Tindale burned for printing bible in English

[Traditionallyruralmom]

A protestant friend posted a meme saying today was the day in 15 something he was burned for printing the bible in English, and if you are reading a bible today to thank him.
I am guessing there was more to the story?
Can anyone educate me?

[mikemac]

"In 1530, Tyndale wrote The Practyse of Prelates, opposing Henry's annulment of his own marriage on the grounds that it contravened Scripture.[6] Fleeing England, Tyndale sought refuge in the Flemish territory of the Catholic Emperor Charles V. In 1535, Tyndale was arrested and jailed in the castle of Vilvoorde (Filford) outside Brussels for over a year. In 1536, he was convicted of heresy and executed by strangulation, after which his body was burnt at the stake."

[Non Nobis]

Here's a "Catholic Answers" account addressing Protestant extremely oversimplified claims, e.g. that "Tyndale was burned at the stake for the heresy of translating the Greek New Testament into English"

Tyndale's Heresy

by Matthew A. C. Newsome

The new edition of the New International Version (NIV) Bible came out this year. Why is it newsworthy? Because this is the "Inclusive Language Edition," and conservative Protestants everywhere are up in arms. I read of the NIV Inclusive Language Edition while visiting family in Greenville, South Carolina. On Sunday February 24, 2002, the Greenville News ran an article by Deb Richardson-Moore. She wrote that the business of biblical translation can be dangerous, citing as evidence William Tyndale, whom she wrote "was burned at the stake for the heresy of translating the Greek New Testament into English in 1525." She reported that today he's known as "the father of the English Bible."

Phrasing it this way makes it sound as if the heresy Tyndale was condemned for was the act of translating the Bible into English. This is a common mistake and often repeated. In fact, when doing a bit of research for this article, I came across several web sites on Tyndale that said just this. One stated, "Translating the Bible was considered a heresy" (our-world. CompuServe.com/homepages/geoff_whiley/tyndale.htm). Another proclaimed that in 1408 a law was enacted that forbade the translation of the Bible into English and also made reading the Bible illegal (britannia.com/bios/tyndale.html).

Of course, anyone familiar with the history of the Catholic Church, which for 2,000 years has been preserving and protecting the word of God, recognizes how ludicrous this is. It was is only by the authority of the Catholic Church, which collected the various books of Scripture in the fourth century, that we have a Christian Bible at all. And it is only because of the Church that the Bible survived and was taught for the many centuries before the printing press made it widely available. All Christians everywhere owe it a great debt for that.

So what was the real reason William Tyndale was condemned? Was translating the Bible into English illegal? The answer is no. The law that was passed in 1408 was in reaction to another infamous translator, John Wycliff. Wycliff had produced a translation of the Bible that was corrupt and full of heresy. It was not an accurate rendering of sacred Scripture.

Both the Church and the secular authorities condemned it and did their best to prevent it from being used to teach false doctrine and morals. Because of the scandal it caused, the Synod of Oxford passed a law in 1408 that prevented any unauthorized translation of the Bible into English and also forbade the reading of such unauthorized translations.

It is a fact usually ignored by Protestant historians that many English versions of Scripture existed before Wycliff, and these were authorized and perfectly legal (see Where We Got the Bible by Henry Graham, chapter 11, "Vernacular Scriptures Before Wycliff"). Also legal would be any future authorized translations. And certainly reading these translations was not only legal but encouraged. All this law did was prevent any private individual from publishing his own translation of Scripture without the approval of the Church.

Which, as it turns out, is just what William Tyndale did. Tyndale was an English priest of no great fame who desperately desired to make his own English translation of the Bible. The Church denied him for several reasons.

First, it saw no real need for a new English translation of Scripture at that time. In fact, booksellers were having a hard time selling the print editions of the Bible that they already had. Laws had to be enacted to force people to buy them.

Second, we must remember that this was a time of great strife and confusion for the Church in Europe. The Reformation had turned the continent into a volatile place. So far, England had managed to remain relatively unscathed, and the Church wanted to keep it that way. It was thought that adding a new English translation would only add confusion and distraction where focus was needed.

