Tyndale’s Testament

The New Testament in English, translated from the Greek (Worms, 1526)

William Tyndale, strangled and burned at Vilvoorde, 1536

Small enough to hide in a sleeve, and printed in the same town where a monk had refused to recant five years before.

Catch rate: Not found in the wild
Base research: 430
Stat total: 420

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina150

Contend85

Defend140

Popularity45

Total420

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 150

Hunted, burned by the bishop of London, and still here — most of the King James New Testament is this man’s wording, sentence for sentence.

Contend 85

Modest. Tyndale had the best Greek of the three great translators and a plain English ear. It argues by being readable, not by force.

Defend 140

Attacked hard and mostly over vocabulary — congregation for church, senior for priest, love for charity — and the vocabulary was right.

Popularity 45

Slow. It travelled hidden: between three and six thousand copies, small enough to slip in a sleeve, down the Rhine in bales of cloth. A book that has to hide is not quick to hand.

Cited for this book

William Tyndale’s New Testament was raided at the printer in Cologne in 1525, and finished at Worms in 1526. The bishop of London burned copies in St Paul’s churchyard. Tyndale was betrayed near Antwerp, then strangled and burned in 1536. Three years later the king ordered an English Bible in every parish church, and most of it was Tyndale’s.

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
1	A Boy That Driveth the Plough	Bible	Argument	88	95%	10
1	Random Verse	Bible	Argument	10	100%	30
44	Chapter…	Bible	Scripture	—	—	12
46	Smuggled in Bales of Cloth	History	Argument	80	100%	15
48	Into Their Own Tongue	Exegesis	Argument	84	100%	10
51	The Whole Life of Believers	Soteriology	Argument	76	100%	15

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“If God spare my life ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the plow, shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.”
William Tyndale, as reported in John Foxe, Acts and Monuments (1563). FOXE IS THE SOLE WITNESS and is an interested one — see research/SECONDARY-SOURCES.md §3. Public domain; no snapshot on hand.public domain

A Boy That Driveth the Plough

BibleArgument · power 88 · 95% accurate

In the gameTyndale said this to a learned man who claimed the church’s law mattered more than God’s. It explains why he translated the Bible, and he was strangled and burned for doing it.

Strong against

×4Nothing Outside the Textan argument · why?

Tyndale swore that a boy at the plough would know more Scripture than the learned men who said it could not be read. That is a claim that meaning is plain enough to reach a farm. Derrida wrote books and expected them to be understood, and every reader who has followed him has assumed the same.

“The first edition of Tyndale’s New Testament had to be smuggled into England and was publicly burnt by order of Tunstall, bishop of London, in St. Paul’s church-yard near the spot from which Bibles are now sent to all parts of the globe.”
Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII (1888), on the Bible in the vernacular, public domain.public domain

Smuggled in Bales of Cloth

HistoryArgument · power 80 · 100% accurate

In the gameSmall octavo, so it hid in a sleeve. Down the Rhine in cloth, into English ports, and out of the bales into houses — and burnt in St Paul’s churchyard by order of a bishop.

“…the latter furnished the text from which, with the aid of Jerome’s Vulgate, the translations of Luther and Tyndale were made.”
Of Erasmus’ Greek Testament, in Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII, on the Bible in the vernacular (1888), public domain.public domain

Into Their Own Tongue

ExegesisArgument · power 84 · 100% accurate

In the gameEleven weeks in a castle under a false name, turning the Greek into German a ploughman could read out loud. The scholarship is real; the audience is the argument.

“Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ in saying: ‘Repent ye’ … intended that the whole life of believers should be penitence.”
Ninety-Five Theses 1, in Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII §32 (1888), public domain. (trimmed quote)public domain

The Whole Life of Believers

SoteriologyArgument · power 76 · 100% accurate

In the gameThesis 1, and it is a translation argument. The Vulgate said DO PENANCE; the Greek says REPENT. One word, and either repentance is a sacrament you complete or it is a life you live.

Strong against

×2The Indulgence Stallan argument · why?

One word in the Latin, and the whole trade is standing on it.

Read it: A Boy That Driveth the Plough

The passages the Scriptorium holds on screen, word for word from a public-domain translation. Written in English.

“If God spare my life ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the plow, shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.”
William Tyndale, as reported in John Foxe, Acts and Monuments (1563). Foxe is the sole witness and an interested one — see research/SECONDARY-SOURCES.md §3. Public domain; no snapshot on hand.

“The first edition of Tyndale’s New Testament had to be smuggled into England and was publicly burnt by order of Tunstall, bishop of London, in St. Paul’s church-yard near the spot from which Bibles are now sent to all parts of the globe.”
Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII (1888), on the Bible in the vernacular, public domain.

“…the latter furnished the text from which, with the aid of Jerome’s Vulgate, the translations of Luther and Tyndale were made.”
Of Erasmus’ Greek Testament, in Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII, on the Bible in the vernacular (1888), public domain.

Notes

The 1525 Cologne printing was raided mid-run; he fled upriver and Peter Schoeffer finished the job at Worms in 1526 — the same town where Luther had refused to recant five years earlier.

Tyndale was betrayed near Antwerp, held sixteen months, strangled and burned at Vilvoorde in 1536. Three years later the king he had defied ordered an English Bible into every parish church, and most of it was his.