At the stake he cried: "Lord, open the
King of England's eyes!" Upon Tyndale's version of the Bible the King
James translation is solidly based. "It is astonishing," says Dr.
Geddes, a profound scholar, "how little obsolete the language of it is,
even at this day; and, in point of perspicuity and noble simplicity,
propriety of idiom, and purity of style, no English version has yet
surpassed it." Of course our language has changed greatly in 400 years.
Yet
THE LORD'S PRAYER
does not contain, in Tyndale's exact language, one unrecognizable word.
It ran as follows: "Oure Father which arte in heven, halowed be thy
name. Let thy kingdom come. Thy wyll be fulfilled, as well in erth, as
hit ys in heven. Geve vs this daye oure dayly breade. And forgeve vs
oure treaspases, even as we forgeve them which treaspas vs. Leede vs not
into temptacion, but delyvre vs from yvell. Amen."
THE MARKED POETICAL SUPERIORITY
of the Protestant over the Catholic Bible may be shown in the
twenty-third Psalm, and elsewhere. The first says: "The Lord is my
shepherd; I shall not want;" the second: "The Lord ruleth me; and I
shall want nothing.
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