The English Bible---the mot familiar book in our language---is the product of a man who was exiled, vilified, betrayed, then strangled, then burnt. William Tyndale left England in 1524 to translate the word of God into English. This was heresy, punishable by death. Sir Thomas More, hailed as a saint and a man for all seasons, considered it his divine duty to pursue Tyndale. He did so with an obsessive ferocity that, in all probability, led to Tyndale's...