God's Bestseller: William Tyndale, Thomas More, and the Writing of the English Bible---A Story of Martyrdom and Betrayal [Hardcover]

Brian Moynahan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 23, 2003

The English Bible---the mot familiar book in our language---is the product of a man who was exiled, vilified, betrayed, then strangled, then burnt.

William Tyndale left England in 1524 to translate the word of God into English. This was heresy, punishable by death. Sir Thomas More, hailed as a saint and a man for all seasons, considered it his divine duty to pursue Tyndale. He did so with an obsessive ferocity that, in all probability, led to Tyndale's capture and death.

The words that Tyndale wrote during his desperate exile have a beauty and familiarity that still resonate across the English-speaking world: "Death, where is thy sting?...eat, drink, and be merry...our Father which art in heaven."

His New Testament, which he translated, edited, financed, printed, and smuggled into England in 1526, passed with few changes into subsequent versions of the Bible. So did those books of the Old Testament that he lived to finish.

Brian Moynahan's lucid and meticulously researched biography illuminates Tyndale's life, from his childhood in England, to his death outside Brussels. It chronicles the birth pangs of the Reformation, the wrath of Henry VIII, the sympathy of Anne Boleyn, and the consuming malice of Thomas More. Above all, it reveals the English Bible as a labor of love, for which a man in an age more spiritual than our own willingly gave his life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The story of William Tyndale's translation of the Bible is familiar. Caught up in the Reformation's efforts to provide ordinary readers with the Scriptures in the vernacular, Tyndale set out to produce a faithful translation of the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts of the Old and New Testament. As journalist Moynahan points out in this exhaustively detailed biography, Tyndale's desire to complete such a translation brought him into conflict with the king and his court, for the fruits of the Reformation had yet to make their way into England. Thus, Tyndale set out on a life of self-imposed exile in Germany and Amsterdam, where he translated and printed his Bible. As his work made its way into England-thanks in large part to Anne Boleyn's advocacy-Sir Thomas More, one of England's most active heretic hunters, attempted in every possible way to have Tyndale tried as a heretic. Moynahan recounts the oft-told story of Tyndale's subterfuge and his remarkable contribution to the history of Bible translation while recreating the political and religious intrigue of early 16th-century England. Moynahan captures well More's hatred of Tyndale, whom he called "a hellhound in the kennel of the devil," as well as Tyndale's burning desire to contribute to God's work through Bible translation, even if it meant death at the stake. As Moynahan points out, Tyndale's translation still exists in the King James Version, since his words account for 84% of its New Testament and 76% of its Old Testament.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* The Bible contains few stories more compelling than the one Moynahan tells here: the saga of how William Tyndale defied Church and King--at the eventual cost of his own life--to translate and print Holy Writ in English. In a narrative taut with tension and alive with fiery personalities, Moynahan chronicles the improbable career of the Oxford scholar who risked everything to produce a vernacular version of Scripture. When ecclesiastical opposition frustrated his translation work in England, Tyndale journeyed to the continent, there enduring 11 years of privation and danger as he translated and published the New Testament and much of the Old Testament, soon smuggled to eager English readers. Shrewd detective work enables Moynahan to track the fugitive during these difficult years, when royal and ecclesiastical agents frequently attempted to ensnare him. But in his most astonishing feat of sleuthing, Moynahan discovers that the man who masterminded Tyndale's eventual capture and execution was probably the renowned saint Thomas More, who himself died beneath the executioner's ax for opposing Henry VIII's divorce. Though he acknowledges that Tyndale and More shared ironically similar views of the king's matrimonial maneuvers, Moynahan generally accentuates the sharp contrast between the fearless champion of individual conscience and the ferocious foe of heretics. A gripping historical drama. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (August 23, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312314868
• ISBN-13: 978-0312314866
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,038,988 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Faith - Works - Betrayal - Death, March 19, 2005

By 

E. E Pofahl (HUNTINGTON, WV USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: God's Bestseller: William Tyndale, Thomas More, and the Writing of the English Bible---A Story of Martyrdom and Betrayal (Hardcover)

The author, Brian Moynahan, notes that William Tyndale's translation of the Bible "....fathered what is probably the best known and certainly the most quoted work in the English language." A 1998 analysis of the King James Bible, found Tyndale's words account for 84 percent of the New Testament and for 75.8 percent of the Old Testament. The text observes that Tyndale believed English "corresponded with scripture better than ....Latin ...." The text narrates how Tyndale through faith and sheer determination translated the Bible into the English language.

The author provides a most interesting narrative of the sixteenth century printing and publishing industry in Europe and England. The printing/publishing industry in England was small and closely controlled by the Church and government. However, Lutheran books and tracts were coming into London from Germany and the Low Countries in large number and on a rising scale. This was a concern to the government and the Catholic Church in England. Thomas More began a vigorous campaign to squelch religious reform persecuting heretics and condemning them to death by burning at the stake. For his part, Tyndale began an enthusiastic and dangerous public duel in writing with More.

Though a scholar with a Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees from Oxford Tyndale related to average men who "shared ideas with him, ....made a natural constituency for reform, and ...were brave." He adopted the Reformation's efforts to provide common readers with the Scriptures in English and resented the Church's ban on translation of the Bible into English. He planned to translate the Bible, but was unable to find a patron. In addition, he adopted the new Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone and facing prosecution as a heretic, he fled England and sailed to Hamburg in April 1524. He stayed on the continent until his execution eleven years later. During his self-imposed exile in Germany and Amsterdam, he translated and printed his English translations of the New Testament and a major portion of the Old Testament. In 1526 he published a revision to his New Testament translation and another revision in 1534 in which he made an effort to correct errors while "His main aim was to strengthen his writing, to clarify meaning and bring it closer to the Greek." The author notes that Tyndale's work was complicated by the fact that "No standard spellings existed in English, and it was a common for a word to be spelt differently in a single passage:...." A steady flow of Testaments into England was maintained by smugglers so that by 1534 the Tyndale Testament was a great money-maker.

