From ........... Daily News Miner Fairbanks, AK

October 27, 1996

page A-7

LONDON - Britain is lending the United States its copy of the first English-language New Testament - the only complete volume known to have survived a burning campaign by the 16th - century church.

Translator William Tyndale himself was burned for heresy in 1536, 10 years after putting the New Testament into printed English.

The state-run British Library said Friday it was responding to great interest among Americans after 40,000 visitors saw the book in the first four months following its purchase in 1994. The copy went for more than $1.5 million.

The volume will be the centerpiece of an exhibition on the English Bible at the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif., from Nov.19-Feb. 7; at the New York Public Library from Feb.22-May 17; and at the Library of Congress from June 4 - Sept. 6. Tyndale rendered the Greek into English so that even a "boy that driveth the plow" could learn the scriptures directly rather than rely on the church's interpretation of them.