William Tyndale's Response to the Hebraic Tradition

Abstract

Christians of the Middle Ages did not respond favorably to Jewish thought; what they did learn with the assistance of prominent Jews, they used to develop a Christian typology. Apart from Nicholas of Lyra and Andrew of St. Victor, by and large commentators ignored the rabbinical discussions of the Bible. Intensive Hebraic scholarship had to await Renaissance philological techniques, printing presses, and the Reformation, before it came to full flower. The philological study of Hebrew by a grammarian such as Politian and the study of the Christian Cabala undertaken by men like Pico gave interest to this little-known language. Type faces were set up for Hebrew grammars, lexicons, and Bibles during the early development of printing. But it was the Reformation, with its emphasis on the two founts of religion—sola fidei, sola scriptura—which brought about the great dissemination of Hebrew learning.