1526 Tyndale New Testament and Biography

The 1526 Tyndale New Testament is a reprint from the "Rare Book Archive" of Dr. David L. Brown's Biblical Heritage Archive Collection. William Tyndale (1492? - 1536) played a monumental role in the establishment of the Authorized Version of 1611 (i.e., King James Bible). He was the first to translate Erasmus's Greek New Testament (NT) into English and then provided the world with the first printed English NT. He stands as the greatest of all English biblical scholars. While his first edition NT was published in 1526, his second revised and corrected NT was published in 1534, two years before he was martyred. Tyndale also completed the Hebrew-to-English translation for 15 of 39 books in the Old Testament, including the Pentateuch. Tyndale published the first edition of his English New Testament in 1526. Only two full copies have survived, both pocket size. It is believed there were 3,000 printed in Worms by Peter Schoeffer. The British Library bought the copy owned by Bristol Baptist College for 1 million pounds, declaring Tyndale's New Testament as "the most important printed book in the English language."

The second complete copy of Tyndale's 1526 New Testament was discovered in November of 1996 at the Wurttembergische Landesbibliothek (a state library) in Stuttgart, Germany. This German copy has a title page, which is missing in the British library copy. Apparently, the German library's director, Eberhard Zwink, was overseeing the library data transfer from hand-written hard copy records to computerized records. During this transition process, Zwink realized that one of the library's holdings was actually a 1526 New Testament by Tyndale.

Taken together, several research studies indicate that 83% - 90% of the King James Bible (1611, Authorized Version) can be traced to Tyndale's English translation work; specific findings suggest that 83% of the NT and 76% of the OT in the King James Bible is Tyndale's translation (The Bible in English by David Daniell, Yale University Press; The King James Version Defended by Edward Hills, Christian Research Press).

Within his small New Testament are words and phrases which have gone on to influence the world, and continue to do so today. A surprising number of Tyndale's phrases are still in common use today, including: 'under the sun', 'eat, drink and be merry', 'signs of the times', 'the salt of the earth', 'let there be light', 'my brother's keeper', 'lick the dust', 'fall flat on his face', 'the land of the living', 'pour out one's heart', 'the apple of his eye', 'fleshpots', 'go the extra mile', 'the parting of the ways', broken-hearted', 'flowing with milk and honey'.