William Tyndale

William Tyndale was an English biblical scholar and linguist who became a leading figure in the Protestant Reformation. Educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and Cambridge, Tyndale became convinced that the English people urgently needed scripture in their native language directly translated from the original biblical tongues—Greek and Hebrew—rather than translated from Jerome's Latin Vulgate. Finding no patron in England due to Bishop Tunstall's opposition, Tyndale fled to the Continent in 1524. In 1526 in Worms, Germany, he published the first printed English New Testament. Over the subsequent decade, he translated the Pentateuch, Jonah, and historical books while constantly staying ahead of agents of King Henry VIII and Sir Thomas More. Tyndale's magnificent gift of phrase established the rhythm, cadence, and vocabulary of modern English.