A Biography Befitting A Great Christian Martyr: Tyndale by David Teems
Beautiful and pious, Anne Boleyn lent her copy of Tyndale’s
The Obedience of a Christian Man to one of her ladies-in-waiting, Anne
Gainford. Anne Gainford’s boyfriend,
George Zouche, noticed that his beloved was avidly reading the book and tore it
out of her hands. He wouldn’t give it to
her back in spite of her protests and began to read it himself.
Eventually the book caught the attention of the King
himself. He said: ‘This is a book for me
and all kings to read’.
This is just one of the several fascinating legends
surrounding the great Christian martyr, William Tyndale. David Teems relates these tales in an elegant
and interesting style. As I love to read
about Anne Boleyn, this was the one that I enjoyed best.
But his biography also does the great man justice in several
other ways. The most important is that
Teems emphasizes the beauty and eloquence of Tyndale’s translation of the
Bible, and how much it meant to him.
Tyndale, born in Gloucestershire, combined the homespun Gloucestershire
charm with its proverbs and sayings with the loveliness of the Welsh musical
cadences to create his great English translation. He suffered over his translation, attempting
to make the words beautiful but simple enough so that the ordinary man could
understand them. Before Shakespeare, he
wrote many phrases and words that have become part of our common English
language – words and phrases that still cannot be surpassed.
Teems also shows us how Tyndale suffered to achieve his
aims. He endured exile, treachery from
friends who turned into enemies, and he was hunted by Sir Thomas More, who
wrote extremely nasty things about him.
Finally, he became too trusting, leading to his death. The account of
his death was too graphic for me to read, and Teems made me so sympathetic
towards him that I felt that I couldn’t bear to read it!
Teems also shows us that Tyndale was a true Christian
man. He lived a humble life, helped the
poor, and he was kind and loyal to his friends.
I enjoyed this book immensely, in spite of its fairly heavy
and sad subject, and my liking for Roman Catholicism. I am interested in
reading more of Teems’s books.
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