Study of the King James Bible | Page 9

not ask Tindale
what was the condition. Ask Bellarmine, a cardinal of the Church:
"Some Years before the rise of the Lutheran heresy there was almost an
entire abandonment of equity in ecclesiastical judgments; in morals, no
discipline; in sacred literature, no erudition; in divine things, no
reverence; religion was almost extinct." Or ask Erasmus, who never
broke with the Church: "What man of real piety does not perceive with
sighs that this is far the most corrupt of all ages? When did iniquity
abound with more licentiousness? When was charity so cold?" And, as
a century before, Wiclif had felt the social need for a popular version of
the Bible, so William Tindale felt it now. He saw the need as great
among the clergy of the time as among the laity. In one of his writings
he says: "If you will not let the layman have the word of God in his

mother tongue, yet let the priests have it, which for the great part of
them do understand no Latin at all, but sing and patter all day with the
lips only that which the heart understandeth not."[1] 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. He found 168, more than half, unable to
repeat the Ten Commandments; 31 who did not even know where they
could be found; 40 who could not repeat the Lord's Prayer; and nearly
as many who did not know where it originated; yet they were all in
regular standing as clergy in the diocese of Gloucester. The need was
keen enough.
[1] Obedience of a Christian Man.
About 1523 Tindale began to cast the Scriptures into the current
English. He set out to London fully expecting to find support and
encouragement there, but he found neither. He found, as he once said,
that there was no room in the palace of the Bishop of London to
translate the New Testament; indeed, that there was no place to do it in
all England. A wealthy London merchant subsidized him with the
munificent gift of ten pounds, with which he went across the Channel
to Hamburg; and there and elsewhere on the Continent, where he could
be hid, he brought his translation to completion. Printing facilities were
greater on the Continent than in England; but there was such opposition
to his work that very few copies of the several editions of which we
know can still be found. Tindale was compelled to flee at one time with
a few printed sheets and complete his work on another press. Several
times copies of his books were solemnly burned, and his own life was
frequently in danger.
There is one amusing story which tells how money came to free
Tindale from heavy debt and prepare the way for more Bibles. The
Bishop of London, Tunstall, was set on destroying copies of the
English New Testament. He therefore made a bargain with a merchant
of Antwerp, Packington, to secure them for him. Packington was a
friend of Tindale, and went to him forthwith, saying: "William, I know
thou art a poor man, and I have gotten thee a merchant for thy books."
"Who?" asked Tindale. "The Bishop of London." "Ah, but he will burn
them." "So he will, but you will have the money." And it all came out

as it was planned; the Bishop of London had the books, Packington had
the thanks, Tindale had the money, the debt was paid, and the new
edition was soon ready. The old document, from which I am quoting,
adds that the Bishop thought he had God by the toe when, indeed, he
found afterward that he had the devil by the fist.[1]
[1] Pollard, Records of the English Bible, p. 151.
The final revision of the Tindale translations was published in 1534,
and that becomes the notable year of his life. In two years he was put to
death by strangling, and his body was burned. When we remember that
this was done with the joint power of Church and State, we realize
some of the odds against which he worked.
Spite of his odds, however, Tindale is the real father of our King James
version. About eighty per cent. of his Old Testament and ninety per
cent. of his New Testament have been transferred to our version. In the
Beatitudes, for example, five are word for word in the two versions,
while the other three are only slightly changed.[1] Dr. 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