Where and when was the Bible first translated into English?
When the bible was first translated into English by William Tyndale in 1494-1536, he did it directly from the Hebrew and Greek texts. This caused an almighty raucous in the Roman Catholic church and with the then King Henry the VIII. Tyndale was burnt at the stake for attempting to make the Bible available to the common man in their own language, English. At least he was not burnt alive, his prosecutors, the Roman Catholic church, allowed him to be strangled by the hangman before they lit the wood under his feet.
Then King James, 1609-1611, and his merry bishops who’s establishments had sanctioned this reward for Tyndale, stole his work and wrote the English Bible with no credit to Tyndale. 98% of the new testament of the 1611 King James Bible was the work of Tyndale. Tyndale was still in the process of completing the old testament when the authorities caught up with him and lit him up for his magnificent effort.
“How is this of significance to Luvacta”, you may ask? The English have never been very good at expressing love. The Greeks had 3 different words for this state (love) of our emotions but to make things even worse King James and his cronies in their interpretation of the great “Love” command (1 Corinthians 13) by Paul changed and omitted using the word “love” as it should have been used. The word had been correctly translated by Tyndale. King James and his translators used the word “charity” in its place. Right there the Bible lost a key emotional state for the Christian.
Jesus did not say “Have charity towards your neighbour as you charity yourself“. (Mark 12:31 Para) But Jesus did say “Thou shall love thy neighbour as thy self” from Tyndale’s Bible.
Jesus commanded us to love and he expected that love to have consequences on us. Love comes before charity can be given. Charity cannot exist before love and charity cannot exist without love having been manifested. Love in Jesus terms will act. Let us go to one of the most poignant and significant events of the new testament when Jesus gives the disciples a new commandment (John 13:34-35 NASB) “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
“By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Without the physical display of action, how can anyone witness this love that Jesus refers to? We need to be acting out love.
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