Talk:Tyndale Bible

Untitled
Please read WP:LEAD. What exactly is the Tyndale Bible and why is it significant? The introductory paragraph should address this.  howcheng  {chat} 06:38, 22 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The edit by MisfitToys addresses this point and is satisfactory.


 * The Church's objections to Tyndale's translation began before Henry VIII's break with Rome, and continued afterwards. The reference to the Roman Catholic Church immediately after the Character heading was therefore not entirely correct. My original "Church" avoids a complicated explanation and is preferable, so I reverted. The other references to "Roman Catholic" or "Catholic Church" in the paragraph are correct.EEye 00:26, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I've removed the bit (in the discussion of penance v. repentance) about the Church requiring people to buy indulgences. I followed the reference, which mentioned only a belief in the efficacy of indulgences, but said nothing about the purchase of indulgences, or even of their necessity. The Church has never officially advocated the selling of indulgences, neither has she ever taught that they were necessary for salvation. Wmdiem (talk) 23:21, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

where is Henry VIII's reaction?
The King in 1531 issued an edict declaring: "the translation of the Scripture corrupted by William Tyndale should be utterly expelled, rejected, and put away out of the hands of the people, and not be suffered to go abroad among his subjects."

This was confirmed in 1543. "in the spring of 1543 Parliament passed an act "for the advancement of true religion and for the abolishment of the contrary", which banned "the crafty, false and untrue translation of Tyndale"". --Domics (talk) 10:23, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Does anybody know when this ban was lifted and it was allowed to publish and possess the Tyndale Bible?--Domics (talk) 06:55, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Rescued Thou from obscurity?
The following sentence in the penultimate paragraph gives a misleading impression: “Tyndale used thou and never you as the singular second-person pronoun in his work (usage that was later reflected in the very influential King James Version), which had the double effect of rescuing thou from complete obscurity and also imbuing it with an air of religious solemnity that is antithetical to its former sense of familiarity or disrespect.”

It suggests that Tyndale was particularly influential in this usage when it's doubtful that he was. The Wycliffe Bible a hundred years earlier and the Authorized Version (King James) 80 years later used the same distinctions as Tyndale between Thou and Ye, Thee and You. Like these earlier and later translations, Tyndale was simply using the forms that were standard for that period.

Secondly, the words “rescuing Thou from complete obscurity” suggest that Thou was falling into disuse in the 1520s. This seems unlikely and is not supported by the source cited, which says Thou was no longer used in standard English (as opposed to dialect) by the 1700s, (ie nearly 200 years later.)

Compare Otto Jespersen's Progress in Language, published 1894, which says in a long and influential study of English personal pronouns: “The use of the singular and the plural pronouns from Chaucer's times till Shakespeare's, and even till about the middle of the (18th) century… corresponded pretty nearly to that of the French tu and vous; but it was looser, as very frequently one person addressed the same other person now with thou and now with ye, according as the mood or the tone of the conversation changed ever so little.” See the full reference here: https://archive.org/stream/cu31924026448203#page/n279/mode/2up

I'd suggest deleting this sentence as it seems misleading and is peripheral to Tyndale's work and life.

By contrast, Tyndale's use of “Ye” instead of the “You” that had already begun to replace it in the 14th and 15th centuries as the nominative plural might be of more interest. For example, he writes “Blessed are ye [nominative] when men revile you [accusative], and persecute you...”

