In 1526, books appeared in England that no one had seen before: printed New Testaments in the English language. The public snapped them up. For the first time, people read now-common phrases such as “the powers that be” and “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” But religious authorities condemned the English Bible and burned the copies they could find.
Today, 500 years later, Christians take for granted that anyone should be able to read the Bible in a language they understand. But at the time, vernacular Bibles were associated with heresy. The Catholic Church preferred to use the Latin version of the sacred text.
In England, there were legal prohibitions against unauthorized Bible translations. And critics were suspicious about the religious views of the translator, William Tyndale. One of those critics was the Renaissance humanist and statesman Thomas More, who entered a bitter debate with Tyndale – a portion of which I included in my “Reformation Sourcebook.”
In the present day, when artificial intelligence is taking over much translation work, this 500-year-old conflict reminds us that translation is never a simple matter of substituting one word for another. It requires human interpretation.
‘A dangerous thing’
Throughout the Middle Ages, the Bible used throughout Europe was the Latin “Vulgate,” which means “the common version.” Few commoners could read Latin, which helped the clergy retain a monopoly on biblical interpretation.
Translations of parts of the Bible into vernacular languages – the languages people actually spoke in their daily life – were not uncommon, however. The famous Lindisfarne Gospels, a richly decorated copy of the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John that were produced in northern England in the eighth century, contain translations into Old English written between the lines of Latin.
In the 14th century, Bibles in English became associated with John Wycliffe, a priest who criticized corruption in the Catholic Church, and whose views on Holy Communion the church had declared heretical. His followers, known as the “Lollards,” produced the first full Bible translation from the Vulgate into English, though it circulated only in a limited number of hand-written copies.
In response, the archbishop of Canterbury prohibited new vernacular translations of the Bible in 1407, noting that “the translation of the text of Holy Scripture out of one tongue into another is a dangerous thing.”
Inspired by Luther
Vernacular Bible translations became more common – but no less controversial – thanks to Martin Luther. The German priest’s criticisms of the Catholic Church sparked the Protestant Reformation, rending Christianity in two. One of his firm beliefs was that all Christians should be able to read the Bible in their own language. Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press accelerated that possibility.
In 1522, Luther published a New Testament in German. The next year, a French humanist and religious reformer named Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples and his associates produced a New Testament in French. Three years after that, William Tyndale published his New Testament translation from the original Greek into English.
Tyndale was an Oxford-educated priest influenced by reformist ideas. Realizing that he would have trouble publishing his translation in England, he moved to Germany to work on it.
Pitts Theology Library via Wikimedia Commons
Tyndale first tried to publish his Bible in Cologne, but early copies were discovered by one of Luther’s enemies. Most were destroyed in a raid, though a few fragments survive. He then moved up the Rhine River to Worms, where the printer Peter Schoeffer completed the publication.
Opposition was fierce. Cuthbert Tunstall, the bishop of London, denounced the translation as a “pestiferous and most pernicious poison” and claimed that he had found more than 2,000 translation errors in it. He arranged for a public burning of Tyndale’s Bible. William Warham, the archbishop of Canterbury, called for more copies to be bought up and burned. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey also demanded that all “untrue translations” of the Bible should be burned.
Three words
The lengthiest denunciation of Tyndale’s translation came from More, the English humanist who was King Henry VIII’s leading political official.
In “A Dialogue Concerning Heresies,” More singled out three words that he believed rendered Tyndale’s translation heretical. Tyndale, he complained, used “senior” or “elder” instead of “priest,” “congregation” instead of “church,” and “love” instead of “charity.”
Objectively, all of Tyndale’s choices are legitimate translations of the original Greek. But using “elder,” More claimed, undermined the special status of priests in the Catholic Church. A “priest” had received the sacrament of holy orders, which, according to Catholic teachings, set him apart from the rest of humanity.
The Frick Collection via Wikimedia Commons
Similarly, More argued that Tyndale’s use of “congregation” instead of “church” was an assault on Catholicism. Protestants argued that the true church was not an earthly institution but the invisible community of all faithful Christians on Earth and in heaven. All that could be seen on Earth, they argued, were individual congregations. To More, this undermined the biblical origins of the Catholic Church.
Finally, Tyndale’s use of “love” instead of “charity” reflected the Protestant idea that salvation was gained through faith alone, whereas Catholics taught that salvation also depends on good deeds such as charitable giving. Later, More called Tyndale a “hell-hound in the kennel of the devil.”
Bestseller through the centuries
Tyndale’s Bible went on to have an enormous impact, on both Protestant Christianity and the English language.
His 1534 revision was heavily used – plagiarized would be a better word – by almost all English translations over the next hundred years. The 1539 “Great Bible,” which King Henry VIII ordered placed in all English churches, was heavily copied from Tyndale. Most strikingly, 83% of the New Testament in the famous King James Version, published in the early 1600s, was taken directly from Tyndale’s text.
Tyndale came to a more unfortunate end. In 1536, after 16 months in prison and interrogation by the Catholic Inquisition, he was executed for heresy in what is now Belgium.
His pioneering translation work, however, set the stage for the Bible to become the bestselling book of all time in the English language.
