An Accurate Translation

In matters of accuracy Tyndale also set a high standard. For example, in translating from Hebrew, he tried to be as literal as possible while maintaining an easy, flowing English style. He was careful even to reproduce the Hebrew fullness of description with its frequent repetition of the word “and” joining clause after clause in a sentence. (See Genesis chapter 33 in the King James Version, which retains Tyndale’s wording almost entirely.) He paid close attention to the context and avoided additions to or omissions from the original text, even though paraphrasing was resorted to by most translators of the time.

Tyndale’s word choice was also careful and accurate. For example, he used “love” instead of “charity,” “congregation” for “church,” and “elder” rather than “priest” where appropriate. This infuriated critics like Sir Thomas More because it changed words that had come to be venerated through tradition. Where the original demanded the repetition of a word, Tyndale was careful to reproduce it. To illustrate: At Genesis 3:15, his translation twice speaks of ‘treading’ done by the seed of the woman and by the serpent.c

Tyndale was also responsible for introducing God’s personal name, Jehovah, into the English Bible. As writer J. F. Mozley observes, Tyndale used it “more than twenty times in his Old Testament” translations.

Looking back on the effect of Tyndale’s efforts and their enduring qualities, this modern assessment well sums up his work: “Tindale’s honesty, sincerity, and scrupulous integrity, his simple directness, his magical simplicity of phrase, his modest music, have given an authority to his wording that has imposed itself on all later versions. . . . Nine-tenths of the Authorized New Testament [King James Version] is still Tindale, and the best is still his.”​—The Bible in Its Ancient and English Versions, page 160.