Today: Anglican Church Feast Day for W. Tyndale 1494-1536

I find it ironic that I opened Moynahan's book at the end this morning and found that today is William Tyndale's Feast Day in Anglican churches! So I will honor Tyndale (1494-1536) with this information about what he accomplished. The statue in the picture is in Millennium Square in Bristol, England.

Moynahan says that William Tyndale was never sainted and that his feast day is kept by few churches. And his honors are few, especially in comparison to his great adversary, Sir Thomas More, who has been honored repeatedly with his name on schools, colleges, housing estates and streets, and with statues and momuments, as well as the film "A Man for All Seasons." And in 2000, Pope John Paul II proclaimed Sir Thomas More the patron saint of politicians.

What exactly did William Tyndale accomplish? Tyndale translated much of the Bible, beginning with  the New Testament. And I quote Moynahan: "In 1535, Miles Coverdale had published the first complete English Bible, dedicated to Henry VIII, and probably printed at Zurich. Coverdale based this on Tyndale and the Vulgate, translating the outstanding Old Testament books from Luther and Zwingli, and with reference to the Vulgate." Other Bibles were printed, including a "definitive Tyndale Testament," which Moynahan says is "fitting of Tyndale's ultimate triumph that the first English printer to put his name to a Tyndale testament, in 1548, should have lived where so many Tyndale bibles had been burnt."  

And finally, Moynahan gives this information: The title page of the King James Bible of 1611 says that it was newly translated out of the original tongues, but very little of it actually was. It is a memorial to Tyndale that more than four-fifths of the New Testament is directly his, and three-quarters of the Old Testament are books that he translated. So our King James Version of the Bible--the authorized version of 1611--amounts to the New Testament being 83.7 % Tyndale's and the Old Testament is 75.7% Tyndale's. For his efforts, Tyndale was betrayed, and then not only burned at the stake, but was hung at the same time, in order to satisfy the laws of the Catholic Church in regard to heretics. The date was October 6, 1536.

Thank God for men like Martin Luther, John Huss, John Wycliffe and William Tyndale. They lived and died for their faith.

Blessings...Mimi

Gutenberg Bible 1455

First book published with moveable type.