Thank You William Tyndale

     It has been 400 years since the publication of the King James Bible, with significant contributions from William Tyndale, a great hero in my eyes.

     The clergy did not want the Bible published in common English. They hounded Tyndale from place to place. He said to them, “If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou.”¹

     Tyndale was betrayed and confined to a dark, freezing prison in Brussels for over a year. His clothing was in rags. He begged his captors for his coat and cap and a candle, saying, “It is indeed wearisome sitting alone in the dark.”² These were denied him. Eventually, he was taken from prison and before a large crowd was strangled and burned at the stake. But William Tyndale’s work and martyr’s death were not in vain.

--Boyd K. Packer

1. In David Daniell, introduction to Tyndale’s New Testament (1989), viii.   

2. In Daniell, introduction to Tyndale’s New Testament, ix.