Some Neglected Aspects of the Exegetical Debate on Resurrection and the Immortality of the Soul between William Tyndale and George Joye in Antwerp (1534-1535)

Abstract

The debate between William Tyndale and George Joye on "translating resurrection" (changing Tyndale's "resurreccion" into "the lyfe after this" or some other similar expression in twenty-two places in a 1534 Antwerp reprint of Tyndale's 1526 Worms New Testament) has received relatively little scholarly attention. Based on primary sources, this article presents an original account of the history of the debate and highlights some generally neglected elements in it. Tyndale's charges against Joye are examined in the light of the available evidence and Joye's Apologye (1535). Based on the available sources, it becomes clear that Tyndale's second foreword in his November 1534 New Testament is largely responsible for the misrepresentation of Joye's standpoint in current secondary literature and that Joye's motive for changing Tyndale's New Testament was not the negation of the bodily resurrection but a reaction to Luther's (and Tyndale's) tenet on soul-sleep by applying the findings of the exegetical studies of his times (e.g. by Huldrych Zwingli) to the translation of text. Thanks to the debate, we have a better understanding of the eschatological ideas of the early English Reformation