Lastly, if the Church had decided to provide a new English translation of Scripture, Tyndale would not have been the man chosen to do it. He was known as only a mediocre scholar and had gained a reputation as a priest of unorthodox opinions and a violent temper. He was infamous for insulting the clergy, from the pope down to the friars and monks, and had a genuine contempt for Church authority. In fact, he was first tried for heresy in 1522, three years before his translation of the New Testament was printed. His own bishop in London would not support him in this cause.

Finding no support for his translation from his bishop, he left England and went to Worms, where he fell under the influence of Martin Luther. There in 1525 he produced a translation of the New Testament that was swarming with textual corruption. He willfully mistranslated entire passages of sacred Scripture in order to condemn orthodox Catholic doctrine and support the new Lutheran ideas. The bishop of London claimed that he could count over 2,000 errors in the volume (and this was just the New Testament).

And we must remember that this was not merely a translation of Scripture. His text included a prologue and notes that were so full of contempt for the Catholic Church and the clergy that no one could mistake his obvious agenda and prejudice. Did the Catholic Church condemn this version of the Bible? Of course it did.

The secular authorities condemned it as well. Anglicans are among the many today who laud Tyndale as the "father of the English Bible." But it was their own founder, King Henry VIII, who in 1531 declared that, "the translation of the Scripture corrupted by William Tyndale should be utterly expelled, rejected, and put away out of the hands of the people."

So troublesome did Tyndale's Bible prove to be that in 1543 — after his break with Rome — Henry VIII again decreed that "all manner of books of the Old and New Testament in English, being of the crafty, false, and untrue translation of Tyndale . . . shall be clearly and utterly abolished, extinguished, and forbidden to be kept or used in this realm."

Ultimately, it was the secular authorities who proved to be the end for Tyndale. He was arrested and tried (and sentenced to die) in the court of the Holy Roman Emperor in 1536. His translation of the Bible was heretical because it contained heretical ideas — not because the act of translation was heretical in and of itself. In fact, the Catholic Church would produce a translation of the Bible into English a few years later (the Douay-Rheims version, whose New Testament was released in 1582 and whose Old Testament was released in 1609).

When discussing the history of biblical translations, it is common for people to toss around names like Tyndale and Wycliff. But the full story is seldom given. This present case of a gender-inclusive edition of the Bible is a wonderful opportunity for Fundamentalists to reflect and realize that the reason they don't approve of this new translation is the same reason that the Catholic Church did not approve of Tyndale's or Wycliff'ss. These were corrupt translations, made with an agenda, and not accurate renderings of sacred Scripture.

Here at least Fundamentalists and Catholics are in ready agreement: Don't mess with the word of God.

Matthew Newsome, a convert to Catholicism since Easter 2000, runs an apologetics web site, Turris Fortis http://albanach.org/ apologetics. He writes from Sylva, North Carolina, where he lives with his wife and daughter and teaches RCIA.

©2002 by Catholic Answers, Inc. https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=4749

I know "Catholic Answers" is biased against Trads, but think it is not always bad...

[mikemac]

That definitely contradicts the Wikipedia page on William Tyndale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tyndale

[Traditionallyruralmom]

Here's a "Catholic Answers" account addressing Protestant extremely oversimplified claims, e.g. that "Tyndale was burned at the stake for the heresy of translating the Greek New Testament into English"

Tyndale's Heresy

by Matthew A. C. Newsome

The new edition of the New International Version (NIV) Bible came out this year. Why is it newsworthy? Because this is the "Inclusive Language Edition," and conservative Protestants everywhere are up in arms. I read of the NIV Inclusive Language Edition while visiting family in Greenville, South Carolina. On Sunday February 24, 2002, the Greenville News ran an article by Deb Richardson-Moore. She wrote that the business of biblical translation can be dangerous, citing as evidence William Tyndale, whom she wrote "was burned at the stake for the heresy of translating the Greek New Testament into English in 1525." She reported that today he's known as "the father of the English Bible."