Perhaps there might be a case for saying he helped to save this form from obscurity. But this is probably not the article to discuss it.Adrian Robson (talk) 15:50, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Percentage still unknown?
"...It has been suggested that around 90% of the King James Version (or at least of the parts translated by Tyndale) is from Tyndale’s works..." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.119.204.117 (talk) 19:31, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Told
We are told "Tyndale began a translation into English using a Greek text compiled by Erasmus from several manuscripts older and more authoritative than the Latin Vulgate of Jerome (c. AD 340–420), the only translation authorized by the Roman Catholic Church.[3][4]" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.79.29.112 (talk) 13:49, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Note that almost all Protestants from the 16th century to the late 19th were using the Erasmus Greek New Testament.
 * This was translated from the Latin Vulgate in about 26 places. The Greek manuscripts used by Erasmus were mostly late. He hardly used a slightly older manuscript as he was suspicious of it. He preferred the majority of the few that he had, with the late, Byzantine Greek text. See our own Wikipedia editor Leszek Janczuk, a Protestant expert on NT Greek manuscripts. This is about translations from the Vulgate by Erasmus.
 * See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Instrumentum_omne . This refers to the small number of Greek manuscripts used by Erasmus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.79.29.112 (talk) 14:24, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Many translations into Coptic, Syriac, Ethiopic, Armenian and other languages were and are official Catholic translations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.79.29.112 (talk) 14:30, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Challenges to Catholic doctrine
Last paragraph. Why is it so hard to post citations. Just add them, if you have none, then you cant add to Wikipedia. Please remove it or add the citation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.164.18.66 (talk) 18:37, 8 December 2018 (UTC) No!! The correct response to text lacking citation is to delete it out of hand. In fact, most of this article should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.136.10.179 (talk) 12:00, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Trouble with dates and NPOV
I have two issues.

First ''Betrayed to church officials in 1536, he was defrocked in an elaborate public ceremony and turned over to the civil authorities to be strangled to death and burned at the stake. His last words are said to have been, "Lord! Open the King of England's eyes."''

One might think this happened in England. However, it was in Flanders. And the year is wrong, or the punctuation. The "elaborate public ceremony" does not seem important to me: all public church ceremonies of the time were elaborate. What is more important is that there was a very lengthy process of discussion of the issues, made with everyone aware that if Tyndale put himself outside the protection of the Church, the civil authorities wanted him dead.

A better version would be

''In 1535 in Flanders, Tyndale was betrayed by an Englishman to local authorities and imprisoned. Catholic theologians and he spent almost a year and a half attempting to convince each other. This failing, in 1636 he was declared a heretic for his Lutheran views and defrocked. The Hapsburg civil authorities then took him and sentenced him to be strangled to death and the body burned. His last words are said to have been, "Lord! Open the King of England's eyes."''

For attestation, see https://books.google.com.au/books?id=0065SxiVu5kC&pg=PA372&lpg=PA372&dq=tyndale+trial&source=bl&ots=FTXGRZelOo&sig=ACfU3U3e7Y9JweSsJ3NllEgFejhVL9Stlw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjatIuzz6n0AhV_wzgGHRlmAJs4ChDoAXoECAcQAw#v=onepage&q=tyndale%20trial&f=false

Second, the section Challenges to Catholic doctrine seems one-sided. (It was Erasmus who first translated ecclesia as congregatio, and presbyter as elder, and who wanted the ploughboy to sing psalms in the vernacular: and Erasmus published these in his New Testament with sponsorship and endorsement by Pope Leo! Thomas More made it clear that it is intent not the words: Erasmus used "congretatio" to translate the Greek to Latin because he considered Latin did not have a good enough existing word, however English has the adequate existing word "church". What Tyndale did was go beyond what the actual compiler of the Greek (and translator of the Latin), Erasmus, had meant and was inventing word distinctions for sectarian reasons. See https://books.google.com.au/books?id=ZjD1DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA145&lpg=PA145&dq=erasmus+presbiter+elder&source=bl&ots=I_WjZir0Aj&sig=ACfU3U1OynUDLisnblGd_QdKCPxlE6CR4g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjWq_z91Kn0AhXdzDgGHb-vC8IQ6AF6BAgKEAM#v=onepage&q=erasmus%20presbiter%20elder&f=false   p145)

I am not sure how to correct this section to make it more NPOV.

