
An English scholar and leading figure in the Protestant Reformation who translated the Bible into English directly from the original Hebrew and Greek texts.
Một học giả người Anh và nhân vật quan trọng của Cải cách Tin Lành, người đã dịch Kinh Thánh sang tiếng Anh trực tiếp từ tiếng Hebrew và Hy Lạp cổ.
This biography of William Tyndale helps you learn English through real historical stories. Explore William Tyndale's impact on the world.
William Tyndale was born around 1494 in Gloucestershire, England. He was a brilliant scholar who became highly proficient in multiple languages during his studies at Oxford and Cambridge. During this time, the Catholic Church strictly forbade the translation of the Bible into native languages, relying instead on the Latin Vulgate, which only the educated clergy could read. Deeply influenced by the ideas of the Protestant Reformation, Tyndale famously declared to a learned clergyman that if God spared his life, he would cause a boy that drives the plough to know more of the Scripture than the Pope.
Realizing that it was impossible to safely translate the Bible in England, Tyndale fled to Germany in 1524. Unlike previous translators who relied on Latin, Tyndale translated directly from the original Hebrew and Greek texts. In 1526, using the newly invented printing press, he published the first mass-produced English New Testament. These Bibles were smuggled into England hidden in bales of cloth and barrels of merchandise. The English authorities, including King Henry VIII, viewed his work as a direct threat to their power and ordered the Bibles to be seized and publicly burned.
Tyndale spent years living as a fugitive on the European continent, continuously working on translating the Old Testament. In 1535, he was betrayed by a supposed friend in Antwerp, arrested, and imprisoned for over a year. Convicted of heresy, he was executed in 1536 by being strangled and then burned at the stake. His reported last words were, "Lord! Open the King of England's eyes." His prayer was seemingly answered; just a few years later, the King authorized the printing of an English Bible. Today, Tyndale is celebrated not only as a religious martyr but also as a master linguist whose translations heavily shaped early modern English and formed the core of the legendary King James Version.