5. Tyndale's English Bible

Date: Sixteenth Century
Nationality: English
Author: William Tyndale
Medium: Text

William Tyndale brought an English translation of the Wycliffe Bible to England.  According to Strong and Davis, there is a story that an English Catholic Bishop went to the Netherlands to destroy all the English translations of the Bible.  The current law forbade publishing any edition of the Bible that wasn't approved by the church.  Apparently this Catholic Bishop went to the printer in the Netherlands and asked to buy all of the Bibles that had been printed.  The printer agreed but explained that he had to get them from another location and that it would take a few days. After the Bishop left, he spoke to Tyndale and decided to sell the Bibles and use the money to print more!  For his work contrary to the laws of the church, William Tyndale was executed.

William Tyndale questioned the authority of the church to keep the Bible from the general public.  He felt, intuitively, that such censorship was unfair.  He reasoned that all men should be allowed to know God's word, so he went to work.  He sought to change the status quo by distributing his translated Bible to the English commoners.  He stood by his beliefs to the end, and showed powerful learning throughout.  I would bring Tyndale's Bible to my new civilization, so that the people could learn that sometimes the status quo of 1500 years is wrong.  His story shows that when we feel so strongly about something, we should stand by our beliefs firmly, even through great adversity.