Tyndale's New Testament

The Bible speaks to the purpose of this blog in a way that I think few other books do. We all have, in our heads, a pretty standard image of how a Bible should look: thin pages, a nice stately hard-cover (maybe cloth) with an embossed, gold-leafed "HOLY BIBLE" emblazoned across the front. This image, I think, affects the common perception of how we feel the Bible should be read; with an air of quiet dignity. The recent boom of study Bibles targeted towards every conceivable demographic is an unfortunate deviation from this trend. A quick browsing of Amazon's Bible Store should make my point clear. The very least that could be said about traditional Bibles is that they presented a work of immense stature with no frills, instead letting the text dominate. Readability was not a consideration; the Word of God was powerful regardless of font size or page thickness. Most newer study and devotional Bibles come loaded with maps, footnotes, and concordances, which in itself is a good thing; we here at Arbor are always in support of well-placed, helpful editorial content, especially with a work as difficult as The Bible. But in nearly every case, the material is overwhelming, often trite, with a cover that invariably features some combination of sunlight, green meadows, and water, unless it happens to be embarrassing and potentially sacrilegious.

Fortunately, noble publishers, like our friends at Yale University Press, have given us a pristine paperback version of William Tyndale's 1534 translation of the New Testament. His Old Testament translation is also available, but incomplete; Tyndale had only translated up to Chronicles when he was burned at the stake. Tyndale was committed to putting forth a translation of the entire Bible in English from the original Greek and Hebrew (previous English versions had been translated from the Latin Vulgate). A leader in the Protestant reformation, his reasons for translating the Bible into English are summed up nicely by John Foxe:

Master Tyndall happened to be in the company of a learned man, and in communing and disputing with him drove him to that issue, that the learned man said: 'We were better be without God's law than the Pope's.' Master Tyndall, hearing that, answered him: 'I defy the Pope and all his laws'; and said: 'If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.'

David Daniell, Emeritus Professor of English at the University of London, is largely responsible for the publication of this wonderful edition. He has also written a biography on Tyndale, published by Yale Nota Bene. Daniell seems to be the leader in a push to bring Tyndale back to prominence, arguing that he is responsible for most of the phrasing found in the King James translation, which still remains as the standard of English Bible translations. In the introduction to the biography, Daniell states that Tyndale's work with The Bible has had a more profound effect on English vernacular than the work of Shakespeare. Phrases such as "giving up the ghost," and "the salt of the earth," are products of Tyndale's English interpretation of the original language. Daniell says that nine-tenths of the wording in King James comes from Tyndale.

If Daniell is not overstating Tyndale's importance, Yale should be applauded for publishing a book of this quality. It treats the Bible with a dignity acceptable for believers (including this one), while providing necessary materials for study, in both an academic and religious context.

When first encountering the book, the reader will notice that it is abnormally wide. However, it is not a cumbersome volume at all, and fits nicely in any bookshelf. In fact, through continued use, I in some ways prefer the the slightly wider presentation (for the record, Amazon calls the width at 5.9 inches, about an inch off the 5 inch standard). I imagine this decision was made to accommodate Tyndale's margin notes, which differentiate specific passages through a brief title (e.g., 'transfiguration,' 'Jesus walked on the sea'). Tyndale also references other Bible passages dealing with the subject matter at hand. This is especially useful in the Gospels, where fulfilled prophecies are supplemented with the relevant OT passages where the prophecy was written.

And this is the remarkable thing about this volume: Except for the modernized spelling (a necessary edit), Yale has published the text exactly as it appeared in the 1611 'Ploughboy Edition' (so named because of the earlier quote). This leaves some wonderful peculiarities from the original text, my personal favorite being the final page, which contains brief scriptural interpretations under the heading "These things have I added to fill up the leaf withal."

The copy, in the same font as the cover, reads well, and the text is not broken into verses, but presented in paragraphs, split into the usual chapters. A heading in the top corner indicates the verse at the beginning and end of the page. The decision to leave verse numbers out makes referencing slightly difficult, but invites the reader to look at the Bible as a narrative, something I encourage. The centered text on the front cover is a pattern that holds throughout for all headings. It's a minor thing, and I suppose consistency is desirable, but I think there's something to be said for variation. However, the centering looks better when the text is bordered by large margins.

I am not as picky about damage to my books as my other two colleagues; I truly believe a book has not been read until it has picked up a coffee stain or two. That said, my copy of Tyndale's New Testament has undergone many trials in the short time I've had it, and held up remarkably. Of the paperbacks I own, I would rank this near the top in terms of durability. The sturdy cover and overall density of the book have kept the inside pages pristine in the wake of two different liquid spills on the outside cover. The pages are also thick enough to stand up to rigorous note-taking (an advantage of not printing the Old and New Testaments together). I did develop a crack in the binding early on, which is troublesome. Yet this is really the only issue I have. It definitely ranks at the top of my recent purchases.

It should also be mentioned that YUP has one of the better publisher logos out there:

466pp. ~ 5.9 x 7.9 ~ $22.50 ~ Amazon ~ Publisher