Killed for Translating the Bible

The smugglers hid their contraband among bales of cloth during the journey down the Rhine River and across the sea into England. If caught, these individuals would face severe penalties, possibly even death.

What was their contraband? Bibles!

William Tyndale completed his English translation of the New Testament in 1525, five centuries ago.

He had been unable to find a printer in England willing to print it, so he went to Germany, where the Protestant Reformation had gained a foothold. He started out in Hamburg, then Cologne, and was later forced to flee to Worms.

After his English version of the New Testament was printed, copies were smuggled into his home country in 1526.

For those of us living in Europe or North America today, it’s difficult to imagine that people could be killed for translating the Bible or reading it in their native language. Unfortunately, history is filled with such stories.

Why were they killed for translating the Bible?

William Tyndale was not the first to attempt an English translation of the Bible. More than a century before, and predating the Protestant Reformation, John Wycliffe enlisted the help of other scholars for the task. The Wycliffe Bible was the first complete translation into English.

A Bible in English presented a threat to the religious authorities in England. The same was true for translations of the Bible into the common languages of other European nations, especially those where the Reformation had not yet gained momentum.

French Bibles, for instance, were just as much a threat to the French religious authorities as English Bibles were to the English religious authorities. Those in power did not want the Bible translated.

The next time you read your Bible, be thankful that others risked their lives to translate the Bible so that you could have access to the words of life! That’s because the Roman Catholic Church had become accustomed to wielding absolute authority on religious issues and jealously guarded that power. Translations of the Bible posed a threat to that power. As noted in “Battle for the Bible,” a 2007 PBS documentary, “It worried Church authorities enough that by 1407 the [Wycliffe Bible] was denounced as unauthorized, and translating or using translated Bibles was defined as heresy—a crime for which the punishment was death by burning.”

Unapproved translations of the Bible posed a threat because literate people could read and interpret Scripture apart from the Catholic Church, and thus come to biblical understandings contrary to Catholic doctrine.

The enormous significance of Tyndale’s Bible

While the Wycliffe Bible came first, it was Tyndale’s translation that would leave an indelible mark on the collective consciousness of the English-speaking world. This is largely overlooked because the Tyndale Bible left this mark indirectly, through the King James Version.

According to some scholars, two-thirds or more of the King James Version of the Bible, first published in 1611, is taken word for word from the Tyndale translation. Sadly, this was done without acknowledgment of the man who worked so hard to put God’s words into English.

Many people in the English-speaking world, whether Bible readers or not, use idioms rooted in Tyndale’s translation. Among those idioms are “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9) and “salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13).

Outlawing translations of the Bible

Translating—or even reading—the Scriptures in English had been outlawed in England since 1408, when the Synod of Oxford passed a law prohibiting any unauthorized translation of the Bible. This was largely in reaction to the Wycliffe translation, which the Roman Catholic Church deemed heretical.

Some scholars insist that translating the Bible into English wasn’t prohibited, but only translating the Bible without first gaining the approval of the Roman Catholic Church.

Matthew A.C. Newsome wrote: “All this law did was to prevent any private individual from publishing his own translation of Scripture without the approval of the Church” (Catholic.com).

The net effect, however, was that anyone who disagreed with the Catholic interpretation of Scripture was prohibited from translating the Bible. The official reason for a death sentence may have been heresy, but often behind that charge of heresy was the act of translating.

Tyndale killed for translating the Bible

As copies of the Tyndale Bible proliferated in England, the religious authorities did everything in their power to eliminate them. Cardinal Wolsey launched a campaign against Tyndale’s Bible, tracking down known friends and associates of the man.

One such acquaintance was a priest named Thomas Hitton. He was burned alive for heresy after confessing that he had brought two Tyndale Bibles into England.

Eventually the authorities caught up with Tyndale himself in Antwerp through Henry Phillips, a young Englishman who gained the translator’s confidence and then betrayed him. Tyndale was arrested, held for more than a year and then executed.

The animosity of the authorities toward Tyndale is evident in the manner by which they executed him. First, he was strangled. Then, as though that were not sufficient, Tyndale’s body was burned at the stake.

Clearly, it was not merely a matter of belief that generated such anger—it was because of the Bible he had published. Tyndale was killed for translating the Bible.

A communist Bible?

Surely all that persecution is in the past, you might think. If so, you would be wrong.

Faced with a burgeoning Christian movement in China, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has initiated a new strategy. Having failed in its efforts to force 130 million professing Christians to deny their faith, the party is now rewriting the Bible.

As with the controversy over translating Scripture during the Reformation, what is happening in China is a matter of control. Todd Nettleton of Voice of the Martyrs explains: “The issue for the Chinese Communist Party is control. It is always about control.”

The CCP is intent on controlling all religions in China. During its 19th Party Congress in 2017, Chairman Xi Jinping called for “the sinicization of Chinese religions, and [for providing] active guidance for religion and socialism to coexist.”

A university textbook from a CCP-run publisher illustrates how the biblical story is being perverted. It has Jesus stoning the woman caught in adultery (John 8:2-11) rather than showing her mercy.

That’s because to the CCP, according to former U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, the original is “a story of a dissident challenging the authority of the state.”

The Bible was translated into Chinese before the CCP came to power, but that doesn’t mean that the CCP won’t continue to try to rewrite it.

Killed for translating the Bible today

The Bible has long been translated into all major languages, but not all the many languages and dialects spoken by relatively fewer people. For those people, the work continues. Sometimes, even now, a person can be killed for translating the Bible.

This is particularly true in areas with ongoing violence. In Cameroon, translators have been working under the direction of Wuwih William Gemuh to make the Bible available in the Mfumte cluster of languages. He was killed in March of 2023.

The environment in Cameroon is not completely stable. It’s not only separatist groups that pose a threat. The Islamic jihadist group Boko Haram is a continual threat.

The Bible can get you into trouble in a number of countries today:

• In Saudi Arabia, foreigners carrying a Bible or reading it in public can be fined or imprisoned.
• In North Korea, possessing a Bible can result in imprisonment or even death. One American visiting the nation ended up in prison for five months because he left a Bible in a restaurant, thinking his act would benefit someone living in that restrictive regime.
• In Iran, Muslims that convert to Christianity can be imprisoned and tortured for owning a Bible.

The Bible in your lap

Printed versions of the Bible are relatively inexpensive and have been for years. What is amazing for people living in the Western world during the last two or three decades is that we can now access or download scores of Bible versions with our computers, tablets and phones.

For those of us blessed enough to live in prosperous nations with religious freedom, it’s easy to take the Bible for granted. What we hold in our laps at church—whether a print version of the Bible or a digital one—is available whenever we want to read it.

We are so blessed. The question is, Do we recognize how blessed we are?

The Bible is not just any old book. It is God’s message to His children, filled with wisdom and warnings, as well as promises and hope. It is the cornerstone of truth because it is a reflection of the very character of God.

When Satan tempted Jesus to turn a stone into bread, Jesus pointed out how vital it is to know and follow God’s direction. Quoting the book of Deuteronomy, Jesus said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God’” (Luke 4:4).

The Bible contains God’s words. It is often called the Word of God. It is just as vital as the food that sustains our physical lives.

The next time you read your Bible, be thankful that others risked their lives to translate the Bible so that you could have access to the words of life!