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Updated: May 1, 2025
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!
Davidson has calculated that nine-tenths of the words in the shorter New Testament epistles are Tindale's, and in the longer epistles like the Hebrews five-sixths are his. Froude's estimate is fair: "Of the translation itself, though since that time it has been many times revised and altered, we may say that it is substantially the Bible with which we are familiar.
That decree dates 1538, twelve years after Tindale's books were burned, and two years after he was burned! The installation of these great books caused tremendous excitement crowds gathered everywhere. Bishop Bonner caused six copies of the great volume to be located wisely throughout St. Paul's. He found it difficult to make people leave them during the sermons.
So bad was the case that it was not corrected within a whole generation. Forty years after Tindale's version was published, the Bishop of Gloucester, Hooper by name, made an examination of the clergy of his diocese. There were 311 of them.
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.
The Statutes of Apparel continue, and the statutes fixing the price of wine, which, indeed, seems to have been the last subject so regulated. There is the "Bloody Statute" against heresy, and the first act against witchcraft, Tindale's translation of the Bible is prohibited, and women and laborers forbidden to read the New Testament.
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. 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.
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