T
tinkerbelle578
Guest
I just want to know who is william tyndale and why was he executed? Is he a protestant? I searched him on google but I am not so good in english that’s why i wany to make sure that my understanding is correct.
- Status
O
oldburkes
Guest
Thank you, tinkerbelle578, for asking this question. It prompted me to look for myself, because I wasn’t sure either.
Wikipedia says he was an English scholar who became a leading figure in Protestant Reform in the years leading up to his execution. It never really says that he was a Protestant, but it seems that all of his writing and attempts to translate Scripture to English, were aimed at the Protestant reader.
Tyndale went to London in 1523 to ask permission from the Bishop to translate the Bible into English, and was denied, evidently because it was against the law to do so.Maybe they were afraid of it being misinterpreted. Tyndale wrote about Oxford University’s lack of Scripture study:
“They have ordained that no man shall look on scripture, until he be noselled in heathen learning eight or nine years and armed with false principles, with which he is clean shut out of the understanding of the Scripture”.
He went to Hamburg, or possibly Wittenburg, and completed an English translation of the New Testament in 1525, and revised it in 1529. Then he started translating the Old Testament.
Tyndale thought that common people should be able to read the Bible for themselves, instead of having blind obedience to the Pope and the Church leaders, especially those with the Church of England. Cardinal Wosley condemned him as a heretic.
He denounced King Henry the Eighth’s decision to divorce and remarry, and Henry asked that he be brought back to England and be imprisoned, but Charles the Fifth said that there was no formal evidence to cause Tyndale to be returned.
However, in 1535, he was betrayed and held in a Brussels prison for a year, and then executed for heresy. He was strangled to death and his body burned at the stake. He is said to have made the comment right before his death, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!”.
Within four years, there were four english translations of the Bible published in England, including Henry the Eighth’s ‘The Great Bible’, which was derived mostly from Tyndale’s Bible, with some changes, and authorized to be read aloud in the church services of the Church of England.
I guess we could say he is one of the fellows we owe the english translation to, but there were other scholars who played a role in that procees as well.
I hope someone with more knowledge of these things adds their comments here.
Have a good Christmas!
J
Jon_S_1
Guest
An interesting thing. A myth has developed that Tyndale was executed for translating the Bible into English.
In reality, he asked permission to translate the Bible into English, he was told no because there was already an English bible.
He then defied the civil authorities on the matter, translated and distributed an English bible in violation of the law.
He was then executed for his disobeying the law. (Remember in the 16th century people were executed for far more mundane things than murder, violating authority was seen as treasonous)
It should be noted that his Bible had over 2000 errors in the New Testament alone and Tyndale changed entire passages to conform to his heretical beliefs. This amount of corruption showed a disrespect to Gods Word and contributed to his crimes against the state.
King Henry VIII, decried tyndales translation as something unworthy of reading and this lead to the formation of the King James Bible.
Read more here.
catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=4749&CFID=3917446&CFTOKEN=33595682
In reality, he asked permission to translate the Bible into English, he was told no because there was already an English bible.
He then defied the civil authorities on the matter, translated and distributed an English bible in violation of the law.
He was then executed for his disobeying the law. (Remember in the 16th century people were executed for far more mundane things than murder, violating authority was seen as treasonous)
It should be noted that his Bible had over 2000 errors in the New Testament alone and Tyndale changed entire passages to conform to his heretical beliefs. This amount of corruption showed a disrespect to Gods Word and contributed to his crimes against the state.
King Henry VIII, decried tyndales translation as something unworthy of reading and this lead to the formation of the King James Bible.
Read more here.
catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=4749&CFID=3917446&CFTOKEN=33595682
O
oldburkes
Guest
Thank you, Jon S. That is really an eye-opening article. 2000 errors. Wow, no woder it was condemned.
That’s what I was hoping to see.
That’s what I was hoping to see.
O
oldburkes
Guest
So, as to tinkerbelle578’s question, Tyndale was an English priest, but rebellious toward Rome and all Church authority, thus becoming “protestant” in the true sense of the word.
And his arrest and execution was carried out by the secular authorities of the Holy Roman Empire, not for the heresy of translating without approval, but for deliberately mistranslating and voicing a blatant contempt for the Church while doing it.
And his arrest and execution was carried out by the secular authorities of the Holy Roman Empire, not for the heresy of translating without approval, but for deliberately mistranslating and voicing a blatant contempt for the Church while doing it.
T
tinkerbelle578
Guest
Thanks oldburkes and jon s for the reply. Now i understand why he got executed.
D
DrTaffy
Guest
I have often seen this claim. Are you referring to an Anglo-Saxon or middle english bible, or a modern English bible? If the latter, would have a reference to it please?
Does that really strike you as justification for strangling a man to death and burning his body?
1
1ke
Guest
Scholarship is doomed if Wikipedia remains the source of historical research. Wikipedia is FULL of errors and half-truths.
Error #1. Tyndale was not as scholarly as he thought himself to be, as his translation of the Bible-- riddled with inaccuracies-- shows.
I went to University too, but would never claim I have credentials to translate the Bible into English or any other language.
A leading figure? Not so much. Error #2.
