William Tyndale

English priest and biblical translator whose vernacular New Testament directly shaped the King James Bible — approximately eighty percent of the KJV New Testament retains Tyndale's wording. Hunted across Europe for his translation work, he was eventually betrayed, imprisoned, and executed at Vilvoorde in 1536.

Tyndale became a Protestant martyr-hero, celebrated as the father of the English Bible. His dying prayer and its apparent fulfillment within months became iconic in Protestant hagiography. His influence extends through every subsequent English Bible translation.

William Tyndale was born around 1494 in Gloucestershire. He studied at Oxford and Cambridge, mastering Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. Convinced that Scripture must be accessible in English, he famously declared to a clergyman that he would cause the boy who drives the plough to know more of Scripture than the clergyman himself.

Denied permission to translate by the Bishop of London, Tyndale left England in 1524 and spent the rest of his life in continental exile. Working in Worms, Hamburg, and the Low Countries while constantly fleeing persecution, he completed his New Testament translation in 1526 (revised 1534) and the Pentateuch in 1530. These were smuggled into England through merchant networks. He also wrote theological treatises including The Obedience of a Christian Man (1528) and The Practice of Prelates (1530).

Betrayed and arrested near Antwerp in 1535, Tyndale was imprisoned at Vilvoorde castle for over a year. A surviving letter from prison requests his Hebrew grammar and dictionary so he could continue translating. Condemned as a heretic, he was strangled and burned on October 6, 1536. John Foxe reports his dying prayer: 'Lord, open the King of England's eyes!' Within months, English Bible translation resumed under royal sanction — Tyndale's prayer answered almost literally.

• Martyr
• Priest
• Translator