Rick Jelliffe

Paraphrased version?
Opine of so called experts 71.221.78.219 (talk) 14:20, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Church vs Congregation
This article goes on at length about Tyndale's supposedly controversial translation of the original Greek word Eκκλησία into English as congregation instead of church. Please review the actual meaning of the word:

https://www.wordsense.eu/%E1%BC%90%CE%BA%CE%BA%CE%BB%CE%B7%CF%83%CE%AF%CE%B1/

Regarding: Eκκλησία

It would benefit the readers of this article, and so posterity, to avoid needless multi-century perpetuation of false accusations of intentional mistranslation by Tyndale. Thomas More and other church seniors were wrong about this when they killed him.

They're still wrong. Wikipedia shouldn't be wrong, all these years later. Words have meaning.

Words have meaning.

Is this article the subject of sectarian "tug of war" that needs editotial oversight? That is complex and subjective. Or is it just unnecessarily wordy and repetitive about topic of translating this one word? Which is straightforward and objective.

This is not just an English thing as the same Greek etymology of course begat many other words over time across Europe and now around the world. Some (in Catholic countries notably) literally mean church as in a building; never The Church as in the Holy See etc, as More claimed (ie claimed Jesus and the Apostles said). But all the various etymologies descend from the same Greek word meaning assembly, congregation, merging, coming-together of the people ie of or pertaining to the act of congregating. Not a mere building, nevermind its notional monopoly or hierarchical primacy on Earth as God's appointed franchisee. In this sense it is a irrelevant Tyndale and his cohort were reformers. While true that doesn't matter and the article could be shorter and clearer, if it just stared the fact: the word in original Greek clearly vindicates Tyndale's translation. (Which also indicts the vastly-learned More as a hypocrite, because he falsely accused Tyndale of intentional distortion in translation, while in fact that's what he was doing.)

Consider, from same source linked above:

Entries where "ἐκκλησία" occurs:

church: …worship since circa 300 AD, especially in the East, though it was less common in this sense than ἐκκλησία‎ ("congregation") or βασιλική‎ ("royal thing"). An example…

chiesa: see also Chiesa‎ chiesa (Italian) Origin & history From Latin ecclesia‎, from Ancient Greek ἐκκλησία (“assembly”). Pronunciation IPA: /ˈkjɛza/ Noun chiesa…

église: …from Vulgar Latin *eclesia‎, from Ecclesiastical Latin ecclēsia‎, from Ancient Greek ἐκκλησία‎ ("gathering").

Thank you for your work on this article and others. As I am not an article editor I post this comment here on Talk for the responsible parties to discuss amongst themselves. Thank you for your time.

Ps. Apologies for any formatting errors. The text editor is being weird.

Entries where "Eκκλησία" occurs:

church: …worship since circa 300 AD, especially in the East, though it was less common in this sense than Eκκλησία‎ ("congregation") or βασιλική‎ ("royal thing"). An example…

chiesa: see also Chiesa‎ chiesa (Italian) Origin & history From Latin ecclesia‎, from Ancient Greek Eκκλησία (“assembly”). Pronunciation IPA: /ˈkjɛza/ Noun chiesa…

église: …from Vulgar Latin *eclesia‎, from Ecclesiastical Latin ecclēsia‎, from Ancient Greek Eκκλησία‎ ("gathering")."

I'm not an editor so posting here to Talk for responsible parties to discuss. Thanks for your work on this article, and time reading this comment. 2600:4040:5AEB:B300:30A2:F9B5:1F03:3D65 (talk) 01:22, 26 July 2023 (UTC)


 * If you have a book or other reliable source, please name or link it here. Thank you. ~ Pbritti (talk) 01:25, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Confused by reference to Wycliffe
"Wycliffe now being voluntarily outside the protection of the Church, the Hapsburg civil authorities then took him and sentenced him to be strangled to death and the body burned. Wycliffe was not condemned because of translating or publishing Scriptures"

I thought this section was about Tyndale? mavhc (talk) 09:15, 28 February 2024 (UTC)