Dying for Writing

In a good mystery story, the detectives always discus the blood spill, the flow, the direction and the amount. From that, they figure out the murder weapon, direction of attack, time of death and so on. It’s quite entertaining on paper, but in real life not so much. 

Many gave their blood for the translation of the Scriptures. Clergy determined to keep the Bible in Latin, doling out their personal translations to the rest of us. For our sake, brave translators risked prison and death. John Wyclif (ca. 1330–1384), translated the Latin version into English and thus became a criminal. 

100 years later, William Tyndale translated scripture from Hebrew and Greek into English for “all women, Scots and Irishmen, even Turks and Saracens, and especially the farm worker at the plow and the weaver at the loom.” Henry VIII had him burned at the stake. Later, Henry became a protestant and suddenly Tyndale was a hero.

Do we value the cost of the Word; from the death of Jesus all the way to those who worked to get the Bible into our hands? Reading yours?

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