Burn the Bibles

Two men, casually attired as common tradesmen, walked purposefully down the dingy alley in Antwerp, Belgium. They had been sent there with clear instructions: go directly to the house at the very end of the alley, where they would find the man and the goods they were seeking. The directions were clear, easy to follow. At last their quest would end.

They tested the door, easily breaking through its rusty latch. Inside, the house was empty and the shelves bare. In the back room, where they had been told they would find stacks of freshly printed New Testaments, they found only dusty floorboards.

Betrayed, they returned to the alley and strode angrily back toward their lodgings.

Hidden behind the filthy panes of a nearby window, William Tyndale watched them go, breathed deeply, and returned to his stacks of New Testaments. Several hundred were there, prepared for shipment to friends in England. He had been warned and had moved the Bibles to this place only hours before the king’s emissaries broke through the old door.

Tyndale was accustomed to danger, having experienced numerous last-minute escapes from dishonest friends. Even one of his most trusted printers had betrayed him. Now, watching two of the most powerful men in England stride angrily away, he was unsure of his next step.

Those men represented all who desired him dead.

The bishop has promised Sir Thomas More that these New Testaments will be shipped to London and burned publicly at Paul’s Cross in London.

The year was 1529, and the New Testaments were beautiful, each word and phrase painstakingly translated from Greek into the common dialect of his English countrymen.

Blessed are the meek, he thought. Though those words were simple and clear, none of his countrymen had ever heard Jesus speak them. Certainly not in the same English they spoke in their kitchens and above their plows.

Oh, there was so much he wanted them to hear!

The two men? Cuthbert Tunstall, bishop of London, and his traveling companion. Tunstall was one of the most powerful men in England, and he had joined Sir Thomas More, the king’s Lord Chancellor, in a quest to destroy Tyndale’s English translation of the New Testament before its truths could threaten the comfortable power both church and crown enjoyed over the people of England.

Tyndale watched them walk out of the alley, his heart heavy with dread. He had tried so hard to follow God’s command and make His Word available to every man and woman who spoke the English language. A few thousand copies had been delivered, and he had heard them being read beside kitchen fires and in the dark corners of village pubs. He had seen tears of joy as people heard God say that He loved them.

He looked over the bundles of God’s Word around him in the room. Every Bible must get to England, he thought, almost saying it out loud. There was a weighty problem, however. He was completely out of funds and could not afford the cost of shipment, much less the massive expense of printing the thousands more copies that would be needed by the people in England.

An Unlikely Solution

Tyndale worked with the Bibles until nearly sundown.

The tap on his door was frightening.

“It’s Packington,” a welcome voice whispered.

Tyndale unlatched the door, and his merchant friend slipped into the room.

“I have a proposal for you,” his friend said. “I see you got the message and moved the Bibles before the bishop found them.”

The two men talked a bit, then Augustine Packington put a hand on Tyndale’s knee.

“I have just come from speaking with Bishop Tunstall.”

“You? With him? Why?”

“I have an idea,” he said, “and wanted to see if he might buy in. I told them that I knew a man who had access to a collection of New Testaments that were about to be shipped to London. Then I offered that, if he were willing to pay well, the man might be willing to dump the shipment where he could find it.”

“You what?” Tyndale exploded.

“Hear me out,” said Packington. “I told him that the price would be steep and that it would need to be paid immediately to purchase the shipment.”

“Why?” asked Tyndale, feeling betrayed.

“William, you are a poor man, yet you have some New Testaments, the printing of which has both endangered your friends and beggared yourself. I have found you a merchant with ready money to purchase all you have. It is a very profitable deal for you.”

“Why does this always have to come down to money?” Tyndale asked.

Packington threw his friend a victorious smile. “The bishop has agreed to pay about three times the value of the Bibles you have here in this room. That’s enough money for you to re-edit, print, and ship three times as many New Testaments in the coming months! You will lose a few but gain thousands more!”

Tyndale sat on the dusty floor and stared at the bundles of Bibles, carefully prepared for smuggling into London.

Finally, he looked at Packington and asked, “How much have they offered, and what will happen to these Bibles?”

Packington named a higher amount than Tyndale had dreamed possible. Then he added, “The bishop has promised Sir Thomas More that these New Testaments will be shipped to London and burned publicly at Paul’s Cross in London.”

Tyndale flinched, then smiled wryly. “When he burns the books, the public will be enraged and will demand their own copies. If he pays well, his generosity will allow us to print thousands more. I guess this is a small price to pay.”

A few days later, as the stacks of Bibles were loaded onto a ship as part of Bishop Tunstall’s luggage, William Tyndale began arrangements for the next printing of the New Testament in English, a new version that would not have been possible without the extra money.

Later, when Tyndale was finally captured, he was commanded to reveal the names of those who had helped him meet the expense of printing the Bibles.

“The bishop of Durham did more than any other person,” Tyndale replied.¹

Historian John Foxe, records this fitting conclusion to the story: “The bishop of London had the books, Packington had the thanks, and Tyndale had the money.”²