William Tyndale was a Reformer, a Bible translator, and – ultimately – a martyr. He became an outlaw as he worked in secret to give England a translation of Scripture in their own language directly from original Hebrew and Greek texts.
In doing so, he had a tremendous impact not only on the history of the church but also on the history of the English language. Every modern translation of the Bible relies heavily on Tyndale’s work, and he helped to standardize the English language and came up with many words and phrases that are still in use today.
Although he was able to smuggle his New Testament translations into England, many were confiscated and burned by the Catholic Church. Because of this (and the fact that about 500 years has passed since they were initially published), original copies of Tyndale’s work are extremely rare.
On this episode of the podcast I speak with Owen Felix O’Neill – a rare book collector who has an original, complete copy of the Tyndale New Testament of 1534. He is in the process of making a facsimile copy of this remarkable book available to all, and you can learn more about the project at Tyndale1534.com.
Felix and I discuss the great impact that Tyndale’s Bible had on the church, how he got started with his collection of over 3,000 rare books, and how they have gone about scanning and reproducing his copy of Tyndale’s New Testament. We’ll also get to learn about a couple of other interesting items in his collection.
Check out the show notes for this episode and learn more about the project at ReasonableTheology.org/Tyndale.
If you enjoy the sermons and written works of CH Spurgeon, check out the all-new CHSpurgeon.com Here you'll find sermon audio as well as resources by and about the Prince of Preachers.
Get the newsletter at ReasonableTheology.org/Subscribe. The weekly email includes:
GET THE NEWSLETTER
Each edition of the Reasonable Theology newsletter contains my latest article or podcast episode PLUS: