Two landmark works on and by William Tyndale have been published in the United States by the Catholic University of America Press. Both should be added to any collection, public or private, of his works.
Word, Church, and State: Tyndale Quincentenary Essays (Ed. John T. Day, Eric Lund, and Anne M. O'Donnell, S.N.D. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1998. $39.95) brings together the fine papers presented at the Washington International Conference which celebrated the 500th anniversary of Tyndale's birth.
The introduction to this scholarly volume by Anne O'Donnell thoroughly covers Tyndale's life and works, providing the necessary background for what has been called "a milestone of Tyndale scholarship." These essays afford the historian, political or religious, and students of language and literature many corrections to supposed Tyndale lore. They illuminate Tyndale's skills as both linguist and writer. Tyndale's convictions and determination in his conflicts with foes in the English church and state shine through brightly in this superb collection of the works of scholars from the Continent, England, and the U.S.
Even more noteworthy is the publication, anticipated late this spring, of Tyndale's An Answer Unto Sir Thomas More's Dialogue, also edited by Anne M. O'Donnell with Jared Wicks, S.J. (Washington D.C.: C.U.A.P., 2000. $79.95.) This is the first volume of a long-awaited new scholarly edition of the Independent Works of William Tyndale, i.e. all his writings other than the translations of Scripture. (The latter, of course, have been made available in recent years by David Daniell's scholarship through Yale University Press.)
In the 1531 Answer Tyndale confidently takes his stand, armed with his fresh translations of Old and New Testaments, on Scripture versus tradition, the papacy, and faith, while mounting a powerful attack on Thomas More's Dialogue Concerning Heresies.
The introduction to this critical edition of Answer briefly presents the history of its composition and the principles of its theology. The commentary spans fifteen hundred years of church history from he New Testament to Tyndale's works of polemic and exegesis.
Donald J. Millus, Coastal Carolina University