God's Outlaw - Story Of William Tyndale
A classic history of how a single individual can change the world for good. William Tyndale was pursued by the agents of King Henry VIII, Sir Thomas More, and Cardinal Wolsey. To avoid capture, he was forced to travel around Europe. All the while he worked to complete the supreme task that obsessed him: providing the Bible in English for his fellow countrymen. Tyndale is today distinguished as the “Father of the English Bible,” and this dramatic film will cause every Christian to appreciate the marvel of the English Bible. Featuring a cast led by actor Roger Rees. Recipient of major awards from the Columbus and Houston Film Festivals and Christian Film Distributors Association.
Tyndale, a genius, would then master eight languages and set himself to the task of translating the Bible into English from the original Greek and Hebrew (Wycliffe initially relied on the Latin Vulgate, but the scholar Erasmus had recently shown the Vulgate contained errors).
Tyndale realized what was needed was a pure translation from the original languages into English. In the summer of 1523 Tyndale requested the help of the bishop of London, Cuthbert Tunstall, a fellow scholar, for his work on a new English translation. Receiving no support, Tyndale left England for the Continent and the great trading ports of Northwest Europe.
Before he left, though, he stated to another scholar: "If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough [to] know more of the Scripture than thou dost."
From 1524 to 1535 Tyndale would reside in a series of ports: Cologne, Worms and Antwerp. These and other cities housed large numbers of printers and Bible advocates and saw a lively commerce with England that was essential for Tyndale to spread his Bible translation.
At Cologne in 1525 Tyndale's first attempt to print his English translation of the New Testament was interrupted by news that the authorities planned to arrest him. He fled up the Rhine to Worms, where at Peter Schoeffer's print shop he successfully managed to print thousands of copies of the New Testament in English.
Tyndale next appeared in Antwerp, where he completed a revision of his New Testament translation in 1534 and began a new English translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew. During this time his work was smuggled into England and quickly spread across the land.
Tyndale's genius as a translator was to master the original languages and then write a translation that would make sense. He would take the New Testament's common Greek, written for the average person, and translate it into simple yet beautiful and rhythmic English prose that emphasized the Saxon syntax: subject, verb, object. By doing so, Tyndale (under the influence of the Holy Spirit) would take a boorish language and ennoble it.
As a result, subsequent versions of the Bible (most notably the KJV) would be drawn principally from Tyndale (83 percent of the KJV's New Testament is Tyndale's).
His Death:
Tyndale finished his race on a cold day in October 6, 1536 at Vilvorde, Belgium. He was betrayed by a friend, Philips, the agent either of Henry or of English ecclesiastics, or possibly of both. Tyndale was arrested and imprisoned in the castle of Vilvoorden for over 500 days of horrible conditions. There, he lived for one year and 135 days without heat or light from candles or lamps, without sufficient clothing to keep him warm or food to sustain his weak frame, without friends and books. His only visitors were tormentors who bombarded him incessantly with demands that he recant.
He was tried for heresy and treason in a ridiculously unfair trial, and convicted. Tyndale was then strangled and burnt at the stake in the prison yard, Oct. 6, 1536. His last words were, "Lord, open the king of England's eyes." This prayer was answered three years later, in the publication of King Henry VIII’s 1539 English “Great Bible”.NOTE:In 1537 (one year after Tyndale's death) - The Bible was ordered by King Edward VI (of England) to be placed in every parish church in the realm and made available to every man, woman and child within the kingdom.
During the brief reign of King Edward VI, every encouragement was given to the expansion of the English Bible. His reign of little more than seven years produced no fewer than eleven editions of the Bible. There were also six of the New Testament that were published.
Edward’s rule changed much in the church. Images were ordered to be removed from the church. The removal of images was not a part of the German reform under Luther. Prayers were no longer to be offered for the dead. Confession and transubstantiation were declared to be unscriptural. The clergy were allowed to marry. The church now heard its messages in English and not in Latin.
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Eric Jon Phelps is an American conspiracy theorist and historian notable for his work Vatican Assassins:Wounded in the House of My Friends. Phelps' main focus is on the role of the Roman Catholic Church, and particularly the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and Sovereign Military Order of Malta (Knights of Malta), as secretly responsible for many important historic events. Among other charges, Phelps claims Vatican involvement in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, complicity in the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, and control of Communist dictators such as Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, and Ho Chi Minh. Phelps' work is heavily sourced, using many of the Jesuits' own writings to back up his theories.
