"Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" Between 2 English Reformers: Tyndale and Joye

William Tyndale and George Joye
"The Gunfight at the O.K Corral"

Bray, Gerald, ed. Documents of the English Reformation. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994.

A 2005 edition is available at: http://www.amazon.com/Documents-English-Reformation-Revd-Gerald/dp/0227172396/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374785087&sr=1-1&keywords=gerald+bray+english+reformation

We get a "shoot-out" between two Bible translators and early English Reformers: Mr. (Rev.) William Tyndale and Mr. (Rev.) George Joye.

The latter, Mr. Joye, is getting increased visibility in the inquiries.

Here's the "shoot-out" at the "Not-So-OK-Corrale."

Mr. William Tyndale has a conflict with Mr. George Joye. We’ll cover Mr. Tyndale’s remarks in his further notes “To a Christian Reader” (28). Below, we'll attach a Wiki-bio on Mr. Joye, an early English Reformer of the 1520s and early 1530s.

Mr. Tyndale notes of his translation: “...I had taken in hand…compared to the Greek,” but that Mr. Joye “took in hand to correct” Mr. Tydnale’s work without consultation. Off hand, it looks like a peeing contest, but we'll hold a conclusion in suspension.

This was not, according to Mr. Tyndale, “the office of an honest man.” He was publishing his own version of Tyndale “without his name,” that is, Tyndale’s or Joye’s. According to Tyndale, Mr. Joye was playing “boo peep” (28) along with mistranslations that Tyndale did not approve.

Mr. Tyndale objected to Mr. Joye’s translation of the word “resurrection” uniformly throughout the Gospels and Acts.

Ανάστασις, or “resurrection,” was being “translated and published” by Mr. Joye as “the life after this life.” We'll enlarge momentarily.

Mr. Joye had been circulating “these things for a while” (29). He had been sending “secret letters on that side of the sea” that “caused great division among the brethren” (29).

The upshot was that Mr. Joye was, apparently, playing an ancient Docetic card (our word for it, not Tyndale’s or Bray’s), denying the "bodily resurrection of Christ" or the "future resurrection of believers and unbelievers."

Mr. John Frith, an early English Reformer, while in the Tower of London, wrote, according to Tyndale, a “letter before his death that we should warn him and desire him to cease.” Apparently, Mr. Joye was getting a following with his denials.

Mr. Tyndale offers this "textus classicus." For example, John 5.28-29:

28 Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice 29 and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.

For those who read Greek, we append the following (as an aside, a recent conversation with a TEC cleric of one of their serious seminaries embarrassingly noted that he'd never studied Hebrew, Greek or Latin, but to preserve peace, I held mine and now returning to the point):

28μὴ θαυμάζετε τοῦτο, ὅτι ἔρχεται ὥρα ἐν ἧ πάντες οἱ ἐν τοῖς μνημείοις ἀκούσουσιν τῆς φωνῆς αὐτοῦ 29καὶ ἐκπορεύσονται, οἱ τὰ ἀγαθὰ ποιήσαντες εἰς ἀνάστασιν ζωῆς, οἱ δὲ τὰ φαῦλα πράξαντες εἰς ἀνάστασιν κρίσεως.

Mr. Tyndale states that Mr. Joye is “thrusting clean out this word `resurrection’” (29). He “mocks out the text” (29). Mr. Joye has translated it "life after this life," implying a spiritual departure but no bodily resurrection.

Mr. Tyndale then asserts his public view of the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection to come. It's a vintage and classical statement.

"Wherefore, concerning the resurrection, I protest before God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, and before the universal congregation that believeth in Him, that I believe according to the open and manifest Scriptures and Catholic faith, that Christ is risen again in the flesh which he received of his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and body wherein He died. And we all shall, both good and bad, rise both flesh and body, and appear together before the judgment seat of Christ, to receive every man according to his deeds. And that the bodies of all that believe and continue in the true faith of Christ shall be endued with like immortality and glory as the body of Christ” (29).

That is a good statement by Mr. Tyndale. This is what he alleges Mr. Joye is denying.

Mr. Tyndale importunes 1000s (his word) to examine his [Tyndale's] translation. He has not, he avers, sought “to draw disciples after me” nor sought to “author a sect” (30). Remember, both of these men are fugitives from England for the faith.

Rather, Tyndale states that he has desired “to weed out all that is not planted of the Heavenly Father and to bring down all that lifteth itself up against the knowledge of the salvation that is in the blood of Jesus Christ” (30).

Mr. Tyndale writes “openly,” puts his name to his work and opinions [unlike Mr. Joye], and asks for all to examine his translation. If he has errors, “I will confess my ignorance openly” (31).

While we will look at Mr. George Joye later, we append a Wiki-bio on him.

Apparently, Mr. Joye--after the brouhaha--apologized for the misunderstanding.