Five Things to Know About the English Bible by David Teems l William Tyndale l English History and Religion l The first English Bible

Courageous Act of Defiance

Great enterprises have often begun with an act of defiance. The United States is a good example; the Protestant Reformation is another. In 1517, one bully monk changed the world by pounding his complaint upon a church door. Christianity itself began as an act of defiance. Likewise, by an act of defiance against the Roman Catholic Church, an institution that dominated western culture, our English Bible was born.

With the help of the following items, it is my hope that you may gain an appreciation not just for William Tyndale, for his courage and his labor of love, but that you might gain a new respect for the Bible he bequeathed us, and for the blood it was written in.

Impact on the English Language

Tyndale’s Bible helped shape the English we speak to this day.

To say that William Tyndale’s Bible shaped an entire language is not an exaggeration. Scholars today refer to that “Tyndale-Shakespeare” English we speak. Without William Tyndale’s translation, we would not have the same Shakespeare, the same Wordsworth or Keats. Tyndale’s Bible gave nobility and splendor to an English language that at the time had none.

Thomas More once said of the English language that it was at “the bottom of the pond.” Tyndale’s translation of the Bible changed that forever. The typical Englishman no longer had to endure a worship service he could not understand (spoken exclusively in Latin). Many priests who intoned the Mass could not understand Latin.

English Culture Redefined

Tyndale’s Bible not only emancipated the English language, it emancipated English culture itself.

An English scripture not only liberated the English voice, it liberated the English conscience along with it. Tyndale’s Bible had the effect of an awakening. It came upon the English spirit with conquest and arousal. An English Scripture not only kindled a new English pride, it created a new English citizenry.

In Tyndale, the Old World was finished. England and the English language were changed forever. An English scripture was revolutionary at both the spiritual and cultural level. Since the days of John Wycliffe (1320?-1384), a forerunner of Tyndale, England had for many years been influenced by reform thought. In Tyndale and Henry VIII, thought became action.

King James Version

The King James Bible (1611) is essentially the translation of William Tyndale, and most often word for word.

Only a small percentage of the King James Bible (KJB) is pure translation. The KJB is more of a compilation of the best preexisting English Bibles, and most particularly the translation of William Tyndale.

Tyndale’s 1526 New Testament introduced phrases like: Give us this day our daily bread, Behold I stand at the door and knock, Let not your hearts be troubled, and other countless familiar lines credited to the KJB. Also, in 1611 the use of thee and thou and like archaisms were out of fashion. Because of Tyndale’s bible sound, the KJB translators chose to preserve that style of speech.

Legacy of a Great Work

Upon his capture, William Tyndale was imprisoned in a dungeon for five hundred days. On Oct. 6 1536 he was strangled and burned at the stake.

Tyndale was kept in a dungeon with no light, no books and no visitors. His clothes were tattered and patchwork. After this time he was led to a scaffold, bound with a chain, strangled, then burned at the stake.

It is thought (and recorded by John Foxe) that his last words were, “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes.” Whether this is true or not, we cannot know for sure. But in 1539, just three years after Tyndale’s death, Henry VIII authorized production of the first English Bible. It was predominantly Tyndale’s great work.