“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17
To you who read these articles, I appreciate and share your love for all things Bible. Today, I would like us to reflect on the great price paid for us to have the Bible in our common language. Without these sacrifices, we would be unable to so readily study this great book whereby we are made complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Consider some amazing statistics pertaining to Bible sales and distribution compiled by wordsrated.com. Each year, an average of 100 million Bibles are printed with a projected total of about 6 billion currently in print worldwide. In the United States alone, 20 million Bibles are sold each year. That is 1.66 million per month, 384,615 per week, 54,945 per day, 2,289 per hour, 38 per minute, or 6.4 every 10 seconds. This does not account for the 115,055 per day which are given away and otherwise distributed, nor does it consider digital Bibles.
What is the point in pondering these statistics? With such ease of access to the Bible, we may be tempted to take it for granted and assume we will always be free to engage God’s word unimpeded. However, when we view the sweep of church history, we see a very different picture emerge. To understand the gravity of the situation, we return to the third century church, specifically as it pertains to the Bible in English translation.
Christianity made its way to Britain by the third century, but the Scriptures were not yet available in English. At the time, Latin was the dominant language among the learned, so the only Bibles available were in Latin. The trouble was, the average Brit did not understand Latin and had no opportunity to learn it. As the Roman Catholic Church grew in power, this situation grew worse.
The entire papal system worked vigorously to keep the scriptures out of the hands of commoners under the auspices of guarding against heresy, claiming only the clergy could understand the scriptures. Though modest attempts to put the Bible in the commoner’s hands began as early as the mid-600’s, the first widely available edition of the Bible in English came in 1382 when John Wycliffe translated the Latin translation into English.
Nonetheless, the true “father of the English Bible” is William Tyndale, whose relentless push to get the Bible in the hands of the commoner in England led him to Cambridge where he learned Greek and Hebrew for the sole purpose of translating the Bible into English from the original languages rather than Latin translations.
Having been forced to leave England to do the work, he completed the New Testament translation and began smuggling the first copies into England in 1526. Before he could complete his Old Testament translation, Tyndale was betrayed by Henry Phillips in Antwerp, Belgium. He was tried and condemned as a heretic in 1536. Being deemed a distinguished scholar, he was blessed to be strangled to death before they burned his body at the stake. His English readers who were caught with his New Testaments were not treated so kindly by King Henry VIII, being burned to death at the stake. Tyndale’s last recorded words were, “Lord, open the kind of England’s eyes.”
Fortunately for all of us, Henry broke from the Catholic Church in 1534 and commissioned the printing of an English translation known as the Great Bible (for its large size). The primary source of the New Testament of this translation was none other than Tyndale’s edition for which he had been executed.
So, when you open your English translation of the Bible and begin to read, thank the Lord that you live when and where you do rather than in another place and time where such activity could get you imprisoned, tortured, and killed. Also, remember the masses in parts of the world today who face those very realities if they dare be caught with a Bible in their hands. Hordes of people have long cried, “Give me the Bible” without sniffing the freedom we take for granted.