Deep Dive into Tyndale and the Word of God by Conrad Mbewe
William Tyndale, educated at Oxford and later Cambridge, stands as arguably the single greatest translator of the Bible into the English language. His life was consumed by one fervent passion: to make the scriptures accessible to ordinary English-speaking people, including "the boy that driveth the plow," in their own language. He commenced his translation of the English New Testament in 1524. By 1526, approximately 6,000 copies were produced and courageously smuggled into England, though many faced destruction by burning. Undeterred, he further learned Hebrew to translate the Old Testament, making significant progress to Second Chronicles before his untimely death, and he revised his New Testament in 1536.
Tyndale was profoundly driven by four core convictions. Firstly, he was convinced that the scriptures were the very words of God, intricately tied to the wellbeing of God's kingdom. Secondly, he believed that for God's word to truly benefit people, it had to be heard and understood in their mother tongue. Thirdly, he championed the idea that individuals must verify truth for themselves through their own reading of the scriptures, not blindly trusting human teachers, as seen with the Bereans. Fourth, and centrally, he firmly held that biblical authority was over and above church authority, asserting that the Bible triumphs when the two contradict. His meticulous approach involved translating directly from original Greek and Hebrew, and notably, he coined new English words such as atonement, Passover, and scapegoat to ensure precise conveyance of biblical concepts.
These revolutionary convictions were considered "too much for the church of his own day" and its leaders, posing a direct threat to their established power. Living as a fugitive, Tyndale was eventually deceived and betrayed by someone who entered his life, leading to his arrest. At the age of about 42, William Tyndale was strangled and killed. His execution was a consequence of his unwavering refusal to abandon his mission, as he believed "the gospel was at stake." His final, poignant prayer was, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes."
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