William Tyndale and his Legacy

By Michelle Shocklee

Last month I shared the story of how Tyndale House Publishers was founded by Dr. Kenneth Taylor in the 1960s. Today I'd like to tell you about the man Tyndale House is named for. 

William Tyndale

William Tyndale was born in a small village in Gloucestershire, England between 1490 and 1494. His family had ties to knights and landed gentry. In his early twenties, William enrolled at Oxford where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree and eventually his Masters in theology, becoming an ordained priest. However, his frustrations with the practice of leaving out the study of the scriptures themselves led him to this complaint:

They have ordained that no man shall look on the Scripture until he is modeled in heathen learning eight or nine years and armed with false principles, with which he is clean shut out of the understanding of the Scripture.

William was a gifted linguist and became fluent over the years in French, Greek, Hebrew, German, Italian, Latin, and Spanish, in addition to English. Between 1517 and 1521, he went to the University of Cambridge where, in 1521, he met with a group of humanist scholars meeting at the White Horse Inn. It was then that William became convinced that the Bible alone should determine the practices and doctrines of the church and that all believers should be able to read the Bible in their own language. By 1523 he'd found his passion and sought permission and funds from the bishop of London to translate the New Testament into English. The bishop denied his request, and after further queries were also denied, William became convinced the project would not be welcomed anywhere in England.

Thankfully William didn't give up. To find a hospitable environment, he traveled to the free cities of Europe—Hamburg, Wittenberg, Cologne, and finally to the Lutheran city of Worms. There, in 1525, his New Testament emerged: the first translation from Greek into the English language. It was quickly smuggled into England. This infuriated the authorities, including King Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey, and Sir Thomas More. It was, said More, "not worthy to be called Christ's testament, but either Tyndale's own testament or the testament of his master Antichrist."

The beginning of the Gospel of John, from
Tyndale's 1525 translation of
 the New Testament.

For the next nine years, William would be forced to move around to avoid arrest while he began work on the Old Testament. The Pentateuch was issued in Marburg in 1530, each of the five books being separately published and circulated. During these years, William felt it his Christian duty to help the needy and welcomed many people down on their luck to his table in Antwerp. One such person was Henry Phillips, a man who had been accused of robbing his father and of gambling himself into poverty. Phillips became a frequent guest and soon was one of the few privileged to look at William's books and papers. In May 1535, Phillips lured William away from the safety of his quarters and into the arms of soldiers. William was immediately taken to the Castle of Vilvoorde near Brussels, the great state prison of the Low Countries, and accused of heresy.

In 1536, William Tyndale was condemned for heresy and was executed by strangulation and then burned at the stake at Vilvoorde. English historian John Foxe said William cried out, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes" before he died. 

King James Bible

Today, anyone who has read the King James version of the Bible has read William Tyndale's words. His translations, it would turn out, became decisive in the history of the English Bible. Nearly a century later, when translators of the Authorized, or King James Version, debated how to translate the original languages, eight of ten times, they agreed that Tyndale had it best to begin with.

Your turn: What is your favorite Bible translation? 

Michelle Shocklee is the author of several historical novels, including Under the Tulip Tree, a Christy Awards and Selah Awards finalist. Her work has been included in numerous Chicken Soup for the Soul books, magazines, and blogs. Married to her college sweetheart and the mother of two grown sons, she makes her home in Tennessee, not far from the historical sites she writes about. Visit her online at www.MichelleShocklee.com

               COUNT THE NIGHTS BY STARS

*A 2023 Christianity Today Book Award Winner*

1961. After a longtime resident at Nashville’s historic Maxwell House Hotel suffers a debilitating stroke, Audrey Whitfield is tasked with cleaning out the reclusive woman’s room. There, she discovers an elaborate scrapbook filled with memorabilia from the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Love notes on the backs of unmailed postcards inside capture Audrey’s imagination with hints of a forbidden romance . . . and troubling revelations about the disappearance of young women at the exposition. Audrey enlists the help of a handsome hotel guest as she tracks down clues and information about the mysterious “Peaches” and her regrets over one fateful day, nearly sixty-five years earlier.
https://www.tyndale.com/p/count-the-nights-by-stars/9781496459930

Dr. Kenneth Taylor: Founder of Tyndale House Publishers

By Michelle Shocklee

Long before I had the privilege of writing historical fiction for Tyndale House Publishers, the story of this company and its founder would become part of my story. I was 10 years old when I received The Children's Living Bible from my Sunday school teacher. Seven years later, as a senior in high school, my parents gave me The Living Bible for Christmas. They knew I was headed out into the world in a few months and would need the foundation of God's Word to direct my path. These two precious books are still on my bookshelf in my office, reminding me of God's never-ending faithfulness to his children and how cool it is to be part of his family!

