William Tyndale - Millennium Square, Bristol, UK
N 51° 26.985 W 002° 36.053
30U E 527734 N 5699916
This statue of William Tyndale is one of several on the west side of Millennium Square in Bristol. Tyndale is famous for translating the bible to English and printing it in the 16th century.
Waymark Code: WM11V1X
Location: South West England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 12/20/2019
Views: 2
The life-size, bronze statue has Tyndale sitting on a bench. He is wearing the scholarly robes of the 16th century and a peculiar style of hat on his head. A small bear and moustache adorn his face. Resting on his lap he has a portable writing desk and resting upon it are a copy of the New Testament and an inkwell. His forearms rest on the edge of the desk and his right hans is holding a quill pen. His left hand is a mirrored version of his right hand but without the pen. His gaze is not on the desk but in front of him as if in thought.
A plaque, set into the ground, tells us:
An eminent Bristolian
William Tyndale
1492-1536
Translator of the Bible into English
- Martyred 1536
by Lawrence Holofcener
2000 AD
Bronze
Supported by
The Bristol Evening Post and Press
The Bristol Cancer Help Centre
Bristol Cathedral
The Encyclopaedia Britannica website has an article about William Tyndale that tells us:
Tyndale was educated at the University of Oxford and became an instructor at the University of Cambridge, where, in 1521, he fell in with a group of humanist scholars meeting at the White Horse Inn. Tyndale became convinced that the Bible alone should determine the practices and doctrines of the church and that every believer should be able to read the Bible in his own language.
After church authorities in England prevented him from translating the Bible there, he went to Germany in 1524, receiving financial support from wealthy London merchants. His New Testament translation was completed in July 1525 and printed at Cologne and, when Catholic authorities suppressed it, at Worms. The first copies reached England in 1526. Tyndale then began work on an Old Testament translation but was captured in Antwerp before it was completed; he was executed at Vilvoorde in 1536.
At the time of his death, several thousand copies of his New Testament had been printed; however, only one intact copy remains today at London’s British Library. The first vernacular English text of any part of the Bible to be so published, Tyndale’s version became the basis for most subsequent English translations, beginning with the King James Version of 1611.