not be intelligently translated into it," Tindale
replied: "It is not so rude as they are false
liars. For the Greek tongue agreeth more with
the English than with the Latin, a thousand
parts better may it be translated into the English
than into the Latin."[2] And when a high
church dignitary protested to Tindale against
making the Bible so common, he replied: "If
God spare my life, ere many years I will cause
a boy that driveth a plow shall know more of
the Scriptures than thou dost." And while that
was not saying much for the plowboy, it was
saying a good deal to the dignitary. In language,
Tindale was controversial enough, but
in his spirit, in making his version, there was no
element of controversy. For such reasons as
these we might expect the version to be valuable.


[1] Herman Buschius.

[2] This will mean the more to us when we realize that the
literary men of the day despised the English tongue. Sir Thomas
More wrote his Utopia in Latin, because otherwise educated
men would not deign to read it. Years later Roger Ascham
apologized for writing one of his works in English. Putting the
Bible into current English impressed these literary men very
much as we would be impressed by putting the Bible into current
slang.