Tyndale & the Whole Bible in English - Wotton

The 400th Anniversary of the KJV has certainly stirred up a lot of new interest in Tyndale's life and work!

Thanks to the many groups who have already contacted us to request special Tyndale lectures over 2011 - we are always keen to help spread the word about the life and colossal achievement of the man who gave us our English Bible...

In the third of our March lecture listings, Tyndale Society Trustee David Green will be lecturing for Wotton Civic Society on Friday 11th March.

The lecture and audio-visual presentation will begin at the Civic Centre, Wotton-Under-Edge at 7:30pm. (For exact location see reference 8 on the town's map - accessible here).

All Tyndale Society Members and Friends are warmly welcomed to attend.

The bookend of the publishing era?

A few days ago I went into a well-known books and records chain in Washington DC; funereal atmosphere, few if any customers, dwindling choice, Peter Frampton concert videos and other inventory nobody wants.

Hard-copy publication really is a dying business model, and nobody loves bookstores more than I do! The reason I bring up this topic is--what does this mean for us? The Tyndale Society is an organization about books in various forms, and the future of the book seems uncertain.

Neil Inglis
Editor, TSJ

Thomas Cranmer on the Bible in English

"And yet, if the matter should be tried by custom, we might also allege custom for the reading of the Scripture in the vulgar tongues, and prescribe the more ancient custom.

For it is not much above one hundred years ... since Scripture hath not been accustomed to be read in the vulgar tongues within this realm; and many hundred years before that it was translated and read in the Saxons’ tongue, which at that time was our mother tongue; whereof there remaineth yet divers copies found lately in old abbeys, of such antique manners of writing and speaking that few men now [are] able to read and understand them.

And when this language waxed old and out of common usage, [so that] folk should not lack the fruit of reading, it was again translated in the newer language. Whereof yet also many copies remain and be daily found."

[From Cranmer’s "Prologue or Preface to the Bible," April 1540. See the “Miscellaneous Writings and Letters of Thomas Cranmer”, edited for the Parker Society (Cambridge: The University Press, 1846), pp. 118-125. Also see “The Protestant Reformation” (ed. Lewis W. Spitz, pubs. Prentice-Hall, 1966), p. 166].