David Daniell commented: "Congregatio had been used by Erasmus in his parallel Latin translation for the Greek ekklesia wherever it occurred. William Tyndale avoids 'church' because it is not what the New Testament says" (William Tyndale, p. 148). David Daniell also noted: “Tyndale translated the Greek New Testament word ekklesia as ‘congregation.‘ Philologically, he was correct: Erasmus, no less, had done the same before him. Theologically he was correct, too” (p. 122).
KJV-only author David Cloud acknowledged that Tyndale “always translated the word ecclesia by the word congregation” (Faith, p. 480). Again David Cloud noted that Tyndale used “congregation” and in effect admitted that “this might be deemed better” (Bible Version Question/Answer, p. 147).
William Tyndale wrote: “The word church hath divers significations. First it signifieth a place or house” (Answer, p. 11). William Tyndale added: “In another signification, it is abused and mistaken for a multitude of shaven, shorn, and oiled; which we now call the spiritualty and clergy” (p. 12).
G. E. Duffield commented that "Tyndale knew that in current parlance the word church usually meant the clergy or the ecclesiastical hierarchy" and that "in the Bible ecclesia referred to God's people, not merely to the clergy" (Work of William Tyndale, p. xx). MacCulloch confirmed that “the word ‘Church’ had commonly come to signify the vast European-wide trade union that was the clergy” (Reformation, p. 41).
Conant noted: "The uniform rendering of ecclesia by congregation formed one of the characteristic features of the earlier versions, and was accounted of primary importance, as representing to the English mind the generic idea of visible Christianity as a community of equals" (The English Bible, p. 399). In 1583, Puritan William Fulke explained why ecclesia was first translated "congregation" in the early English Bibles. He noted that "the word church of the common people at that time was used ambiguously, both for the assembly of the faithful, and for the place in which they assembled; for the avoiding of which ambiguity they translated ecclesia the congregation" (A Defence, p. 90). He also added that the early translators "departed neither from the word nor meaning of the Holy Ghost, nor from the usage of that word ecclesia, which in the scripture signifieth as generally any assembly, as the word 'congregation' doth in English" (Ibid., p. 239). Joseph Browne maintained that “the earlier translators of the English Bible resolved to render the word ecclesia by a word more conformable to the original [congregation]” (Ten Lectures, p. 85). The 1570’s Nowell’s Catechism noted: “This the apostles that wrote in Greek called ecclesia, which by interpreting the word may fitly be called a congregation” (Richmond, Fathers, VIII, p. 79).
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Bible stated that “the selection of one word rather than another can alter the reader‘s understanding significantly. That is very apparent in the early sixteenth-century English renderings which were sensitive to what then seemed undesirable connotations of such words as ‘church‘ (for which ‘congregation‘ might be substituted“ (p. 189). This source also noted “the AV deliberately opted for more ecclesiastical terms like ’church’” (p. 210).
This evidence reveals some of the undesirable connotations that William Tyndale considered to be associated with the word “church” and why he considered “congregation” to be a more accurate rendering of the Greek word ecclesia.
In an introduction to an Oxford World’s Classics edition of the KJV, Robert Carroll and Stephen Prickett wrote: “Tyndale had incurred the wrath of the authorities by translating the Latin ecclesia as ’congregation’ rather than ’church’--thereby suggesting a much looser, more democratic and self-governing organization in the early Christian communities of the New Testament than the episcopally organized and hierarchical Anglican Church could tolerate” (p. xxvi). Stephen Prickett asserted: “William Tyndale’s perfectly scholarly translation of the Latin ecclesia as ’congregation’ rather than ’church’ was political dynamite, in that it implicitly handed over the organizational control from the clergy to the rank-and-file in the pew” (Hamilin, KJB after, p. 30). Jon Sweeney maintained that Tyndale’s “translation choices” such as congregation “undermined the longstanding institutional power from the central church (both in England and in Rome), instead empowering local believers” (Verily, Verily, p. 56).
earlychristiantexts.com
