Tyndale's Old Testament

Synopsis

In the 1530s William Tyndale translated the first 14 books of the Old Testament into English from the original Hebrew, a translation that laid the foundation of all subsequent English Bibles, including the Authorised Version (King James Bible) of 1611. Tyndale was the first to translate the Hebrew Bible into English. At the time, that language was virtually unknown in England, and Tyndale had learned his Hebrew while he was exiled to the Low Countries and Germany for political reasons. The publication of Tyndale's Old Testament, on top of his earlier and later translations of the New Testament, outraged the clerical establishment by giving the people access to the word of God in English. Tyndale was hunted down and burned at the stake for blasphemy. Tyndale translated and printed the Pentateuch (first five books of the Old Testament) in 1530 as a pocket book, revising Genesis in 1534. He also translated and printed the Book of Jonah, probably in 1531. In addition, there is little doubt that he also translated the historical books of the Old Testament - Joshua to 2 Chronicles. The present volume contains the Pentateuch (unavailable except in an out-of-print and unreliablly edited Victorian facsimile) and the historical books, which have not been in print since 1551. The spelling in the texts has been modernized to show them as the modern productions they once were, and Tyndale's introductions and marginal notes are included.