, before the end of winter, a different decision be reached concerning me, I shall be patient, and submit to the will of God to the glory of the grace of Iesus Christ my Lord, whose spirit may ever direct your heart. Amen.'
W. Tyndale
Tyndale was condemned as a heretic, degraded from the priesthood, and delivered to the secular authorities for punishment under the laws of the Inquisition.
T h e "C r i m e s" o f W i l l i a m T y n d a l e:
First:.... He maintains that faith alone justifies.
Second :... He maintains that to believe in the forgiveness of sins and to embrace the mercy offered in the Gospel, is enough for salvation.
Third :.... He avers that human traditions cannot bind the conscience, except where their neglect might occasion scandal.
Fourth :... He denies the freedom of the will.
Fifth :.... He denies that there is any purgatory.
Sixth :.... He affirms that neither the virgin nor the saints pray for us in their own person.
Seventh :. He asserts that neither the virgin nor the saints should be invoked by us.
.{note: According to the Scriptures Mary was only a virgin till she conceived.
'The birth of Christ was on this wise, when his mother Mary was married unto Ioseph, before they came to dwell together, she was found with child by the holy ghost.' Matthew j.
Common sense would say that every generation from hence forth should call her 'blessed' as she so said in Luke chapter j.
Mary was also blessed with many children:
"Is not this the carpenters son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren be called, Iames and Ioses and Simon and Iudas? and are not his sisters all here with us?"
Matthew xiij. & Mark vj., also see Matthew xij., Mark iij., & Luke viij.
Howbeit some still fanatically believed and even hold today that Mary remains a virgin; or worst that she and the saints could even be invoked. What they are assuming and accusing Tyndale of, is the heresy that they themselves hold; and will be justly judged so according to the word of God. The Lord himself so loved us that he warned way in advance:
'It is enough for the disciple to be as his master is, and that the servant be as his lord is. If they have called the lord of the house beelzebub: how much more shall they call them of his household so? Fear them not therefore. There is nothing so close, that shall not be opened, and nothing so hid, that shall not be known. What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light. And what ye hear in the ear that preach ye on the house tops. And fear ye not them which kill the body, and be not able to kill the soul. But rather fear him, which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.' Matthew x.
Thus far there is only a son of man that God rose from the dead, and according to the Scriptures only HE must be invoked:
'Iesus said unto him I am the way, the verity, and life. No man cometh unto the father, but by me.' John xiv. Diligence in reasoning, and utmost obedidience to the word of God must be taken very seriously, unless one finds himself zealously striving against the faith first given to the Saints, yea, against THE MAKER, and learn the hard lesson like king Saul according to the Old Testament (see I Samuel chapter 28) "Woe be unto him that chideth with his maker, the potsherd with the potter: Sayeth the clay to the potter: What makest thou? or thy work serveth for nothing?" Isaiah 45:9 (Coverdale's Bible)
..Therefore I say hereto that he was martyred also because he held the word of God above and over all traditions & doctrines of men. And Lo, the LORD asks those that accuse and persecute his children still today the same question:
'Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God, thorow your traditions?' Matthew xv. also see Mark vij.}.
At last, after much reasoning, when no reason would serve, although he deserved no death, he was condemned by virtue of the emperor's decree, made in the assembly at Augsburg. Brought forth to the place of execution, he was tied to the stake, strangled by the hangman, and afterwards consumed with fire, at the town of Vilvorde, (morning of 6 October) A.D. 1536; crying at the stake with a fervent zeal, and a loud voice, "Lord! open the king of England's eyes."—Foxe's Book of Martyrs
A couple of years after Tyndale's death, Miles Coverdale's Bible was to be used in every parish in the land. This was largely based on Tyndale's Bible. In 1539 Tyndale's own edition of the Bible became officially approved for printing. The Great Bible was the first Bible ever authorized for public use.
William Tyndale's translation is the foundation of all reformed English versions published for three centuries afterwards: Coverdale's Bible New Testament is a revision of Tyndale 1534; Matthew's Bible is a revision of Tyndale 1535; Taverner's Bible and the Great Bible are revisions of Matthew's Bible; The Bishops' Bible is a revision of the Great Bible, and also the N.T. of the "Geneva Bible" is mainly a revision of Tyndale 1535.
(Although also unacknowledged, much of his work appears in the so called 'Authorized' (or 'King James') version of the Bible whose translator's were to abide by rule 1 which demanded merely a revision of the Bishops' Bible; The version is not said to be "authorized"; yet "appointed to be read in Churches" (not on the title page of the New Testament) could be interpreted to mean that as successor to the Bishops' Bible, which was thus appointed, it (the N.t.) might be regarded as "authorized"; moreover the Bishops' Bible was the legitimate successor of the expressly "authorized" Great Bible.)