Translation of the New Testament of the Bible - Case Study Example

William Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament: William Tyndale is credited by some as being the father of the English language; for example an exhibit sponsored by the British Library and the Library of Congress states: “Contrary to what history teaches about the Chaucer being the father of the English language, this mantle belongs to William Tyndale, whose work was read by ten thousand times as many people as Chaucer.” (www.momentin.com). A significant part of the fame that has accrued to Tyndale is due to his translation of the New Testament of the Bible. While only two copies of his original translation survived, since they were all burnt, nevertheless the New Testament translations in English as we know it today are largely the fruit of the work of William Tyndale. However, this same work was not well received in his time, largely due to the strict beliefs of the Catholic church, and this was also the grounds for the conflict in the views of Thomas Moore and William Tyndale. The major reasons for Moore’s condemnation of Tyndale’s work may be listed as follows: (a) faulty translation of certain words which provided scope for distortion of the scriptural message (b) the notion that such faulty translation made Tyndale a hypocrite and a dangerous heretic (c) the fact that Tyndale supported the King of England as the Head of the Church, thereby seriously undermining the established hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, of which the Pope was the leader. This further substantiated Moore’s condemnation of Tyndale as a man rebelling against the Catholic church. The Catholics believed in the Pope as being the head of the Church and Thomas Moore was a staunch Catholic who believed that it was indeed the Pope who had the right to be hailed as the Head of the Church. However, Tyndale offered a different view on this, that it was actually the Monarch of England who was the head of the Church, since in those days Henry VIII was the ruling head of England. Tyndale approved of the Monarch as being the Head of the Church, so long as that Monarch obeyed God. The brunt of Tyndale’s ire was expended against the corrupt church practices that existed in the Catholic church at the time and he was intent upon bringing the contents of the New testament to the attention of the lay people. The only means to do this was to translate the original Latin and Hebrew of the New Testament into simple English so that the masses among the English public would also be able to understand it. This was also in accordance with the encouragement that Tyndale provided to the concept of the King – King Henry VIII - being the natural Head of the Church, although he did emphasize that the King was not to become autocratic or domineering by virtue of his position as the Head of the Church, as follows: “The people are God’s and not theirs, yea are Christ’s inheritance and possession, bought with his blood.” (www. Tyndale.org). However, Tyndale’s rejection of the Pope as the head of the Church was one of the major reasons for Moore’s diatribe against Tyndale and his writings, since they went completely against the grain of the beliefs that prevailed in the Catholic church at the time. The Church was in the process of experiencing attacks that were being originated through the writings of proponents such as Martin Luther, who was also campaigning actively for the writings in the Bible to be made accessible to the lay public. As opposed to this, the Catholic Church had followed a strict policy of withholding the Bible from the lay public, making it accessible only to clergymen who took up the process of orally transcribing the contents of the Bible for the benefit of the lay public. Therefore, Tyndale’s proposal and project to go against this established practice by transcribing the New testament in English, was against what Moore perceived to be the sacred duty of clergy men at the time to preserve the distance of scripture from the common people. By going against this established practice, Moore believed that Tyndale was violating the established principles of the Catholic church to preserve the purity of the Scriptures in their original Latin and Hebrew. Hence this was one of the grounds that formed the basis of Moore’s tirades against Tyndale. It may be noted that Daniel (1995) has pointed out that the corruption of the clergy members in that day was a subject that both Tyndale and Moore were well aware of. While Tyndale expressed his disapproval for the corruption of the clergy through his move to translate the New testament, Moore was equally disapproving of the corruption of the clergy but his disapproval was expressed in a subtle silent disapproval of the clergy, as opposed to an outright rebellion against the Catholic church. While Tyndale rails against the clergymen as “the belly brotherhood of monks and friars”, Sir Thomas Moore never once bothers to come forward to defend the clergy despite the virulence of his attacks against Tyndale for daring to go against established Catholic church practice to translate the New Testament and allow the scriptures to be accessed by the lay public. This is a clear indication that Thomas Moore was also tacitly in agreement with Tyndale on the corruption that was rampant among clergy members and therefore he did not rise in dispute with him on this issue. But he did dispute Tyndale’s translation of the New testament into English because of the dangers of distortions to the purity of the original scriptural writings. Another aspect against which Moore railed against Tyndale was in the possibility for mistakes to occur in the translation process and for the sacred message in the scriptures, written in the original Latin and Hebrew, to run the risk of being tampered with or distorted during the process of translation. The Bishop of London wrote to Thomas Moore in 1528, and in describing the work of people such as Tyndale and Luther, used terms such as “sons of iniquity”, requesting the highly respected Moore to explain the “crafty malignity of these impious heretics” to “simpleminded people”. (www.williamtyndale.com). The dangers of misrepresentation of the scriptural message among the lay people was a strong motivating factor impelling Moore’s condemnation of Tyndale. He felt that there was scope for mistranslation and thereby a distortion of the message that was contained in the scriptures, especially among common lay people who would no longer have the filtering effect of a clergyman’s views in understanding the Scriptures. This is what led Thomas Moore to write long diatribes against William Tyndale for