Crosstalk: June 2, 2016

Dr. David Brown is pastor of First Baptist Church of Oak Creek, WI. He holds a masters degree in theology and a Ph.D. in history, specializing in the history of the English Bible.

According to Dr. Brown, 3 events brought the world out of the Dark Ages: Development of moveable type by Yohannes Gutenberg, the fall of Constantinople to the Islamic Turks and Erasmus putting together his Greek New Testament. Gutenberg did not invent the printing press. He did invent the moveable type that allowed him to print his Bible. It didn't sell well but it did prepare the way for the Reformation Bibles of Luther, Tyndale, Coverdale, etc. At the fall of Constantinople, all the scholars took their manuscripts and headed West to Germany and England. They began to introduce the Greek languages back into the universities. At that time there was a Catholic priest named Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. After studying the Scriptures he began to be burdened that the Scriptures might be put into the language of the people. Erasmus said, 'I would that God would have the plow boy sing text of the Scripture as he plows the field and that the weaver would hum them to the tune of his shovel.' He put all of the New Testament together in one book in 1516.

William Tyndale received Erasmus's Greek New Testament and accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior. Dr. Brown related the story of Tyndale's firm words at Sodbury Manor that indicated he also desired to see the common person obtain the Word of God. Eventually he went to Worms where he published his 1526 New Testament. They were shipped to England but the St. Paul's Cathedral bishop bought all of them that he could obtain and burned them. Tyndale took the money and published a 1534 revised edition and those were smuggled into England as well.

Tyndale was eventually arrested and taken to an area outside Brussels where he was imprisoned for 500 days. Tyndale would not change his mind but did manage to lead the jailer and his family to the Lord. Ultimately he was charged with heresy and was burned at the stake in 1536 at which time he uttered those classic words, 'Lord, open the King of England's Eyes!'

This great history tour continued as Dr. Brown discussed Myles Coverdale (He produced the first complete Bible in English.), John Rogers (responsible for the Matthews Bible), the Geneva Bible (the first Bible with verse divisions), the Bishops Bible and how we got the beloved King James Bible.