Phrasing it this way makes it sound as if the heresy Tyndale was condemned for was the act of translating the Bible into English. This is a common mistake and often repeated. In fact, when doing a bit of research for this article, I came across several web sites on Tyndale that said just this. One stated, "Translating the Bible was considered a heresy" (our-world. CompuServe.com/homepages/geoff_whiley/tyndale.htm). Another proclaimed that in 1408 a law was enacted that forbade the translation of the Bible into English and also made reading the Bible illegal (britannia.com/bios/tyndale.html).

Of course, anyone familiar with the history of the Catholic Church, which for 2,000 years has been preserving and protecting the word of God, recognizes how ludicrous this is. It was is only by the authority of the Catholic Church, which collected the various books of Scripture in the fourth century, that we have a Christian Bible at all. And it is only because of the Church that the Bible survived and was taught for the many centuries before the printing press made it widely available. All Christians everywhere owe it a great debt for that.

So what was the real reason William Tyndale was condemned? Was translating the Bible into English illegal? The answer is no. The law that was passed in 1408 was in reaction to another infamous translator, John Wycliff. Wycliff had produced a translation of the Bible that was corrupt and full of heresy. It was not an accurate rendering of sacred Scripture.

Both the Church and the secular authorities condemned it and did their best to prevent it from being used to teach false doctrine and morals. Because of the scandal it caused, the Synod of Oxford passed a law in 1408 that prevented any unauthorized translation of the Bible into English and also forbade the reading of such unauthorized translations.

It is a fact usually ignored by Protestant historians that many English versions of Scripture existed before Wycliff, and these were authorized and perfectly legal (see Where We Got the Bible by Henry Graham, chapter 11, "Vernacular Scriptures Before Wycliff"). Also legal would be any future authorized translations. And certainly reading these translations was not only legal but encouraged. All this law did was prevent any private individual from publishing his own translation of Scripture without the approval of the Church.

Which, as it turns out, is just what William Tyndale did. Tyndale was an English priest of no great fame who desperately desired to make his own English translation of the Bible. The Church denied him for several reasons.

First, it saw no real need for a new English translation of Scripture at that time. In fact, booksellers were having a hard time selling the print editions of the Bible that they already had. Laws had to be enacted to force people to buy them.

Second, we must remember that this was a time of great strife and confusion for the Church in Europe. The Reformation had turned the continent into a volatile place. So far, England had managed to remain relatively unscathed, and the Church wanted to keep it that way. It was thought that adding a new English translation would only add confusion and distraction where focus was needed.

Lastly, if the Church had decided to provide a new English translation of Scripture, Tyndale would not have been the man chosen to do it. He was known as only a mediocre scholar and had gained a reputation as a priest of unorthodox opinions and a violent temper. He was infamous for insulting the clergy, from the pope down to the friars and monks, and had a genuine contempt for Church authority. In fact, he was first tried for heresy in 1522, three years before his translation of the New Testament was printed. His own bishop in London would not support him in this cause.

Finding no support for his translation from his bishop, he left England and went to Worms, where he fell under the influence of Martin Luther. There in 1525 he produced a translation of the New Testament that was swarming with textual corruption. He willfully mistranslated entire passages of sacred Scripture in order to condemn orthodox Catholic doctrine and support the new Lutheran ideas. The bishop of London claimed that he could count over 2,000 errors in the volume (and this was just the New Testament).

And we must remember that this was not merely a translation of Scripture. His text included a prologue and notes that were so full of contempt for the Catholic Church and the clergy that no one could mistake his obvious agenda and prejudice. Did the Catholic Church condemn this version of the Bible? Of course it did.

The secular authorities condemned it as well. Anglicans are among the many today who laud Tyndale as the "father of the English Bible." But it was their own founder, King Henry VIII, who in 1531 declared that, "the translation of the Scripture corrupted by William Tyndale should be utterly expelled, rejected, and put away out of the hands of the people."

So troublesome did Tyndale's Bible prove to be that in 1543 — after his break with Rome — Henry VIII again decreed that "all manner of books of the Old and New Testament in English, being of the crafty, false, and untrue translation of Tyndale . . . shall be clearly and utterly abolished, extinguished, and forbidden to be kept or used in this realm."

