NEW TESTAMENT

With an Introduction by Priscilla Martin William Tyndale is the finestEnglish translator of the Bible, and his New Testament one of the mostinfluential works in English Literature. As a young man in pre-ReformationEngland, where unauthorised translation of the Bible was illegal, he hearda pompous divine claim that 'we were better be without God's law than thePope's'. Tyndale's answer was: 'I defy the Pope and all his laws, and ifGod spares my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth theplough shall know more of the scripture than thou dost'. Unable to do thisin England, he spent the rest of his life in exile on the Continent and wasexecuted as a heretic in 1536. His translations - of the entire NewTestament and much of the Old Testament - were smuggled into England,where an eager public risked their lives to read them. His New Testamentwith its clear, vivid style and resonant phrases, is a masterpiece ofEnglish prose and was the basis of the Authorized Version of 1611.