My precious Bibles

So, what is The Living Bible and how did it come into existence? 

I'm glad you asked! Let me tell you a story. 

Kenneth Nathaniel Taylor was born in Portland, Oregon on May 8, 1917 to a Presbyterian minister and his wife. After high school, Ken attended Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, graduating in 1938. Desiring to further his education, Ken went to the Dallas Theological Seminary. While there, he was offered the position of editor of HIS Magazine based in Chicago and returned to Illinois. He finished his Th.D at Northern Baptist Seminary, married his sweetheart, Margaret, and started a family. He also became an author of Bible storybooks for children, worked with Good News Publishers on translating and distributing Gospel tracts to countries around the world, and served as the Director of Moody Press.

Dr. Taylor and some of his children
https://www.tyndale.com/timeline

As the Taylor family grew, so did Ken's concerns that his ten children were having a difficult time understanding the King James Version of the Bible. As a young man, he had also been frustrated by the complicated 17th century language of the King James, and he didn’t want his children to have to struggle in the same way. So to help his family make better sense of the Bible, Taylor began to reword specific passages in simple, conversational language, easy enough for even his youngest child to understand. Soon the children were responding to what they were hearing, and Taylor knew he was on to something. He began to paraphrase more passages from the New Testament, often during his daily train commute from Wheaton to Moody Press in downtown Chicago.

Ken finished his paraphrase in 1962, but much to his disappointment, he could not find a publisher. No one was interested in publishing a paraphrase of the Bible. Convinced The Living Letters, as they were called, would benefit others as it had his own children, Ken and Margaret decided to publish the letters themselves, despite having little money and two children in college already. Ken named his fledgling company Tyndale House Publishers, after William Tyndale, the 16th century reformer who was burned at the stake for translating the Bible into English.

Ken and Margaret Taylor
https://www.charlbury.info/news/2615

In its early days, Tyndale House was literally a kitchen-table operation. The older daughters typed Ken’s manuscripts, Margaret typed invoices and mailing labels, and the younger children stuffed envelopes and packed books ordered by bookstores. Things would change, however, when Reverend Billy Graham received a copy of The Living Letters. Mr. Graham was so impressed with them, he began ordering copies to be distributed at his crusades. Word quickly spread and Ken quit his job at Moody Press to work full-time as Publisher of Tyndale House. 

Rev. Billy Graham and Dr. Kenneth Taylor
Tyndale House/ https://youtu.be/feXzT4MyKlE

In 1967 the Living New Testament was published, and in 1971 the complete Living Bible was released to an eager public. It became the best-selling book in the United States for the next three years, after which Publisher’s Weekly decided not to allow Bibles to compete with “regular books” for a spot on the best-seller list. Ken and Margaret committed right from the start to deposit all profits from The Living Bible into a charitable trust. Rather than reaping a financial reward from his years of labor, Taylor insisted that the Bible’s royalties be donated to Tyndale House Foundation, whose purpose is to support mission projects around the world. In 1984, Dr. Taylor turned over the reins of the company to his son, Mark, but continued to be involved until his death in 2005.

Today, Tyndale House Publishers is one of the largest independently owned Christian publishers in the world. They continue to publish Bibles, as well as a broad spectrum of Christ-centered material... including fiction. 

And that's where my story re-connects with Tyndale's. In 2020, my novel Under the Tulip Tree was published by Tyndale House. My latest novel, Count the Nights with Stars, is my second with them. Next year, I'll have another novel release. It still amazes me how God worked out the details for me to write for the publishing company whose faithful Kingdom work has had such a big impact and influence in my life. 

Your turn: Have you read The Living Bible?

Michelle Shocklee is the author of several historical novels, including Under the Tulip Tree, a Christy Awards and Selah Awards finalist. Her work has been included in numerous Chicken Soup for the Soul books, magazines, and blogs. Married to her college sweetheart and the mother of two grown sons, she makes her home in Tennessee, not far from the historical sites she writes about. Visit her online at www.MichelleShocklee.com

               COUNT THE NIGHTS BY STARS

*A 2023 Christianity Today Book of the Year Finalist*

1961. After a longtime resident at Nashville’s historic Maxwell House Hotel suffers a debilitating stroke, Audrey Whitfield is tasked with cleaning out the reclusive woman’s room. There, she discovers an elaborate scrapbook filled with memorabilia from the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Love notes on the backs of unmailed postcards inside capture Audrey’s imagination with hints of a forbidden romance . . . and troubling revelations about the disappearance of young women at the exposition. Audrey enlists the help of a handsome hotel guest as she tracks down clues and information about the mysterious “Peaches” and her regrets over one fateful day, nearly sixty-five years earlier.
https://www.tyndale.com/p/count-the-nights-by-stars/9781496459930