A snapshot of the history of Bible translation from Latin to English:

There were surface reasons and deeper reasons why the church opposed an English Bible. The surface reasons were that the English language is rude and unworthy of the exalted language of God’s word; and when one translates, errors can creep in, so it is safer not to translate; moreover, if the Bible is in English, then each man will become his own interpreter, and many will go astray into heresy and be condemned; and it was church tradition that only priests are given the divine grace to understand the Scriptures; and what’s more, there is a special sacramental value to the Latin service in which people cannot understand, but grace is given. Such were the kinds of things being said on the surface.

But there were deeper reasons why the church opposed the English Bible: one doctrinal and one ecclesiastical. The church realized that they would not be able to sustain certain doctrines biblically because the people would see that they are not in the Bible. And the church realized that their power and control over the people, and even over the state, would be lost if certain doctrines were exposed as unbiblical—especially the priesthood and purgatory and penance. [Read more...]

Eleven o’clock, Monday night, I was lazily stretched by my bed reading the history of Bible translations. At the same time, I was flipping through the pages of the British chapter of Fox’s Book of Martyrs. I was reading both books side by side because I was trying to get a clearer picture of the kind of society that existed back then.

On the TV set in front of me, I was playing a worship concert video of Hillsongs. From time to time I would stop my reading to watch the video. At one point, Marty Sampson and Joel Houston were singing, “I got a Savior that is living in me… And the world will never take, the world will never take [you] away!”

This was around the time when I read about a British priest that was executed at the door of his parish because he believed the pre-reformation teachings of John Wycliff. In the next page was the story of a civilian named John Tewkesbury who was executed for the simple offense of reading William Tyndale’s English translation of the Bible. [Read more...]

A portion of William Tyndale’s letter to an unnamed prison officer in the castle where he was detained for 18 months until his execution in October 1536.

“…and I ask to be allowed to have a lamp in the evening; it is indeed wearisome sitting alone in the dark. But most of all I beg and beseech your clemency to be urgent with the commissary, that he will kindly permit me to have the Hebrew Bible, Hebrew grammar, and Hebrew dictionary, that I may pass the time in that study…

His verdict was sealed in August, 1536. He was formally condemned as a heretic and degraded from the priesthood. Then in early October (traditionally October 6), he was tied to the stake and then strangled by the executioner, then afterward consumed in the fire. Foxe reports that his last words were, “Lord! Open the King of England’s eyes!” He was forty-two years old, never married and never buried.”

Excerpted from John Piper’s Always Singing One Note- A Vernacular Bible