Doctor David Jeremiah engages in historical revisionism as he libels the Catholic Church

Dr. David Jeremiah, senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, California, in his book entitled "I Never Thought I'd See The Day," which is listed as a "# 1 New York Times Bestseller," engages in historical revisionism as he attempts to portray William Tyndale as a "martyr" for the Bible.

On page 161 of his book, Dr. Jeremiah asserts that, "..because TYndale believed that every English-speaking person deserved to have access to the Bible in English, he labored to produce the first complete New Testament (and part of the Old Testament) in English translated directly from the original Hebrew and Greek texts.  Finding no support for his efforts in England, the Oxford and Cambridge trained scholar, fluent in no fewer than eight languages, left for Germany in 1524, never to see England again..."

What a blessing for England!  Let's begin with Dr. Jeremiah's asinine claim that William Tyndale was a "trained scholar."  Actually, Tyndale was a mediocre scholar at best.  He described himself as, "evil favoured in this world, and without grace in the sight of men, speechless and rude, dull and slow witted."  In other words, he had no special qualifications for the monumentally important task of translating God's Holy Word.  To put it mildly.

Of course this doesn't concern Doctor Jeremiah.  But then why should it?  As with many other anti-Catholic propagandists, Dr. Jeremiah cannot afford to let the truth get in his way or produce the slightest crack in his wall of conviction.  He implies in his book that the Catholic Church didn't want the people to have access to the Scriptures.

Tyndale had fallen under the influence of Martin Luther and his version of the Scriptures was full of Lutheran heresies.  Canon Dixon, an Anglican historian, referring to the fact that copies of Tyndale's Bible were burnt, says: "If the clergy had acted thus simply because they would have the people kept ignorant of the Word of God, they would have been without excuse.  But it was not so.  Every one of the little volumes, containing portions of the sacred text that was issued by Tyndale, contained also a prologue and notes written with such hot fury of vituperation against the prelates and clergy, the monks and friars, the rites and ceremonies of the Church, as was hardly likely to commend it to the favours of those who were attacked."

Bishop Tunstall of London declared that he found more than 2,000 errors in Tyndale's Bible while Saint Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor of England, wrote a treatise against the heretical translation and asserted that to "find errors in Tyndale's book were like studying to find water in the sea."

The Church had to condemn Tyndale's Bible because it was not a true or correct version of the Scriptures.  The Catholic Church had copies of Tyndale's Bible burned.  But it was not the Word of God which Church authorities were destroying but instead a corrupted version of the Scriptures.

In 1531, King Henry VIII, acting upon the advice of his Council and prelates, published an edict ordering that, "the translation of the Scripture corrupted by William Tyndale should be utterly expelled, rejected, and put away out of the hands of the people, and not be suffered to go abroad among his subjects."

Years later, the Royal Defender of the Faith issued another Act entitled "For the advancement of true religion and for the abolishment of the contrary" which said that, "all manner of books of the Old and New Testament in English, being of the crafty, false, and untrue translation of Tyndale....shall be clearly and utterly abolished, extinguished, and forbidden to be kept or used in this realm."

The Catholic Church did not oppose William Tyndale's Bible because he thought people "deserved to have access to the Bible in English."  The Church had to oppose this heretical translation because it is her duty to safeguard the Deposit of Faith.

Dr. Jeremiah needs to apologize for his libel.