If you don’t know much about William Tyndale, don’t take my blog’s word for it… Buy the book! It’s an amazing work by David Daniell, Professor Emeritus of English in the University of London. If anyone should know about this guy, Daniell should.
Tyndale is the Father of the English Bible. He lived from approximately 1494 – 1536. I am totally humbled by reading this book. I taught Christian Evidences at Harding Academy in Memphis for 3 years, and as part of my curriculum I taught a segment called, “how we got the Bible.” Here are a few of the amazing details about this brilliant man. The scripture had been translated into English only twice, by the same man – John Wycliffe – in the 1300’s. The problem was, Wycliffe’s Bible was terribly awkward to read, and never got much press, literally – even though Wycliffe caused quite a stir. Gutenberg’s press was not invented yet, and all copies were hand-written. Also, Wycliffe translated from Jerome’s Latin Vulgate (4th Century), which was inaccurate in many ways; not the least of which was because it was not the primary Biblical text. Tyndale didn’t translate from a secondary language that had it’s own mistakes; he knew the Greek New Testament, and learned Hebrew without the help of teachers to translate the Jewish text. Here are a few amazing and important contributions of this man:
- Translated the Hebrew (Jewish text) and Greek (New Testament) himself, entirely alone. His work was so amazingly accurate, that the 1611 Authorized Version (King James) is astoundingly 94% verbatim from Tyndale’s Bible.
- King James authorized 47 scholars (originally 54) in 1607, who came up with only 6% differences in the textual translation, and wording of Tyndale’s personal work. What we know as the KJV was published in 1611.
- Tyndale was only ‘about’ 42 years old when he died; nobody knows exactly.
- Tyndale’s Bible had no verse numbers. That didn’t come along until the Geneva Bible of the late 1560’s.
- He was burned at the stake for his treacherous deeds (putting the Bible into the hands of the common man), but because he was a revered scholar by all who knew him, he was “honored” and offered strangulation before his body was burned at the stake.
- His final words were a prayer, “Lord, open thou the King of England’s eyes.”
- In the final few months of his life, Tyndale was in prison, and in his only surviving letter, asked a friend for “a warmer cap, a candle to dispel the darkness of my cell, and my Hebrew books to continue the study of God’s Word.
This man was undoubtedly used by God for his Divine purposes; all of us who are of Anglo descent should praise God for Tyndale’s work! Stay tuned for more on Tyndale’s specific contributions and linguistic mastery in a later post…
Below, one of the best trend-setting champion quartets; the Confederates of 1956. 2 Rebels and 2 Yankees, the Confederates used this image as simply a vehicle. Unlike today, there was no agenda, political statement, or anything BUT a great costume and songlist that went along with songs about the South. They truly “locked” and “rang” almost every chord of the songs. They were trendsetters in explosive dynamics and interpretive style, and their style is emulated by many modern quartets, still. Plus, I started singing Barbershop in the home of these champs; Memphis. You might say, “it’s just a quartet, Drew.” True… but in each hobby, sport, or obsession, we have our own heroes. But they weren’t just a quartet. Naturally, our new “old school” quartet is singing 2 of their songs; Redhead and Goodbye Old Dixie, Goodbye. 
In addition to singing with a hero, it’s realizing that all heroes are real men and women. People who have worked hard and achieved the heights of success by doing the groundwork. 
Oh yeah… if we win, it’s $3000 in our pocket! Woohoo! If you haven’t sung barbershop harmony… you are missing some of God’s greatest creations; perfect harmony. Want a kick? Go to 
“It is our contention in this book that the Lord’s cultural commission is inseparable from the great commission. That may be a jarring statement for many conservative Christians, who, through much of the twentieth century, have shunned the notion of reforming culture, associating that concept with the liberal social gospel. The only task of the church, many fundamentalists and evangelicals have believed, is to save as many lost souls as possible from a world literally going to hell. But this implicit denial of a Christian worldview is unbiblical and is the reason we have lost so much of our influence in the world. Salvation does not consist simply of freedom from sin; salvation also means being restored to the task we were given in the beginning – the job of creating culture.” (Colson, 21)
I’ve had a couple of new of thoughts recently that I’ll mention in this post. 1) There was a Presbyterian friend of mine in Memphis who would discuss theology with me some, and we often compared his “high church” thoughts with some of my studies, and of my own restoration heritage – “low church” background. He mentioned that they had a visiting Pastor come in and preach to them about the constant progress of salvation. I have often thought about that idea, vs. the single-point, realized salvation and commitment of a person at a given moment. 2) The other thing I’ll post in a later post tonight. It is… that I can’t help but think about this in relation to the passage above: HOW do we, as the everyday believers – who are NOT salaried ministers – bring others to Christ? I mean some of us just are not as good as others at cold call gospel efforts.
A hard working man from the depression era, who was deeply impacted throughout the period himself, a man who stood in bread lines, and later made headlines because he re-paid his handout that he had received from welfare.
To make a long story short, he stuns the crowd (and world at that time!) and defeated the top contender, with NO training, and only guts and an iron will. It wasn’t long before he was a folk hero, because he had character and class. Once in the press conference prior to the Heavyweight Championship bout with Max Baer, he was asked, “Mr. Braddock, what are you fighting for… what motivates you in this fight?” Jim replied simply, “Milk.” He was Rocky before there was Rocky. He was the people’s champion, and a force that the depression era working man became empowered by to rise out of his own circumstances. If you haven’t seen it, RENT the movie today! Oh… and he wins the heavyweight championship, stays married to the same woman through it all, and he never loses faith. It’s an incredible “cinderella” story of human will.
Testament scholars, Ben Witherington, was being questioned about recent efforts to drum up the post-canonical writings about Jesus. That is, books that were written that were found to be heretical because they countered everything Jesus taught, or exemplified, and were therefore left out of the New Testament Canon (among which, are the “Gnostic Gospels”). It’s along these lines, and especially in light of the release of the DaVinci Code several years ago that Witherington wrote his book, “What have they done to Jesus?”
Droo's Clues 