Ultimately, it was the secular authorities who proved to be the end for Tyndale. He was arrested and tried (and sentenced to die) in the court of the Holy Roman Emperor in 1536. His translation of the Bible was heretical because it contained heretical ideas — not because the act of translation was heretical in and of itself. In fact, the Catholic Church would produce a translation of the Bible into English a few years later (the Douay-Rheims version, whose New Testament was released in 1582 and whose Old Testament was released in 1609).

When discussing the history of biblical translations, it is common for people to toss around names like Tyndale and Wycliff. But the full story is seldom given. This present case of a gender-inclusive edition of the Bible is a wonderful opportunity for Fundamentalists to reflect and realize that the reason they don't approve of this new translation is the same reason that the Catholic Church did not approve of Tyndale's or Wycliff'ss. These were corrupt translations, made with an agenda, and not accurate renderings of sacred Scripture.

Here at least Fundamentalists and Catholics are in ready agreement: Don't mess with the word of God.

Matthew Newsome, a convert to Catholicism since Easter 2000, runs an apologetics web site, Turris Fortis http://albanach.org/ apologetics. He writes from Sylva, North Carolina, where he lives with his wife and daughter and teaches RCIA.

©2002 by Catholic Answers, Inc. https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=4749

I know "Catholic Answers" is biased against Trads, but think it is not always bad...

excellent!  now I need to pray about sending it to my friend 

[mikemac]

That definitely contradicts the Wikipedia page on William Tyndale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tyndale

I guess it doesn't really.  Henry VIII didn't like his translation of the Bible either.  When Tyndale fled to Flanders after writing The Practyse of Prelates Henry VIII tried to have him extradited, with no success.  In the end it was Catholics that executed him for heresy for his translation.

https://www.quora.com/What-exactly-was-William-Tyndale-executed-for

What exactly was William Tyndale executed for?

Heresy. In Flanders.

Born in Gloucestershire in 1494 or 1491, he studied at the then Catholic Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He was ordained priest in 1515 and professed as a Franciscan at their friary in Greenwich.

In 1521 he left Cambridge to become a chaplain in Little Sodbury, near Chipping Sodbury and Yate, Gloucs.

His fellow priests criticised his radical theological views. In 1522 he was brought before the Bishop of Worcester accused of heresy. So he moved to London, hoping to produce an English translation of the Bible from the Greek. However he found no backing from Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall, and left for the continent.

Now normally a priest is expected to remain working in his local diocese or religious order, unless his bishop or the provincial of his religious Order allows him to take up a post elsewhere. A priest who just absents himself and goes off abroad is a sacerdos vagans, a loose cannon.

It looks to me as if he was an awkward type, with chips on his shoulder and out to make trouble. Too clever for his own good, perhaps.

Unauthorized translations of Scripture had been forbidden by the 1408 Synod of Oxford, following Wycliffe's translation, Lollardy and the 1381 Peasants' Revolt.

There were various approved translations in circulation. Reading these was both allowed and encouraged by the Catholic authorities. Churches had chained Bibles which anyone literate could read. Chained because they were hand copied and extremely expensive.

It is a lie that the Church was hiding the Scriptures from the people. The Mass was in Latin, but Bible readings were repeated in English.

Booksellers were already having a hard time selling the print copies of the Bible they had in stock. Church authorities saw no need for yet another translation, and were cautious because of the chaos triggered by Luther in Germany.

Had they wanted a new English translation, they wouldn't have commissioned Tyndale. He was young and inexperienced, mid- to late twenties, with no great reputation as a scholar. He had gained a reputation as a priest of unorthodox opinions and a violent temper.

He was infamous for insulting the clergy, from the Pope down to his fellow friars and monks, and was contemptuous of Church authority.

Off Tyndale went to Hamburg and then Wittenberg where he met Luther, and worked on his English translation. He tried to publish it in Cologne but was driven out. He managed to publish it in Worms in 1525.

Copies were brought into England, but it was soon denounced as heretical and some copies publicly burned. He had wilfully translated whole sections so as to undermine Catholic doctrine and support the novelties of Lutheranism. The Bishop of London claimed he could count 2000 errors in Tyndale's NT.

These claims of erroneous translation from the Catholic side do seem exaggerated. However, his Prologue and footnotes were soaked in anti-Catholic prejudice. His association with Luther made him highly suspect in the Catholic eyes of one like St Thomas More.

