We said a moment ago that Wiclif's translation was the standard of Middle English.It is time to add that Tindale's version "fixed our standard English once for all, and brought it finally into every English home." The revisers of 1881 declared that while the authorized version was the work of many hands, the foundation of it was laid by Tindale, and that the versions that followed it were substantially reproductions of Tindale's, or revisions of versions which were themselves almost entirely based on it.
There was every reason why it should be a worthy version.For one thing, it was the first translation into English from the original Hebrew and Greek.Wiclif's had been from the Latin.For Tindale there were available two new and critical Greek Testaments, that of Erasmus and the so-called Complutensian, though he used that of Erasmus chiefly.There was also available a carefully prepared Hebrew Old Testament.For another thing, itwas the first version which could be printed, and so be subject to easy and immediate correction and revision.Then also, Tindale himself was a great scholar in the languages.He was "so skilled in the seven languages, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, and French, that, whichever he spoke, you would suppose it was his native tongue."[1] Nor was his spirit in the work controversial.I say his "spirit in the work" with care.They were controversial times, and Tindale took his share in the verbal warfare.When, for example, there was objection to making any English version because "the language was so rude that the Bible could not be intelligently translated into it," Tindale replied: "It is not so rude as they are false liars.For the Greek tongue agreeth more with the English than with the Latin, a thousand parts better may it be translated into the English than into the Latin."[2] And when a high church dignitary protested to Tindale against making the Bible so common, he replied: "If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth a plow shall know more of the Scriptures than thou dost." And while that was not saying much for the plowboy, it was saying a good deal to the dignitary.In language, Tindale was controversial enough, but in his spirit, in making his version, there was no element of controversy.For such reasons as these we might expect the version to be valuable.
[1] Herman Buschius.
[2] This will mean the more to us when we realize that the literary men of the day despised the English tongue.Sir Thomas More wrote his Utopia in Latin, because otherwise educated men would not deign to read it.Years later Roger Ascham apologized for writing one of his works in English.Putting the Bible into current English impressed these literary men very much as we would be impressed by putting the Bible into current slang.
All this while, and especially between the time when Tindale first published his New Testament and the time they burned him for doing so, an interesting change was going on in England.The King was Henry VIII., who was by no means a willing Protestant.As Luther's work appeared, it was this same Henry who wrote the pamphlet against him during the Diet of Worms, and on the ground of this pamphlet, with its loyal support of the Church against Luther, he received from the Roman pontiff the title"Defender of the Faith," which the kings of England still wear.And yet under this king this strange succession of dates can be given.Notice them closely.In 1526 Tindale's New Testament was burned at St.Paul's by the Bishop of London; ten years later, 1536, Tindale himself was burned with the knowledge and connivance of the English government; and yet, one year later, 1537, two versions of the Bible in English, three-quarters of which were the work of Tindale, were licensed for public use by the King of England, and were required to be made available for the people! Eleven years after the New Testament was burned, one year after Tindale was burned, that crown was set on his work! What brought this about?
Three facts help to explain it.First, the recent years of Bible translation were having their weight.The fugitive copies of the Bible were doing their work.Spite of the sharp opposition fifty thousand copies of Tindale's various editions had actually been published and circulated.Men were reading them; they were approving them.The more they read, the less reason they saw for hiding the Book from the people.Why should it not be made common and free? There was strong Lutheran opinion in the universities.It was already a custom for English teachers to go to Germany for minute scholarship.They came back with German Bibles in Luther's version and with Greek Testaments, and the young scholars who were being raised up felt the influence, consciously or unconsciously, of the free use of the Bible which ruled in many German universities.
