From ChatGPT on 8/14/2026.
Prompt – Did the Tyndale’s translation primarily use the Latin Vulgate?
No. Tyndale’s translation was not primarily based on the Latin Vulgate.
Tyndale’s great significance is precisely that he translated the New Testament primarily from Greek rather than translating the Latin Vulgate into English. The same basic distinction applies to the portions of the Old Testament he translated: he worked primarily from Hebrew.
Tyndale’s actual sources
New Testament (1526 and later revisions)
Tyndale worked principally from Erasmus’s printed Greek New Testament, particularly the 1519 and 1522 editions. He also consulted:
- the Latin Vulgate
- Erasmus’s own Latin translation
- Martin Luther’s German New Testament
- other scholarly aids available to him.
But these were secondary/reference sources, not the primary textual basis.
The distinction is important. The Tyndale Society summarizes the situation explicitly: Tyndale “did not translate the Bible directly from Latin nor German,” but translated the NT from Greek and subsequently translated OT books from Hebrew.
Old Testament
Tyndale learned Hebrew and translated portions of the OT from the Hebrew Masoretic tradition. He completed the Pentateuch and Jonah and was working on additional books when he was executed in 1536.
However, Tyndale did use the Vulgate when it was useful, and scholars can identify particular places where it appears to have influenced his wording. For example, 1 Samuel 1:5 appears to reflect the Vulgate’s tristis in Tyndale’s rendering of Hannah’s condition.
So the best description is:
Tyndale = primarily Greek and Hebrew, with consultation of the Vulgate, Luther, and other sources.
Why this matters for the history we were discussing
This actually changes the genealogy I gave you earlier in an important way.
The English Bible tradition did not simply progress:
Vulgate → Tyndale → KJV → modern translations.
Instead, there is a major break with Tyndale:
Wycliffe → Vulgate-based English
then
Tyndale → Greek/Hebrew-based English
and Tyndale’s work subsequently became enormously influential on the English Protestant Bible tradition:
Tyndale → Matthew’s Bible → Great Bible → Bishops’ Bible → KJV
The KJV translators themselves were instructed to consult Tyndale’s work, and a very substantial portion of the KJV’s wording ultimately derives from Tyndale.
There is one further wrinkle worth emphasizing: Tyndale’s Greek source was Erasmus’s Greek text, and Erasmus’s Greek text itself was not entirely independent of the Vulgate. Erasmus occasionally reconstructed Greek readings from the Latin Vulgate when Greek manuscript evidence was unavailable. The famous 1 John 5:7 “Johannine Comma” is an important example of this complicated interaction.
So Tyndale was not translating the Vulgate, but his Greek source sometimes contained readings that had themselves been influenced by the Vulgate.
That distinction becomes very important when we trace Tyndale → KJV → ASV → RSV → NRSV → NRSVue and ask why particular verses differ between the KJV and NRSVue.
