Fire in the Bones

William Tyndale, Martyr, Father of the English Bible

by Michael S. Wilcox

The leading personalities of his century would draw upon all their resources to stop him, from the brilliant Sir Thomas Moore to King Henry VIII; from Charles V, ruler of half of Europe, to the Pope. Both church and state hunted him relentlessly-at a time when the church held power over both soul and body and could condemn the heretic to execution by fire. His crime? Translating the words of the Bible into the "vulgar" English tongue. He was William Tyndale, and the story of his life, told in Fire in the Bones, reads like a novel, as exciting in its facts as any fiction could be. He knew the smugglers' secret marks and their intense, fraternal loyalty. He tasted the salt of shipwreck and knew the despair of lost manuscripts buried under the waves of the North Sea. Intrigue, safe houses, bribes, spies, covert conversations, last-minute flight, aliases, imprisonment, loneliness, all wove their spell into the riddles of his hidden world. He died at last as a martyr, but not before he had bequeathed to the world some of the most beloved and sacred phrases and terms in Holy Writ, including Atonement, still small voice, and Let there be Light. Readers everywhere will be captivated by his story.