William Tyndale - the term Easter and his new English Bible The brilliant and godly scholar William Tyndale (1496–1536) was the first to translate the Bible into English directly from Hebrew and Greek rather than via Latin, which was also the first English Bible to be printed mechanically. He was fluent in many languages—as well as his native English, he could speak French, Greek, Hebrew, German, Italian, Latin and Spanish. But he was determined to produce a Bible in English, as he said, to ‘cause the boy that drives the plow in England to know more of the Scriptures than the Pope himself!’ However, because of persecution, Tyndale had to flee to Lutheran parts of Germany. Here, he completed his translation, which introduced many popular words and phrases into English: Atonement Jehovah scapegoat let there be light the powers that be my brothers keeper the salt of the earth a law unto themselves filthy lucre it came to pass gave up the ghost the signs of the times the spirit is willing live and move and have our being fight the good fight Much of his work is better known as providing the basis for the KJV (1611) and the Geneva Bible (1560). Tyndale was also responsible for introducing the word ‘Ester’ into the English Bible.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Apr 2014 15:25:25 +0000