William Tyndale
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William Tyndale (sometimes spelled Tindale) (circa 1484 - October 6, 1536) was a 16th century divine and scholar who translated the Bible into the Early Modern English of his day. Although numerous partial and complete English translations had been made from the 7th century onward, Tyndale's was the first to take advantage of the new medium of print, which allowed for its wide distribution. Tyndale's was also the first translation to be made completely from the original Hebrew and Greek, instead of Latin. In October 1536, he was killed by strangulation and then burned at the stake.
Much of Tyndale's works eventually found its way to the King James Version, which, though the work of 54 independent scholars, is based primarily on Tyndale's translations.
Works
Many of Tyndale's translations-- of the entire Pentateuch, the Books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, First and Second Samuel, First and Second Kings, First and Second Chronicles (contained in Matthew's Bible of 1537), and of the Book of Jonah-- formed the basis for respective portions in the Authorized Version, in which they constitute nine-tenths of said chapters. Moreover, his translations make up significant portions of the Revised Version.
His Biblical translations appeared in the following order: New Testament, 1525-26; Pentateuch, 1530; Jonah, 1531. There is no general title of the Pentateuch; each book has its own title.
In addition to these he produced the following works. His first original composition, A Pathway into the Holy Scripture, is really a reprint, slightly altered, of his Prologue to the quarto edition of his New Testament, and had appeared in separate form before 1532; The Parable of the Wicked Mammon (1527); and The Obedience of a Christian Man (1527-28). These several works drew out in 1529 Sir Thomas More's Dialogue. In 1530 appeared Tyndale's Practyse of Prelates, and in 1531 his Answer to the Dialogue, his Exposition of the First Epistle of St. John, and the famous Prologue to Jonah; in 1532, An Exposition upon the V. VI. VII. Chapters of Matthew; and in 1536, A Brief Declaration of the Sacraments, which seems to be a posthumous publication. Joshua-Second Chronicles also was published after his death.
Image:Tyndale-martyrdom.png To translate the Bible, Tyndale introduced new words and phrases into the English language: "Jehovah", "Passover" (as the name for the Jewish holiday), "scapegoat", "atonement" (= at + one + ment, meaning "to unite" or "to cover", which springs from the Hebrew kippur, the Old Testament version of kippur being the covering of doorposts with blood), "the powers that be", "my brother's keeper", "the salt of the earth", and "a law unto themselves".
It has been asserted that Tyndale's place in history has not yet been sufficiently recognized as a translator of the Scriptures, as an apostle of liberty, and as a chief promoter of the Reformation in England. In all these respects his influence has been singularly under-valued, at least to Protestants.
Almost all histories assume that Tyndale translated from the Vulgate and Martin Luther. Others claim that his translations were made directly from original Hebrew and Greek sources. For example, the Prolegomena in Mombert's William Tyndale's Five Books of Moses suggest that Tyndale's Pentateuch is a translation of the Hebrew original.
A monument commemorating the life and work of Tyndale has been erected on the Thames Embankment, London. There is also a memorial tower, the Tyndale Monument, erected in 1866 and prominent for miles around, on a hill above his birthplace of North Nibley.
References
Adapted from J.I. Mombert, "Tyndale, William," in Philip Schaff, Johann Jakob Herzog, et al, eds., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1904, reprinted online by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Additional references are available there.
External links
- Tyndale Society homepage
- William Tyndale memorial site - a Protestant view
- Template:Gutenberg author
This article includes content derived from the public domain Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, 1914.de:William Tyndale fr:William Tyndale sw:William Tyndale nl:William Tyndale ja:ウィリアム・ティンダル pt:William Tyndale