I am one of the ten percent of those who have visited "Ink and Blood" who has heard of William Tyndale before. He was a marytr to the cause of true faith in the Bible when he was stranged and burned to the stake by Catholics. His crime was taking the Bible seriously and translating it into English.
During the lifetime of William Tyndale, it was a crime, punishable by death, to own the Bible in the vernacular (that is, the common tongue). The Catholic Church, like all corrupt powers, wished to hold onto knowledge and keep it from the common person, because when the common people have access to knowledge, hierarchies come crumbling down. It is for this reason that I am so staunchly in favor of as wide a dissemination of knowledge as is possible, for we are all equals, separated only by pride and arrogance and ignorance. There is no excuse for any to oppress any others in any way.
William Tyndale took the Bible seriously. Most people, even people of faith, do not. There are really two messages of the Bible: the first is obedience to God, and the second is love for one's fellow man. In order to be a true believer of God, both are necessary. Obedience to God involves knowing God's word and following it. This is difficult, and involves casting off those human habits and traditions which work counter to God's law. Loving one's fellow man is a commitment to social justice (not a popular thing then or now), and a commitment to service and generosity.
It was Tyndale's commitment to social justice and the accountability of leadership that got him (and others like him, myself included) into trouble with the corrupt authorities of his time. By exposing the foolish superstitions of his time, and exposing the corrupt behavior of authorities (divorce and immorality figured into it, then as now). He was no anarchist (neither am I, nor is anyone else with a true commitment to the Bible), but he saw clearly the fault of his times and exposed it with moderation but with devastating clarity.
After his death his Bible translation, carried on by others, became accepted in England until the reign of Mary Tudor, otherwise known as Bloody Mary. A group of Protestants who fled to Geneva used Tyndale's Bible as the basis for the Geneva Bible, an excellent translation. Included with this translation were some great notes that nonetheless are controversial even now. For example, the notes were stuanchly against corrupt monarches. Two notes in particular were considered quite inflammatory. One note in Exodus 1 praised the Hebrew midwives for their disobedience of the Pharaoh, which was considered seditious. The other note condemned Asa for only deposing his idolatrous mother instead of having her killed as the law commanded. These sort of notes did not endear themselves to corrupt monarchs who did not read Deuteronomy 17 closely enough. I wholeheartedly agree with those sentiments that those in power should not be exempt from the strictest penalties of breaking the law that are meted out to the lowest and most disreputable of citizens. If anything, we should be more severe against leaders than against led, more severe against the powerful than the powerless, on account of the greater reach of their actions and the greater and more public example they set.
The Geneva Bible was the most popular Bible until the King James Bible, and in my opinion is a superior translation (on account of its acknowledged closeness to Tyndale's work, which is also adopted without attribution in the KJV, and accounts for its veracity, such as it has, and its poetic excellence). Both Tyndale and the Geneva Bible are mostly neglected today, and carrying on my theme of praising that which is unfairly neglected, I give them due honor in the place where my voice and opinion can be heard the most and the most clearly. Let us remember the work of those who came before us and whose sacrifices made it possible for the liberties we possess and the truth we possess today. Let not their sacrifice be in vain.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment