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

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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.

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.

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.

GOD'S BESTSELLER recounts the remarkable life of William Tyndale, one of the founding fathers of English Protestantism and perhaps the second most influential writer in the English language. Brian Moynahan gives the reader more than a simple biography. He enumerates church abuses that triggered the Reformation, gives brief sketches of the "bible men" who preceded Tyndale (Wycliffe and Luther), and, for good measure, demolishes the popular image of Sir Thomas More, Tyndale's nemesis. Moynahan can be generous with ancillary details because little is known of Tyndale's life after he fled Britain in 1524.

Wycliffe produced the first complete bible in English, but he and his assistants translated from the Latin Vulgate text, then in use throughout the Christian world, into an English that was nearer Chaucer than Shakespeare. Tyndale, who studied at Oxford and Cambridge, translated the New Testament and much of the Old Testament from earlier Greek and Hebrew texts. Eighty years later his simple, colorful language found its way , almost intact, into the King James Bible. It was Tyndale, Moynahan says, who first wrote "Those great rolling phrases that boom through the English-speaking mind..." The Lord's Prayer we recite is Tyndale, the Beatitudes are Tyndale, as are "eat, drink and be merry...", "Death where is thy sting." and a hundred more. A 1998 study found that 84% of the King James New Testament is identical to Tyndale and more than 75% of the Old Testament. Moynahan says, "Where the King James strays away from him, Tyndale is often both more vivid and more plain." Example: the King's scholars changed Tyndale's "...for as ye judge so shall ye be judged." into "For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged..."

One of the many amazing things about Tyndale's accomplishment is that he did his translations while on the lam. He was a fugitive from the heretic hunters for the last twelve years of his life, living in Hamburg, Worms, and Antwerp. Copies of Tyndale's New Testament were smuggled back into Britain, where they aroused the wrath of Sir Thomas More. More was, according to Moynahan, the most aggressive persecutor of heretics among Henry VIII's high churchmen. He wrote lengthy and vituperative denunciations of Tyndale and sent spies into Europe to track him. Even after More, himself, had been consigned to the Tower, Moynahan says it was his agents and allies who captured Tyndale and saw to it he was executed.

So we have the "saintly" Man for All Seasons to thank, not only for giving Shakespeare his biased version of Richard III, but also for sending one of the greatest writers in the English language to the stake.

God's Bestseller is the second biography of Tyndale I have read this year and one of only a few produced in recent decades. Written by Brian Moynahan, the subtitle provides a glimpse of the author's emphases: "William Tyndale, Thomas More, and the Writing of the English Bible--A Story of Martyrdom and Betrayal." Less-scholarly than David Daniell's William Tyndale: A Biography, God's Bestseller is also more readable, as evidenced by the Mail on Sunday's endorsement which suggests it is "almost worthy of LeCarre."

Though William Tyndale died almost 500 years ago, we continue to read and enjoy his Bible. The first man to translate Scripture into English, much of Tyndale's language and vocabulary continue to used commonly within the church and without. He coined words and phrases such as My brother's keeper, passover and scapegoat. Other commonly used phrases include let there be light, the powers that be, my brother's keeper, the salt of the earth and a law unto themselves. His mastery of English, though the language was still in its infancy, was unparalleled in his age. "In the begynnynge was the worde, and the worde was with God: the the word was God. The same was in the begynnynge with God. All thinges were made by it and with out it was made nothinge that was made. In it was lyfe and the lyfe was the lyght of men. And the light shyneth in the darknes but the darknes comprehended it not." Those verses passed into the King James and subsequent translations almost untouched.

Tyndale's mastery of the language is evident in passages of Scripture he was able to translate only in part before his untimely death. Read aloud these passages from Song of Solomon as they were written by Tyndale and then by the writers of the King James. "Up and haste my love, my dove, my bewtifull and come away..." The King James renders this same passage with far less skill, "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away." Tyndale writes, "For now is wynter gone and the rayne departed and past." The King James bumbles, "For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over, and gone." The cadence, the use of language, is unmatched. We can only imagine how Tyndale would have rendered the Psalms, Job and other poetic books had he been granted long life.

But as we know, Tyndale was not able to complete his translation of the Old Testament. He did not write his own epitaph as was the custom at the time. But as Moynahan points out, a passage he left from 1 Corinthians seems to serve well: "'And though I gave my body even that I burned, and yet had no love, it profiteth me nothing.' That used love and not charity was technical evidence of his heresy, of course, and the prime reason why More wanted him brunt. But Tyndale did not die for charity; he died for love, for the love of God's words and of their readers, and the most familiar work in the English language is thereby given the added grace of being a labour of love." We see this love evident in his reply to Henry VIII when offered safe passage to his native England. Were Henry to grant even a bare text of Scripture to the common people, Tyndale promised, "I shall immediately make faithful promise never to write more, nor abide two days in these parts after the same: but immediately to repair unto his realm, and there most humbly submit myself at the feet of his royal majesty, offering my body to suffer what pain or torture, yea, what death his grace will, so this be obtained. And till that time, I will abide the asperity of all chances, whatsoever shall come, and endure my life in as many pains as it is able to bear and suffer." The king would never submit to so audacious a demand and soon decreed that Tyndale be hunted down and killed. Though agents of Henry were never able to find Tyndale, he did eventually fall into the hands of the church authorities and was put to death. His last words, soon to be a rallying cry for English Protestants, were near-prophetic. "Oh Lord, open the King of England's eyes," he cried. Only a few short years later, Henry authorized an English translation of the Bible and, ironically, one based largely on the work of Tyndale.

Tyndale's name may not be widely known, but his influence is still felt. "Tyndale's traces are everywhere, of course. 'That old tongue, with its clang and its flavour,' as the critic Edmund Wilson wrote of the Bible, 'that we have been living with all our lives,' is Tyndale's tongue. Its cadence, its rolling and happy phrases, its consolations and the elegance of its solace, are his."

Despite his influence and his importance to the development of the English language, Tyndale is relatively unknown to both Christians and non-Christians. It is to our detriment that we forget about this great man of faith who gave his life for his conviction that the Word of God must go forth and must be made available in the common tongue. Moynahan's biography is an excellent introduction to Tyndale's life and influence. It is written in a way that will appeal to any reader, it still conveys a great deal of information and is clearly the result of meticulous research. It is one of the best biographies I have read this year and I commend it to you.

Few history books have influenced my thinking as has Brian Moynahan's "God's Bestseller: William Tyndale" (2002). I found this 422-page (hardback) difficult to put down. I was often cheering for and, in the end, crying over the life of William Tyndale.

Moynahan portrays Tyndale as a man of rare talent and extraordinary vision. Almost from the beginning of his clerical career he wanted to offer the Bible to the English-speaking world. One feels Tyndale's early clandestine efforts for bringing Scripture into English. One is fearful as the Gloucestershire clerk quickly leaves for the continent evading royal arrest to begin his life-long passion.

Moynahan's narrative correctly shows Thomas More' villainous pursuit of Tyndale. As Henry VIII's Chancellor More had all the power, money and legal statute needed to track Tyndale down and ultimately execute him. Tyndale's short life was lived as a fugitive from royal pursuit. He was constantly on the move (Tyndale had few friends and no family by the end). Moynahan's is an exciitng and illuminating heart-in-the-throat narrative. He reveals all the nasty 16th century politics of Henry's torturous and corrupt reign.

Even as Moynahan show's William Tyndale's life as the stuff for an exciting Hollywood drama, he also takes time to explain Tyndale's evasive personal life. We learn that Tyndale may have met Martin Luther and learned German at the Protestant master's feet. We see Tyndale's various correspondences with many of the leaders of his age (the letters are still extant). We learn that Tyndale's translations were often completed in the middle of the night just hours before he was forced to flee the king's men.

We discover Thomas More's personal obsession with Tyndale (a compulsion that ultimately brought Tyndale to the fiery stake). In the end William Tyndale was captured through the duplicity of a "friend" and burned alive in Brussels (in 1526) because he was the first to translate (and publish) Scripture into English. (Ironically, Thomas More- staunch Roman Catholic- met his downfall at the hands of Thomas Cromwell- Protestant- weeks before Tyndale's capture. Cromwell's meteoric rise to power, as Henry's new Chancellor, did not allow time for Cromwell to block Emperor Charles V's- a royal Roman Catholic- execution of Tyndale.)

Moynahan offers a considerable portion of Tyndale's original translation (only three original copies survive). He reports that 84% of the King James Version New Testament and 78% of the KJV Old Testament are lifted from Tyndale's translation. (The 1611 KJV composers used Tyndale as their guide for English Scripture.)

This is a fast paced story of intrigue, arrest evasion, governmental corruption, betrayal, and divine inspiration. Through all the political turmoil in the first third of the 16th century, William Tyndale prepared a brilliant translation of God's Word for his fellow Englishmen. His was the original pioneering effort that made the Bible accessible to all English speakers.

This book in very recommendable to all: scholars, students, historians, theologians, Bible studiers, and those looking to read an exciting (real life) story. Moynahan will sell you, too, on William Tyndale.

