Tyndale, or Tindal, William

(c. 1495-Oct. 6, 1536). Translator of the scriptures. He was born in Slymbridge, “about the borders of Wales.” Tyndale received his B.A. and M.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford, and then studied at Cambridge. He was ordained priest around 1521 and soon determined to translate the scriptures into English. He was not free to do his translating in England. Tyndale went to Hamburg, Germany, in 1524, visited Martin Luther at Wittenberg, and began printing the NT at Cologne. King Henry VIII of England and others tried to destroy his work and kill him, but Tyndale eluded them. In 1533 he fled to Antwerp in the Netherlands and remained there the rest of his life. He was joined by John Rogers in 1534, who assisted him in translating the OT. Tyndale was able to translate only the Pentateuch and the Book of Jonah from the OT. In 1535 he was betrayed by a man named Henry Phillips. Tyndale was arrested, imprisoned, tried for heresy, and condemned to death. He was strangled and then burned at the stake on Oct. 6, 1536. Tyndale was an apostle of liberty and a promoter of the Reformation in England. His life is commemorated in the Episcopal calendar of the church year on Oct. 6.