He Burned for the Bible: William Tyndale (1494–1536)
On this day in 1536, William Tyndale was strangled and burned alive. His crime — translating the New Testament and many parts of the Old Testament into English. It may be hard to believe for many today that there ever was a time when the Bible was not only inaccessible for most people because of their inability to read Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, but that any idea of translating the Word into a common vernacular was radically opposed by the Roman Catholic Church. The arguments primarily behind the opposition, was that it would denigrate the Word of God if it were written in the common tongue, and that giving people the Word might lead to unauthorized (against the established church) interpretations.
Now the former argument is utterly absurd. For our very faith is founded on the reality that the Eternal Word (Christ) condescended from glory to take upon himself the common flesh of man in order to “translate” himself to us (John 1:1–3, 14). On top of this, we know from Scripture that with the inauguration of the Messianic Kingdom marked by the outpoured Spirit at Pentecost in Acts 2, God poured out the gift of various tongues (common languages)upon the disciples in Jerusalem to pronounce the glory and salvation that was found in Christ (Acts 2:1–11). This reversing of the curse of babel (Genesis 11) was a picture that the message of the gospel is for every tribe, tongue, kindred, and nations. The latter argument regarding unauthorized interpretations, however, is not outright false. Indeed making the Bible open and available to all does provide the possibility for people to improperly interpret the Word and abuse its teaching. Peter even warns against the dangers of such “private interpretations” (2 Peter 1:19–21). However, consider the alternative, the people of God barred from communion with Him through His Word. The Scriptures are a great blessing given to us by God. This is why the accessibility of the Word is so important for countless reasons. One being that it provides the individual with the ability to test the teaching they are receiving against the infallible, all sufficient, God-breathed Bible, and thus protect themselves from being led away by the false teaching of a ecclesiastical leader (a point explicitly followed up by Peter in 2 Peter 2:1–3). This is where the dividing line of the Reformation stands, not ultimately a question of access, but of authority. Does the Word have authority over the church, or the church authority over the Word?
The Protestant Reformers argued the former, but in order for the Word to take its proper place as the supreme authority over the church, the entirety of the church had to have access to it. This is where Tyndale in England and Luther in Germany, like Wyclif before them, were so passionate about getting the Word in the vernacular. Not only because the Word needed to have its proper place in the daily life of the saints, but that if the people were robbed from direct access to God’s Word, they were being robbed from direct access to God himself, who meets his people through the doors of both Scripture and prayer.
When he was 28 years old in 1522, Tyndale was serving as a tutor in the home of John Walsh in Gloucestershire, England, spending most of his time studying Erasmus’ Greek New Testament that had been printed just six years before. Erasmus’ Greek New Testament was a massive instrument which led to the Reformation, as it provided much clarity on very important concepts like justification by faith. Fueled by what he was reading in the Greek New Testament, and influenced by the teachings of Luther coming out of Germany, the former priest turned Reformer began the task of translating the New Testament into English. Four years later Tyndale finished the English translation of the Greek New Testament in Worms, Germany (where he had to flee because of being banished in England for his beliefs), and began to smuggle it into England in bales of cloth. By October 1526, the book had been banned by Bishop Tunstall in London, but the print run had been at least three thousand. And the books were getting to the people. Over the next eight years, five pirated editions were printed as well. In 1534, Tyndale published a revised New Testament, having learned Hebrew in the meantime, probably in Germany, which helped him better understand the connections between the Old and New Testaments. Though he produced many other wonderful works, this would forever be Tyndale’s Magnum Opus.
Tyndale did not translate the New Testament into English out of spite, it was not an act of punk rebellion, it was to break the captivity of the Word, and to set it free upon the hearts of all England that they might themselves be set free by the liberating Gospel of Christ. Bible translation and Bible truth were inseparable for Tyndale, and in the end it was the truth that ignited Britain with Reformed fire and then brought the death sentence to this Bible translator. Tyndale’s verdict was sealed in August 1536. He was formally condemned as a heretic and degraded from the priesthood. Then on October 6th, he was tied to the stake, strangled by the executioner, then afterward consumed in the fire. John Foxe (Foxe’s Book of Martyrs) reports that his last words were, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!”
Tyndale was not alone in his passion nor his martyrdom for the cause of the Word of God being made accessible to all. Tyndale’s closest friend, John Frith, was arrested in London and tried by Thomas More and burned alive on July 4, 1531, at the age of 28. James Bainham followed in the flames in April 1532. He had stood up during the mass at St. Augustine’s Church in London and lifted a copy of Tyndale’s New Testament and pleaded with the people to die rather than deny the Word of God. Add to these Thomas Bilney, Thomas Dusgate, John Bent, Thomas Harding, Andrew Hewet, Elizabeth Barton, and countless others, all burned alive for sharing the views of William Tyndale about the Scriptures and the Reformed faith.
Though their deaths were gruesome and horrific. In many ways they were greatly symbolic. The outward flames which engulfed their bodies never could overcome the inward flames which had engulfed their souls. They all were burned for the Word because they themselves burned for the Word.
