The Tyndale New Testament of 1526 is now available in a life-sized edition from Oxford. This was the first pocket-sized popular bible; it could be easily hidden from the thought police of the time, who were eager to burn any copies of the book they could find, along with their owners. Tyndale was burned at the stake for his great work, which informs the English language certainly as much as Shakespeare does. He wrote for people who had no Latin, and the result is a beautiful modern English still vital after nearly 500 years: “Seek and ye shall find”; “Eat, drink and be merry”; “Fight the good fight”; “The wages of sin is death”; “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”