He was a Catholic Franciscan priest who joined with another apostate Franciscan priest and went to Germany and met with Luther. He was chased out of Cologne, went to Worms, then to Antwerp. They were “aimed” at Protestants only insofar as their mistranslations supported heretical theology.
Error #3. It was not against the law. There were English translations of the Bible prior to Tyndale. His was one of the first to be printed, however. All translations of course required permission because the Church’s role is to guard against faulty translations. He was rightly denied, as his actual work shows.
Protestant propaganda jibber-jabber. Error #4. Not substantiated by historical facts pertaining to the translation of Scripture or the ability of “common people” to read anything at all, let alone the Scriptures.
Yes, bad move to get in cross-ways with King Henry.
And finally, something factual.
Error #5. The Great Bible (a.k.a. Cromwell’s) was derived from the Matthew’s Bible. SO it is “derived mostly” from Tyndale’s only in as much as the Matthews was derived from a combination of Tyndale and Coverdale, and others. More revisions and versions followed
Of course under King James they had another “redo”.
Error #6. In no way to do we owe the English translation of the Bible to Tyndale. The Douay-Rheims is the Catholic Bible in English from that period (of course there were other authorized translations into English prior to it).
J
Jon_S_1
Guest
Do you mean to ask, what English version was in print prior to Tyndale’s? Just clarifying your request.
In my mind and this day and age no. But stealing a horse doesn’t warrant hanging in my mind either, as was done constantly just 100 years ago.Does that really strike you as justification for strangling a man to death and burning his body?
The world was very different then, the laws were different and the culture was different. It’s not right to judge them by today’s worldview.
1
1ke
Guest
Unfortunately much of the inaccuracies found on the internet related to the Reformation in general, and Tyndale in particular, come from books such as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (actual title Actes and Monuments). Foxe’s is heavily used in that Wiki article.
It is propaganda generated during the Reformation period. Full of attacks on the Catholic Church, written to bolster reformer positions, full of outlandish accusations, distortions, half truths, etc. It was written shortly after the death of Queen Mary I of England and was written to support the Protestant religion in England.
It’s a polemic, not history.
D
DrTaffy
Guest
i was asking really if anyone claims that there was a previous modern english Bible, as opposed to Anglo-Saxon or middle english. That, after all, is the claim that I gather is made for Tyndale’s bible, that it was the first modern English translation.
I would settle for just a reference to whatever earlier Bible you were thinking of.
So you are a moral relativist? Isn’t that a hanging offence on CAF?
J
Jon_S_1
Guest
I do not see how a civil punishment and severity of such punishment is in any way moral relativism??!!??i was asking really if anyone claims that there was a previous modern english Bible, as opposed to Anglo-Saxon or middle english. That, after all, is the claim that I gather is made for Tyndale’s bible, that it was the first modern English translation.
I would settle for just a reference to whatever earlier Bible you were thinking of.
So you are a moral relativist? Isn’t that a hanging offence on CAF?
If I said treason was bad then but good now, or horse thieves were bad then but good now, then that’s moral relativism.
Instead I say such things are always immoral, but how they are punished is relative to time place and societal need.
I’ll look into the English text more.
D
DrTaffy
Guest
The following is pure moral relativism:
IOW it would not be moral to kill someone for translating the Bible now, but it was then.
J
Jon_S_1
Guest
No it’s not moral relativism at all. You must not understand what morals or relativism are??The following is pure moral relativism:
IOW it would not be moral to kill someone for translating the Bible now, but it was then.
J
Jon_S_1
Guest
SureIOW it would not be moral to kill someone for translating the Bible now, but it was then.
Just like the death penalty is not needed at all in western countries, but in a country with poor jails incapable of housing murderers it may be.
1
1ke
Guest
Yes, there were translations in English throughout the various periods. Of course it is difficult to talk about English, as you note, because there were many dialects and “English” as we know it springs forth nearly wholesale in the 15th century (some attribute this to England’s isolation during the period of the Black Death, see Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror. Other great books on the matter are The Story of English by McCrum and Old English and Its Closest Relatives by Robinson)
newadvent.org/cathen/15367a.htm has a great article on versions of the bible, click on the English Version link to skip to that section.
It is not moral relativism at all. Capital punishment is not now nor never has been intrinsically evil. We can quibble regarding whether capital punishment should have been used in this or that instance, but that is merely prudential judgment not moral theology.So you are a moral relativist? Isn’t that a hanging offence on CAF?
D
DrTaffy
Guest
Do you think it is moral or immoral to kill someone just for translating the bible?No it’s not moral relativism at all. You must not understand what morals or relativism are??
If the answer is that it was moral then but is not moral now, that is moral relativism.
D
DrTaffy
Guest
J
Jon_S_1
Guest
The death penalty is moral. In the sixteenth century treason encompassed a variety of crimes and was punished by death.
I don’t know enough about this case to comment on it specifically but in general I don’t see a problem with the application of the death penalty in principle here.
As was pointed out to you, the death penalty is the moral issue. The death penalty is moral. No one is being relative about the civil authority and their right to utilize the death penalty.
Whether it was necessary in a specific case is hard to assess fully 500 years later.
- Status