👓 Salt of the earth: Tyndale’s Bible | The Economist

Read Salt of the earth: Tyndale’s Bible (Economist Espresso)

Ask who did the most to shape the English language, and most people will answer Shakespeare. But another writer of much less fame did at least as much: William Tyndale, the first to translate into English the Greek New Testament and most of the Hebrew Old Testament (a follower, Miles Coverdale, finished the work, published in 1526). That work was later a major source of the 1611 King James version. Estimates of his contribution run as high as 90% of the King James New Testament. One of the earliest Tyndale Bibles will be auctioned by Chiswick Auctions today. The estimate of £8,000-10,000 ($10,200-12,700) seems a bargain for the work that immortalised “let my people go”, “the apple of his eye” and “go the extra mile”. Not that it did Tyndale much good: to render God’s word intelligible to ordinary folk was a daring act. He was strangled and burned at the stake for it.