Watch the Tyndale episode here
In 1535, William Tyndale, the man that gave us our English Bible, awaited in jail his execution. At root, it was Tyndale’s love for the Scriptures that imprisoned him behind those steely bars. Isolation in a blacked-out dungeon can drive even the strongest of men insane. Yet Tyndale remained perfectly polite and congenial until the very end.
In his early forties and bursting with talent, Tyndale had become the first man to translate the Bible into English from the original Greek and Hebrew. Now, while rotting prison, he took up his pen to write these words: “My overcoat is worn out, my shirts also. I ask to be allowed to have a lamp in the evening, for it is indeed wearisome sitting alone in the dark.”
What drove Tyndale to such measures of fortitude was his unswerving focus to deliver the Bible in English. Nothing could sidetrack him from this goal. John Foxe said that Tyndale was “singularly addicted” to knowing the Bible, a trait for which we remember him to this day.