The book gives an excellent account of Tyndale's exile years. He continued his dangerous public duel in writing with Thomas More. More's malice that drove him against Tyndale "was a phenomenon, insatiable, galloping, morbific." In a manner that would do justice to a twentieth century spy novel, against Tyndale, More used "double agents, political intuition and the intricate manipulation of rulers and senior officials, the sowing of brides, flattery, and inflexible and murderous intent..." Unfortunately, as the author notes in day-to-day politics, Tyndale was inept. Throughout Tyndale's exile, Henry VIII's "pursuit of the annulment and remarriage to Ann Boleyn-weaves in and out of Tyndale's life...." To her credit, Ann Boleyn protected and promoted evangelicals, and favored Tyndale's scriptures and other writings." She was known as a protector of Tyndale's readers.

The text notes that Tyndale's sympathizers could be burnt at the stake, but Tyndale remained safe in Europe. In 1531, the king ordered that Tyndale be seized and brought to England using private or illegal means. Amazingly in November 1539 , Tyndale was contacted by a representative of the King's Secretary and offered a safe conduct back to England which he rejected. By 1534 conditions were changing in England and Tyndale might have been safer in London than in Antwerp, but politically naive Tyndale did not detect the change and stayed in Europe. On 21 May 1535, a paid bounty-hunter, Harry Phillips, coaxed him out of his safe residence and turned him over to local Low Countries authorities. Amazingly, the authorities in England no longer had any desire to harm Tyndale and two senior officials of Church and State tried hard to secure Tyndale release in Antwerp. At a castle north of Brussels, not in England, he was tried and convicted as a heretic. Tyndale....refused to try to buy his life with his conscience and remained steadfast in his beliefs." He was burnt at the stake on 6 October 1536. In death Tyndale was a success as injunctions were issued in 1536 and 1538 that every church should be provided with a Bible. His life's work triumphed as "His ploughboy soon had his English Bible."

Thomas More refused to recognize Henry as the supreme head of the Church, was arrested and executed on 6 July 1535. The author devotes Chapter 22 to a discussion of who was the paymaster who paid Phillips for locating and betraying Tyndale. Several possible paymasters are noted but there is no strong documentation that any were in fact the payee to Philips. The author notes that there is no solid evidence, but conjectures that Thomas More was the most likely paymaster.

As Moynahan writes on page 56 "The richness of his vocabulary, his verbs in place of nouns and adjectives, his free sentence constructions, his ear for vivid saying-`as bare as Job and as bald as a coot'-and his sense of rhythm profoundly affected the language of the English-speaking peoples -the global language, now-." While there are no memorials or statues to Tyndale, the author notes that the King James Bible "....is, as we have seen, overwhelmingly Tyndale's Bible. Almost any passage in the New and most of the Old Testament, can serve as his memorial.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Page-Turner!, October 17, 2004

By 

J. W. Hickey (Manhattan area) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: God's Bestseller: William Tyndale, Thomas More, and the Writing of the English Bible---A Story of Martyrdom and Betrayal (Hardcover)

This is a gripping, immensely readable tale of intrigue and ironies, set in one of the most fascinating periods in Western history. As depicted by Moynahan's carefully unsensationalistic prose, Thomas More comes off as a foreshadower of Cromwell, worthy of the obsessed villains in Dumas and Hugo, while Tyndale and his underground reformers are endearingly quirky, courageous, and astonishing in their martyrdom. Catholics and Protestants alike indulge in virulent righteousness, while intrigues involving the influence of one of Henry VIII's wives further spices the sauce. Moynahan is equally expressive in his appreciation of Tyndale's textual contributions as well, enthusiastically exploring their semantic subtleties. As I read it, I fancied consulting the author about turning his book into a screenplay, but have settled simply for teaching the text to my adult college students this coming Spring.

37 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Religious Revolutionary, September 26, 2003

By 

John C. Landon "nemonemini" (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: God's Bestseller: William Tyndale, Thomas More, and the Writing of the English Bible---A Story of Martyrdom and Betrayal (Hardcover)

After reading the recent God's Secretaries by A. Nicolson (q.v.) where it is pointed out that the King James version of the Bible was already using the archaic language of the sixteenth century, I picked up this new life of Tyndale to find the clarification--as the author here points out, "A complete analysis of the Authorised Version, known to generaion as the 'AV' or 'the King James', was made in 1998. It shows that Tyndales' words account for 84 per cent of the New Testament, and for 75.8 per cent of the Old Testament books that he translated'. So, it is the beautifully 'clear as mountain brook water' English of Tyndale that echoes in our minds when we wonder at the language of the AV.
This is a crisp and exciting short life of the remarkable but too little known Tyndale and his nemesis the now saintly Thomas More, who pursued him with a vengeful fury, resulting in his being burned at the stake. The beginnings of modern democracy lie in the Reformation Bible translations of Luther, then Tyndale, and others. Bringing the text of the Bible to the people was a genuinely revolutionary gesture Church and State tried mightily to prevent. Anyone who read the Bible for the first time in that era in his own language would notice the absence of mention of much that constituted medieval authority, from the Popes themselves, to the issues of celibacy, or transubstantiation.
Let's hope Tyndale will retrieve his place in history past the one paragraph at most that we are used to. Well done.