Tyndale

Traces the life of William Tyndale, the first person to translate the Bible into English from the original Greek and Hebrew and discusses the social, literary, religious, and intellectual implications of his work.

It was an outlawed book, a text so dangerous “it could only be countered by the most vicious burnings, of books and men and women.” But what book could incite such violence and bloodshed? The year is 1526. It is the age of Henry VIII and his tragic Anne Boleyn, of Martin Luther and Thomas More. The times are treacherous. The Catholic Church controls almost every aspect of English life, including access to the very Word of God. And the church will do anything to keep it that way. Enter William Tyndale, the gifted, courageous “heretic” who dared translate the Word of God into English. He worked in secret, in exile, in peril, always on the move. Neither England nor the English language would ever be the same again. With thoughtful clarity and a reverence that comes through on every page, David Teems shares a story of intrigue and atrocity, betrayal and perseverance. This is how the Reformation officially reached English shores—and what it cost the men who brought it there. Praise for David Teems’ previous work Majestie “Teems . . . pulls together the story of this enigmatic king [ James] with humor and pathos . . . [A] delightful read in every way.” —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Translated by William Tyndale Reprint of 1534 edition with modern spelling 643 pp.

Translated by William Tyndale Reprint of 1534 edition with modern spelling 6 1/8 x 8 % Font size: 11

William Tyndale is one of the most important of the early reformers, and particularly through his translation of the New Testament, has had a formative influence on the development of the English language and religious thought. The sources of his theology are, however, not immediately clear, and historians have often seen him as being influenced chiefly by continental, and in particular Lutheran, ideas. In his important new book, Ralph Werrell shows that the most important influences were to befound closer to home, and that the home-grown Wycliffite tradition was of far greater importance. In doing so, Werrell shows that the apparent differences between Tyndale's writings from the period before 1530 and his later writings, in the period leading up to his arrest and martyrdom in 1526, are spurious, and that a simpler explanation is that his ideas were formed as a result of an upbringing in a household in which Wycliffite ideas were accepted. Werrell explores the impact of humanist writers, and above all Erasmus, on the development of Tyndale's thought. He also shows how far Tyndale's theology, fully developed by 1525, was from that of the continental reformers. He then examines in detail some of the main strands of Tyndale's thought - and in particular, doctrines such as the Fall, Salvation, the Sacraments and the Blood of Christ - showing how different they are from Luther and most other contemporary reformers. While Tyndale, in his early writings, used some of Luther's writings, he made theological changes and additions to Luther's text. The influences of John Trevisa, Wyclif and the later Wycliffite writers were far more important. Werrell shows that without accepting the huge influence of the Wycliffite ideas, Tyndale's significance as a theologian, and the development of the English Reformation cannot be fully understood.

While Tyndale's importance in the history of biblical translation is well understood, his theology has been much less studied. Ralph Werrell has become the leading authority on his theology, and in The Blood of Christ in the Theology of William Tyndale, he explores the background to and influences on one of Tyndale's central theories. Werrell shows that Tyndale's ideas were developed independently, based on a wide range of earlier theology, and - in particular - from Wycliffite thought. He explains the way in which Old Testament sacrifice featured in Tyndale's thought, explaining his many references to the Epistle to the Hebrews, linking as it does Christ's sacrificial blood with the sacrifices of the Old Testament. Tyndale believed that man died spiritually through Adam's disobedience, and that it was brought back to life by Christ's blood. In this volume, Werrell brings out the differences between the covenant theology of Tyndale and both Luther's theology of the cross and Calvin's forensic justification, showing clearly the originality of Tyndale's beliefs.