Tyndale's New Testament Paperback – September 10, 1996

I read a positive review of Tyndale's New Testament 1534 and bought it out of curiosity. There are no changes in the text of the English translation but only takes wayward spelling of the 1530's and brings it into the conventions of twentieth-century England (i.e., "lyttel" now appears as "little").I was surprised to see numerous phrases of beauty that have been admired and thought to be proverbial in the King James Version (1611) had actually come directly from Tyndale. Such as: 'And God said, Let there be light, and there was light (Genesis 1); 'And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes' (Revelation 7); 'Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you' (Matthew 7); 'With God all things are possible' (Matthew 19); 'In him we live and move and have our being' (Acts 17); 'Be not weary in well doing' (2 Thessalonians 3); 'Fight the good fight of faith; lay hold on eternal life' (1 Timothy 6); 'Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith' (Hebrews 12); 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock' (Revelation 3); 'Am I my brother's keeper?' (Genesis 4); 'The salt of the earth' (Matthew 5); 'The signs of the times' (Matthew 16); 'Where two or three are gathered together' (Matthew 18); 'The burden and heat of the day' (Matthew 20), 'They made light of it' (Matthew 22); "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak' (Matthew 26); 'Eat, drink, and be merry' (Luke 12); 'Clothed and in his right mind' (Luke 18); 'Scales fell from his eyes' (Acts 9); 'Full of good works' (Acts 9); 'A law unto themselves' (Romans 2); 'The powers that be' (Romans 13); 'Filthy lucre' (1 Timothy 3); 'Let brotherly love continue' (Hebrews 13); "The patience of Job' (James 5).All these phrases, and numerous more, were taken by the Authorized Version translators directly from Tyndale, yet Tyndale's name is never mentioned. The only oddity that I noticed is how the word "Easter" is replaced for the word "Passover". Passover is an important Jewish holiday celebrated as a commemoration of their liberation by God from slavery in ancient Egypt and their freedom as a nation under the leadership of Moses. While Easter is a festival and holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in the New Testament as having occurred on the third day of his burial after his crucifixion by the Romans at Calvary c. 30 AD. So this is a mystery as to why this word is here?The Introduction states Tyndale's pioneer work was to start afresh; to translate the New Testament from the original Greek, at least twice, and a good deal of the old Testament from the original Hebrew. He was caught and killed before his work was finished. It gives a history of the various Bibles first made, which is informative. It also discusses Tyndale's exceptional strengths in Greek and Hebrew, and craftsmanship.It also provides the answer to why, then, the silence? If so much of the later translation work is taken from Tyndale, why wouldn't he be mentioned? The short version is that he was thought to be a Lutheran, and thus a heretic. Indeed, all of his writings tell of God's responding to an individual's faith, without the paraphernalia, and repression, of the Church. In this he was true to the New Testament, which finds justification in faith. The long answer is more complicated. The Bishop of London hunted down and burned many thousands of Tyndale's successive New Testaments and Pentateuchs with fanatical thoroughness and ruthlessness to where only a dozen in all survive. King Henry VIII's Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, showed himself less than gentle, reasoned, saintly and urbane in his long, and indeed violent polemics against Tyndale.Yet the best that More, in all the great length of his tirades, can summon against Tyndale, is that he translated the Greek word for "elder" as "elder" (not 'priest') and the Greek word for "repentance" as "repentance" (not 'do penance'), the Greek work for "congregation" as "congregation" (not 'church'); 'charity' became 'love', 'confess' became 'acknowledge'. Every change that Tyndale makes is more than defensible: it is correct. Sir Thomas More was objecting to the translation, but even more to the translator - a Lutheran, a heretic, incapable of right. Translation of the Bible could not come from unauthorized amateurs. Moreover, Tyndale contravened the Church's prohibition known as the 'Constitutions of Oxford', made by a synod of clergy in 1408, which forbade anyone to translate, or even to read, any parts of vernacular versions of the Bible, without express episcopal permission. A royal injunction of 1530 forbade buying or owning an English Bible.We can now buy English Bibles freely. Our persecution of Tyndale is subtler. Incorporated into the Geneva Bible, Tyndale's notes and text are still attacked, by people who haven't read them, for their extreme Calvinism. So if he isn't Lutheran, he's a Calvinist. He has been denied his place in the sixteenth-century revival of learning. It is commonly said that Luther's 1522 New Testament gave Germany a language. It should also be said that Tyndale's 1534 New Testament gave to English its first classic prose. Such flexibility, directness, nobility, and rhythmic beauty showed what the language could do. The later poets under Elizabeth and James - Shakespeare above all - showed that English was a language which could far out-reach Latin in stature.I invite people to purchase Tyndale's New Testament just to get a feel of the flow in the way that he wrote and to learn from where the King James Version got its start. William Tyndale gave his life so that we could read this Bible in English and his memory should be rekindled and known for the great labor of love that he did..

This easy to read in fact I read it on a regular basis I can see the difference between KJV, NIV or others, it's worth buying it, I am so blessed by it, love it! It's worth the money.

Wow, what a great treasure this Tyndale New Testament is! I’ve read the Bible cover-to-cover almost 30 times – reading many translations in the process. And I love this New Testament the best as the most relational of all of those Bible translations. So it seems to me that Jesus truly gifted Tyndale with both lots of relational understanding and also great language translation abilities! To me this is similar to the Apostle John seeming to be the most relationally gifted of the Apostles – hence even leaning against Jesus at the Last Supper! As to an example of Jesus’ relational gifting on Tyndale, in the feeding of the 5,000, the Tyndale New Testament says that Jesus’ heart melted upon the people! To me, that truly captures the heart of the matter – showing the wonderfulness of Jesus’ heart!

We forget that the New Testament is both a collection of the teachings of Jesus Christ AND a human book with a human history. William Tyndale is responsible for the fact that you and I can read the New Testament in English. This is the original English version. He paid for his work with his life. Any serious English speaking student of the New Testament should have a copy. While you're at it, get a copy of "Fire in the Bones". It will give you a greater appreciation for the work and sacrifice that made it possible for us to read the New Testament in our own language.

Serious readers of the Bible in English, of whatever persuasion, would be well served to give serious attention to this modern-spelling edition of the first English New Testament translated from the Greek. The literary excellence of the King James Bible notwithstanding, Tyndale's translation is a masterpiece produced by a single devoted genius, one who was willing to lay his life on the line for the cause of the English Bible. Not only are his prefaces to each book masterful essays on basic Christian thought, but many of the most memorable renderings in the King James come directly from Tyndale, and he speaks with striking clarity, even to the 21st century reader.A single example: Matthew 6:34.The King James presents this elegant rendering: "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof".Tyndale speaks directly to every man: "Care not then for the morrow, but let the morrow care for itself: for the day present hath ever enough of his own trouble."By all means, obtain this volume - a rendering of the Scriptures by a man who gave his life in martyrdom for the sake of future readers.