Why did king Henry the VIII prohibit translations of the New Testament?

Question

like that by Tyndale to English...

Answer 1

The "stability of Latin" is hardly the reason. This claim is based on the odd idea that certain human languages are intrinsically better, or even more "sacred" than others (though the late medieval Catholic Church ended up in the odd position of suggesting that LATIN was sacred, but the ORIGINAL Hebrew and Greek were not).

Henry's opposition to translating the Bible (and esp. the NT) into the vernacular was simply following the dictates of the Catholic Church at the time, under the local guidance of Wolsey. The reason for this is rooted in the concern of the Church, esp. from the time of the Cathari heresy, about the MIS-use of the Bible to teach heresies, which translations into local languages would make easier.

The issue is not so much a concern about "mistranslations", though it was at times expressed that way, but about the subsequent use of those Scriptures to teach the laity things contrary to the official teachings of the Church.

(This historical background also explains why the NEW Testament was of more concern than the Old, since these groups based their teaching on the New Testament as they understood it.)

My Protestant conviction is that these concerns were at various times mixed with simple fear of leaders of losing POWER. The advocates of translations opposed by the Church in the 14th to 16th centuries were also frequently critics of the church, calling for REFORM. Chief among these, prior to Luther, were John Wycliffe and John Huss.

For an idea of these concerns, even AFTER Tyndale's time (when vernacular translations became somewhat more acceptable can be seen in "Rules" about banned books written at the Council of Trent (1543).
http://www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/TRENTBKS.HTM

Answer 2

Actually, Henry VIII removed England from the power of the Roman Catholic Church in order to divorce his first wife and marry Ann Boleyn in the early 1530s. But Henry had previously been a defender of the Catholic Church in Rome and supported the Church's admonition against printing the bible in English.
By the time Tyndale was on trial for his life in 1536, Henry VIII was more sympathetic. Unfortunately for Tyndale, he was captured near Antwerp and tried near Brussels, so all that Henry could do was send his chancellor Thomas Cromwell
to try to intercede. Cromwell's mission failed and Tyndale was executed - but not by Henry VIII or the English.

Answer 3

A littel background is needed here. In the 14th century, a movement, perhaps prompted by the great Plague that decimated Europe's population, began to translate the Bible into "vulgar" languages. This was a practice of the Lollards, so called because they repeated scriptural text in English. One of those Lollard preachers was a man named John Ball, who was one of the leaders in the Peasants Rebellion in 1381. This showed the monarchy what kind of risk they ran if the commoners were reading the Bible. One of these merry little bands dragged the Archbishop of Canterbury out and separated him from his head.

Henry was a Catholic, most of his life, placed in a position that would have been familiar to Charlemagne, 700 years before, the Pope had too much influence. Henry was the "spare" in Henry Tudor's succession line, his brother Arthur having died shortly after marrying the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella (Colombus' sponsors in the expediton to the Indies in the 1490s). The Bible, in the book of Leviticus, forbids the marriage between a man and his brother's widow ("for he is uncovering his brother's nakedness, it is an abomination, they shall be childless"). With the Prince of Wales dead, some way had to be arranged for the alliance with Spain to be preserved, and probably so that none of the dowry had to be repaid. A papal dispensation was obtained allowing young Henry to marry Katherine, now recovered from the illness that had killed her groom. This is a part of the "back-story" behind the events revolving around Anne Boleyn.
Henry and Katherine had a son, named Henry, soon after their coronation. The baby was ill, and he didn't live very long. Some time after, Katherine presented her husband with princess Mary. Mary (later Bloody Mary) was the only child they produced through the remainder of the longest marriage of Henry's life. This need for a male heir (England had had no female heir since Matilda, mother of Henry II, and in order to secure the throne for Harry, they kept her cousin Stephen on the throne through the remainder of his life) was imperative in the 16th century.
Henry resolved to find a bride that would produce a male heir. He met Anne Boleyn, just returned from a stint as lady in waiting to the queen of France (possibly Mary Tudor, Henry's favorite sister). The Boleyn family had good prospects, Anne's sister Mary had given birth to a son by Henry (illegitimate of course) and had been married off to someone else to avoid suspicion..
Anne was a smart girl, although pursued by the King for quite a while with no results, her sister's treatment was fresh in her mind. She declared that she could not be his wife, and would not be his mistress. Clearly something had to be done. It was resolved to get the Queen to give Henry a divorce so he could get a son. Katherine wouldn't go for it, and she was adamant about it. Her contention, despite the King's lawyers' contention that they were childless (meaning no son) that the princess Mary was their lawful child. They eventually had to appeal to Pope Clement, who asserted papal authority that no court less than the Pope could annul a marriage.
This led to an impasse, until someone, Anne evidently, assisted by a dream team of Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell, that Tyndall's book (not the Bible, but one on the conduct of a Christian Man), said that the Pope had no authority over sovereigns in such matters. This fit in rather well, and Cromwell, a crack lawyer and assistant to Cardinal Wolsey, was just the lad to put the case across. This eventually led to the Act of Supremacy, the act which caused Thomas More to lose his head through his refusal to acknowledge by an oath. From that time forward, the Sovereign of the Church in England was the anointed sovereign of the realm, Henry VIII in 1530 and Elizabeth II in 2007.

The dream team of Cromwell and Cranmer put together what was called the "Great Bible", printed in English. This reformation also allowed for texts to be printed of the testaments in English so even the average man with sixpence could own and read one. This led to discussion, not the kind that was pictured on the frontispiece of the Great Bible with intellectuals having lofty discussions, but the kind of discussions that might take place in a pub. Imagine a discussion of whether the wine was actually tranformed into the blood of Christ by the blessing over a couple a' pints.
This didn't appeal to Henry much, so he outlawed the sale of Bibles to anyone but the clergy and the colleges.

Tyndale had left Britain some time before, and was in hiding on the continent. He had continued publishing and had published something that opposed the King's divorce, causing the King to send out a warrant for his death. He was strangled and then burned at the stake in Belgium in 1536.

Answer 4

Because while ecclesiastical (church) Latin was stable in its accepted meaning for the definitions and context of the words, English was, and is not stable. The exact translations would be very difficult to accomplish and just as difficult to verify.
Minor errors have already pr oven to be very troublesome to Christianity. Look at the results of his act of declaring himself to be the head of the church and rule by divine right. Today that would result in a church that was ruled by parliament and truth was decided by public elections.
Henry retained the Vulgate (Latin) bible for the same reason that the Catholic Church does today - it is what was adopted at the Council of Nicaea about 400 ad