taking the liberty of translating the scriptures into English and thereby allowing scope for distortion and wrong beliefs among the common folk, who were hitherto being guided in their religious life entirely by the teachings of clergymen - the only ones permitted to actually read from the scriptures. In his translation of Romans 13 of the New Testament, Tyndale begins as follows: “Let every soul submit himself unto the authority of the higher powers. For there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God……” (www.tyndale.org) This completely pushed aside the intermediary role of clergymen and the Catholic church in scriptural interpretation. Moore therefore objected to several of Tyndale’s translations and in particular took offense at substitution of certain terms which he felt significantly detracted from the sentiment inherent in the original scriptures. Some of these terms which he disputed were the use of “congregation” instead of the word “church”, using “senior” instead of “priest”, using “repentance” instead of “penance” and “love” instead of “charity”.(www.williamtyndale.com) Although Moore brought a broad range of charges against Tyndale, his railings were mostly centered upon the distortions that he felt had resulted to the original scriptural sayings as a result of the free manner in which Tyndale had carried out his translation. On this basis, Moore condemned Tyndale as a fraud, and literally a devil who was going against the teachings of the Catholic Church – as a man who was a hypocrite and “puffed up with pride and envy.” (www.williamtyndale.com) Another significant cause for Thomas Moore’s disapproval against the writings of Tyndale was the importance that he ascribed to the King at the expense of the Pope. While the underlying message of Tyndale’s railing against the clergy was intended to bring the lay people closer to God and to provide them with a forum whereby they might easily understand the Scriptures, nevertheless he ascribed the King of England as the head of the church, rather than the Pope in the Vatican. For active proponents of the Catholic church and staunch Catholic clerics such as Sir Thomas Moore, this seemed to be going to too far – a move almost equal to heresy. One of the commandments Jesus gave was in establishing Peter as the rock upon which he intended his church to stand, and Peter was to be the steward of the common people and lead them to Christ. For the Catholics, the role of St. Peter was seen to be filled by the Pope, a role wherein direct authority had been given by Jesus Christ himself. In fact, during the time of William Tyndale and Sir Thomas Moore, it was the Catholic Church that was in a very firm position in the country. While the King’s sovereignty and power were not disputed, there was little doubt that the King could not proceed on his really important political moves without seeking the authorization and blessing of the Catholic Church. Clergymen in that day and age had a vital role to play in politics and their superiority was indisputed, so that the King could not function on his own without consulting the clergy. Therefore, Moore railed against Tyndale on the basis that the man was seriously undermining the existing hierarchy of the Catholic church and the authority that was given to the Pope as the Head of the Church. However Tyndale was viewed as directly heretic in his views when he stated “I defy the Pope and all his laws” (www.crazycalvinist.com) Furthermore, the impact of Tyndale’s writing and the dangers inherent in them were even more acute because King Henry established the Church of England under his own leadership in 1530, after breaking with the Roman church, thereby typing to place himself in the place of the Pope as the leader of the people and the head of the church. In vigorously advocating that Tyndale’s works should be burned and should not be allowed to reach the common people, the basis upon which Moore makes his condemnation is therefore the fact that they were works of heresy. He stated “and for heretics, as they be, the clergy doth denounce them, and as they be well worthy, the temporality doth burn them and after the fire of Smithfield hell doth receive them, where the wretches burn forever.”(www.wiliamtyndale.com). The reasons for the heresy lay in the denial of the Pope and in the undermining of the existing hierarchy of the Catholic Church, so that the role of the King assumed a greater superiority and diminished the importance of the role of the Catholic church ruling from Rome in the affairs of England and her political affairs. Therefore, in conclusion, it may be noted that the major grounds for Moore’s condemnation arose from the emerging conflict between the established patterns of Catholicism as opposed to the new movement of Protestantism that was emerging through the writings of Luther and Tyndale. From Moore’s viewpoint, the writings of Tyndale that sought to bring the New Testament directly to the masses and also sought to deny the authority of the Pope, was a flagrant violation of established hierarchies of the Catholic church. The superseding of the role of the Pope as the direct representative of God and the traditional hierarchy of the Catholic Church that ascribed power to the clergy in the political and economic affairs of England, which experienced input from Rome for many years, was under serious threat by the views of people such as Tyndale. This was a large part of the reason why Moore dismissed and condemned many of Moore’s views as heresy. However, it may be noted that from a long term perspective, Moore’s strong criticism of Tyndale’s work has little merit in this day and age, where the traditional authority of the Catholic church have long been superseded by more progressive beliefs within the Christian Church. Tyndale is viewed today as one of the most important writers of all time, who was able to transcribe and translate the original Scriptures into simple English that brought the words of scripture to the common man and changed the face of the Christian faith, giving true value to the important role played by William Tyndale. References: Panorama of Church Past, Present and Future.” [online] available at: http://www.momentin.com/revstudy/chap03sardis.html Daniell, David, 1995. “William Tyndale and the Making of the English Churches.” The Second Annual Lambeth Tyndale Lecture [online] available at: http://www.tyndale.org/TSJ/9/daniell.html “God’s Word will prevail – Tyndale” [online] available at: http://www.crazycalvinist.com/gods-word-will-prevail-tyndale/ “Thomas More’s controversy with William Tyndale” [online] available at: http://www.williamtyndale.com/0sirthomasmore.htm Read More