William Tyndale is the finest English translator of the Bible, and his "New Testament" one of the most influential works in English Literature. As a young man in pre-Reformation England, where unauthorised translation of the Bible was illegal, he heard a pompous divine claim that `we were better be without God`s law than the Pope`s`. Tyndale`s answer was: `I defy the Pope and all his laws, and if God spares my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the scripture than thou dost`. Unable to do this in England, he spent the rest of his life in exile on the Continent and was executed as a heretic in 1536. His translations - of the entire "New Testament" and much of the "Old Testament" - were smuggled into England, where an eager public risked their lives to read them. His "New Testament" with its clear, vivid style and resonant phrases, is a masterpiece of English prose and was the basis of the Authorized Version of 1611.