Tyndales Heresy

terryobrien80 said:

The new edition of the NIV Bible came out 2002. The Greenville News had reported 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 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" (ourworld.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).

Anyone who knowa the history of the Catholic Church, which for 2,000 years has been preserving the Word of God, recognizes how ludicrous this is. It is because of the 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. So what was the real reason William Tyndale was condemned? Was translating the Bible into English actually 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.

It's a fact, usually ignored, that many English versions of the Scriptures 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 also encouraged. All this law did was to 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.

First, the Church saw no real need for a English translations of the Scriptures at this time. In fact, booksellers were having a hard time selling the print editions of the Bible that they already had. Sumptuary laws had to be enacted to force people into buying them.

Second, 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 came 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 doctrine. The Bishop of London claimed that he could count over 2,000 errors in the volume.
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."

Ultimately, it was the secular authorities that 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-Reims 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 very 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’s. These are corrupt translations, made with an agenda, and not accurate renderings of sacred Scripture. And here at least Fundamentalists and Catholics are in ready agreement: Don’t mess with the Word of God.

There is a booklet called "Where We Got The Bible". Somebody kindly transcribed it and posted it online at:
http://www.angelfire.com/ms/seanie/deuteros/graham_contents.html
(Of interest is Chapter XI regarding pre-Wycliff translations:
http://www.angelfire.com/ms/seanie/deuteros/graham11.html )

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