William Tyndale and the Word He Could Not Hide

In 1524, William Tyndale left England with a single burning conviction: the scriptures belonged not on locked cathedral lecterns but in the hands of plowboys and merchants. Church authorities had forbidden English translation of the Bible, threatening imprisonment or worse. Tyndale could have kept his faith quiet, worshipped privately, and lived safely as a Cambridge scholar. He refused. "If God spare my life," he told one clergyman, "I will cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scripture than you do."…