In 1531 Henry VIII, founder of Anglicanism, declared that "the translation of the Scripture corrupted by William Tyndale should be utterly expelled, rejected, and put away out of the hands of the people."

Later on in 1543 Tyndale's Bible was still causing trouble. Henry, now having broken with Rome, nevertheless decreed that "all manner of books of the Old and New Testament in English, being of the crafty, false and untrue translation of Tyndale......shall be clearly and utterly abolished, extinguished and forbidden to be kept or used in this realm."

Cardinal Wolsey denounced Tyndale as a heretic in 1529.

In 1530 Tyndale wrote a treatise - The Practyse of Prelates - critical of Henry VIII's attempts to have his marriage to Queen Catherine annulled. Henry was furious and tried to have Tyndale extradited, with no success.

Tyndale went into hiding but in 1535 he was betrayed and handed over to the authorities of the Holy Roman Empire who ruled the Low Countries.

He was imprisoned in Vilvoorde castle near Brussels, tried and convicted of heresy. He must have refused to recant his errors. He was executed by the imperial authorities on 6 Oct 1536 by strangling. His corpse was then burnt at the stake.

[The Theosist]

As if executing a man for disputing the correctness of his choices of words in translating a text made this any less horrific an act.

St. Thomas More commented that searching for errors in the Tyndale Bible was similar to searching for water in the sea. Tyndale translated the term baptism into "washing;" Scripture into "writing;" Holy Ghost into "Holy Wind," Bishop into "Overseer," Priest into "Elder," Deacon into "Minister;" heresy into "choice;" martyr into "witness;" evangelist into "bearer of good news;" etc., etc.

That's obviously wrong though. He didn't translate "baptism", "bishop" and "Holy Ghost", as if these were the actual words in the Hebrew and Greek texts and not themselves translations. Funny how Trent calls baptism "washing", ruach does mean "breath" or "wind", and ???????? is a witness.

[John Lamb]

St. Thomas More commented that searching for errors in the Tyndale Bible was similar to searching for water in the sea. Tyndale translated the term baptism into "washing;" Scripture into "writing;" Holy Ghost into "Holy Wind," Bishop into "Overseer," Priest into "Elder," Deacon into "Minister;" heresy into "choice;" martyr into "witness;" evangelist into "bearer of good news;" etc., etc.

Sounds like a refreshingly direct translation.

[Daniel]

and if you are reading a bible today to thank him.

This is mostly an exaggeration. Tyndale's bible was revolutionary in that it was the first Hebrew/Greek translation into English (but it was not the first English bible; there were earlier English translations from Latin, just not from Hebrew/Greek), and it was the first English version to be mass-produced. I think it also had an influence on the other early modern English translations. (I don't know the history or the extent to which it influenced the Douay-Rheims and the King James Versions.)

But no, it's quite a stretch to say that all English translations owe their existence to Tyndale. This claim also seems to carry an implicit assumption that the Vulgate is a bad translation. It's not. Imagine a world where there were no English bibles, no bilingual or English hand missals, etc., but in which the Vulgate was widespread. In such a world I would think that we'd simply learn Latin and read the Vulgate.

That's obviously wrong though. He didn't translate "baptism", "bishop" and "Holy Ghost", as if these were the actual words in the Hebrew and Greek texts and not themselves translations. Funny how Trent calls baptism "washing", ruach does mean "breath" or "wind", and ???????? is a witness.

But good translations should not only be literal but should also capture the correct meaning of the text. Not just what the words could mean. And it is the Catholic Church who tells us what the "correct meaning" is.

To translate everything in a completely literal or robotic manner would result in something that looks like Google Translate or perhaps a freshman's Latin homework. A super-literal translation could perhaps be useful when examining the vocabulary or grammar (this is why I like interlinear and parsed translations), but it's not appropriate for vernacular translations and it is especially not appropriate for religious and theological texts that need to be translated carefully lest subtle distinctions be lost.

Moreover, Tyndale wasn't an incompetent translator, but was clearly doing this in order to throw doubt upon (if not deny) the Catholic Church's traditional interpretation.