This was the society into which William Tyndale was born in 1494. He developed as an academic and went to Oxford and Cambridge universities where he studied Hebrew and Greek and learned to speak seven languages. His life was forever changed when the Renaissance scholar Erasmus published a Greek edition of the New Testament. William Tyndale read it, and was amazed to discover the truths of justification by faith and the priesthood of all believers. He was stunned to discover that the English people were in darkness, following errors and superstition, because of their ignorance of the scriptures.

An unquenchable passion developed in his soul - to make the Bible available in English to every Englishman, regardless of their status, whether scholar or labourer. He was determined to give the English people a translation of the Bible that even a plowboy could understand.

But when he went to the Bishop of London to ask for permission to translate the Bible into English he was refused. However, while in London he met merchants who had smuggled into England some of Martin Luther's writings from Germany. These merchants encouraged Tyndale to go to Europe to translate the scriptures and pledged to help smuggle the Bibles back into England.

Tyndale fled to the Continent but he had to take care to avoid spies and informers as well as opponents of the Reformation. He worked in secret and eventually in 1525 his pocket sized version of the New Testament was printed and smuggled back into England. It was the first translation of the Bible from the original Greek into English.

King Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey and Sir Thomas More were furious about this unlicensed translation. They sent out agents to hunt down Tyndale and arrest him. He was living near Brussels at the time but in 1536 he was finally betrayed by a false friend and was arrested and thrown into prison.

The charge that was laid against him was incredible. He was accused of maintaining that faith alone justifies. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. Just 40 years old and condemned as a heretic, Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake outside Brussels. Just before he died he cried out "Lord open the King of England's eyes" but as the flames licked his broken body it seemed his lifelong dream and that final plea would die with him.

However his dying plea was answered in an unexpected way when King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church, bringing the Reformation to England. Some years later, in 1611, Tyndale's English translation of the New Testament was taken almost word for word into the Authorised Version of the King James Bible. It also used a great deal of his Old Testament translation.

This is the Bible that we have today. But we only have it because of the enormous conviction and courage of William Tyndale which led him to sacrifice his life to place the Word of God into our hands.