Elijah's Chariot Of Fire: 2013

Scholars believe William Tyndale could have been born around 1494, near the Slymbridge area of Gloucestershire. He knew seven languages including Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, French, and German. He started school in 1508, under the name of William Hychyns. At Magdalen hall in Oxford he had debates at night instead of studying. He earned his masters degree in 1515. Hychyns real name is William Tyndale. The young man's family left Tyne during the wars of the roses. His parents were farmers, so Tyndale may have taken care of animals. William stayed at Sodbury Manor from 1521 to 1523 with sir John and his wife Anne. There Tyndale translated into English, a book by Erasmus called Manual of the Christian Soldier. Sometimes he walked 15 miles to Bristol to listen to preaching. Tyndale preached in the church of St Dunstan. He went to London in 1523, then he stayed with Humphrey Monmouth, a very wealthy man. In 1528 he wrote The Parable of the Wicked Mammon. In 1524 Tyndale left England and went to Hamburg, then traveled to Wittenburg Germany, where the scholar met the famous Luther and started translating the Bible. He completed translating the New Testament into English by the time he left Wittenburg. He was at this city for about nine to ten months. When William left Wittenburg, he went back to Hamburg and stayed with the Emerson family and a man named Roye came to help him. Bishop Tunstall had people burn the Bible. He said it was full of heresy, and error. He also preached a sermon about Tyndale and the Bible, saying it had three thousand errors, he then threw a copy of the Bible into a fire which he had prepared just for that. Cardinal Campeggio stated that every copy of the Bible should be burnt and that anyone that keeps them should be burnt also. But still, Bibles poured into England. Christopher Van Endhoven made a pirates copy of the Bible which was smaller, so it was easier to carry. This brave man was arrested for copying the Bible. In April 1527 at the book fair more than two thousand Bibles were for sale. In May 1527 Archbishop Warham came up with a plan which he thought would get rid of all the Bibles, which was to have all his friends purchase all the Bibles that they could. Tunstall bought all the Bibles on a merchant ship to burn them. Then Tyndale received all the money to re-do the Bible. In 1531 a man named little Bilney was burnt at the stake, he was also a reformer. Richard Bayfield also died that year as well as two of Tyndale's friends; a man named George Constantine was tortured in attempt to get valuable information about the names of the people that carried the Bibles over to England. Thomas More arrested anyone with a Bible including boys, leather workers, shoe men, priests, servants, and tailors. In 1534 Tyndale stayed at Thomas Poynts house and completed his revision of the Bible. A man named John Row, Thomas Van Endhovens runner, was forced to throw his books away, and Thomas Van Endhoven was arrested and sent to prison at Westminster, where he eventually died. They finally caught William Tyndale, when Henry Phillips, a very wealthy man decided he would try to catch him, himself. So he got some men to help catch Tyndale. Phillips went to sir Thomas Poynts house, to have lunch with them, and tried to become their friends. A few days later Poynts asked William Tyndale for some money which he gave over. Tyndale then went out to eat with him, and as they were coming down a narrow passage, Tyndale stepped aside to let Phillips through. But Henry insisted that Tyndale should go first. So as Tyndale started to go down the stairs he saw two of the men at the bottom of the stairs who were soldiers. He turned to go back up, Henry shoved him back down. The guards grabbed him and tied him up. They then brought Tyndale to the prison of Vilvorde. Poynts tried to help him but nobody could help him there. He wrote a small book, called Faith Alone Justifies. Then came winter, and he could not write as much as before, because there was not enough light. Tyndale had been in the prison for eighteen long months before they had the trial all ready. They had a long list of charges of heresy against him. Then on October 1536, Tyndale was taken out of the castle to where he was to be burned at the stake. And that's where he said "Lord open the king of England's eyes". And then they burned him at the stake.