Moynahan's book is informative, well-written and well-produced (except for sources rather than footnotes). Despite some reviewers strained concerns, the book represents no threat to people of faith. In fact it celebrates them. It depicts the struggles and underlying genius of a gifted translator and polemicist, William Tyndale and is as exciting as a thriller. Cleverly and informatively interweaving the emergence of the new printing industry - Moynahan presents a Europe that is surprisingly cosmopolitan. Tyndale wanders from Antwerp to Cologne to Maintz to Hamburg, pursued by Wolsey's spies, ambassadors and priests. Tyndale managed because he was a polyglot - English, German, French, Dutch, Greek, Latin and Hebrew - and he had many supporters especially among the men and women of business and industry.

In celebrating Tyndale's accomplishments, Moynahan does a number on the much and overly celebrated Thomas More. I am a practicing Catholic and Englishman too boot, brought up on the presumed saintliness of Thomas More. Stimulated by C. J. Sansom's 16th Century murder mystery - Dissolution, I have read in quick order biographies of Wolsey, Cromwell and now Tyndale. I no longer think of More as "blessed". True, More stood by his principles and was erudite - but he appears fanatical, twisted and sadistic and demonstrated little belief in the sanctity of human life. After reading Moynahan's description of More's pursuit of Tyndale and other evangelicals, I defy anyone to see More's Utopia as a pleasant place.

Moynahan effectively brings to life the leading characters of this troubled, violent, vicious and generally un-Christian period. The work and genius of Master William Tyndale - who appears to have been more saintly than Thomas More - have been largely submerged in the blood and fire of the times: Blood and fire in large measure shed and stoked in the name of us Catholics. While much of the Reformation was driven by avarice, greed and geo-politics, the reality is that the Church had become wedded to form over substance, and the Rome of the Medicii Popes was closer to today's Hollywood than to Heaven. It is stunning to see the attitude of the Catholic Church towards the Bible and the laity. Great things were at stake just as they are today, but the manner in which those great things were championed and protected was intolerant, immoral and deeply un-Christian.

Perhaps it's hard to imagine, in this culture that seems so often frivolous and egocentric, caring enough about anything to put one's life at stake in service to it.

That's exactly what William Tyndale did in his long, rebellious quest to contribute to the translation, publication, and wider dissemination of the Bible, arguably the most important, influential text ever published.

Tyndale's is an oft-told tale, but it's told with verve and sparkling style here. This is one of those fine books that reminds the reader that true stories really are sometimes better than fiction! I recommend this experience to all who love a good yarn with plenty of intrigue, twists and turns.

--Robert McDowell, The Poetry Mentor (www.robertmcdowell.net), author of POETRY AS SPIRITUAL PRACTICE, July 15th, 2008, Free Press

Moynahan weaves a tale of political intrigue, outlining the passion and courage of the small group of English Reformers, most notably, William Tyndale. Tyndale, a skilled translator, is finally getting his due, primarily through the efforts of David Daniell, and the Tyndale Society. This book, along with Daniell's well-written biography of Tyndale, paints a clear picture of this good man's work.

On the other hand, Moynahan fails to complete a clear link between Tyndale's betrayer, Phillips, and Thomas More. While More clearly has much to answer for with his hate and personal involvement in the torture of English Reformers, he cannot, without doubt, be clearly charged with the martyrdom of Tyndale.

Moynahan's book is well-researched, with a sizable appendix on his sources. It would be an improvement to add clearer, specific references.

Other than that, well-done.

Moynahan's grasp of the history and the people and the times of Tyndale's era is impressive. He weaves the big picture together with practical details that flesh it out: recent emergence of studies in Hebrew, how rag paper was made, who profited when bibles were smuggled into England, etc. His review of the mystery of who engineered and financed Tyndale's capture is good, and his conclusion persuasive.

Moynahan has done his homework, including reading the works of More and of Tyndale. He tells us of one interesting aspect of More's "Utopia": priests and clerics would be allowed to sin with impunity in More's ideal society.

Moynahan's understanding of Tyndale's teaching and theology is as good as any man's could be, who does not share his faith. My cautions as a result of this are few: far more valuable is it to read a history written by someone who has no position to advance or protect and no reason to wrongly implicate a perceived adversary. Indeed, many who profess to share Tyndale's faith understand less than Moynahan. That said, however, Moynahan is occasionally too hard on Tyndale, and made one serious error: he suggests that Tyndale would have joined other Protestant reformers in persecuting "heretics" if he had had the power to do so. But this is not true. Tyndale said that a true Christian would never persecute. Tyndale was almost alone among reformers in being faithful to the true picture of a lamb.

There are no footnotes, but sources are given at the end of the book.