This learned book is the compelling story of the Bible and of a friendship lost, the tragic break between of William Tyndale and George Joye, who were never reconciled following Joye's correction of Tyndale's translation of the New Testament. In Translating Resurrection, Gergely Juhász has written a scholarly study that elegantly follows a very human tale of imagined betrayal to explore the heart of Protestant biblical culture in the first generation of the Reformation. Particularly impressive are the layers of meaning Juhász finds in a dispute occasioned by Joye's rendering of “resurreccion” as “lyfe after this.” The difference might elude even the keenest eye, but as Juhász demonstrates, the change was fraught with significance beyond a wounded ego. Joye, as Juhász repeatedly tells us, has suffered greatly in posterity, hated by supporters of Tyndale and ignored by most historians of the English Reformation. He remains unforgiven for being the lesser scholar who dared to correct the “Apostle of England.” Although later generations would have little regard for Joye, in his own day he was one of the leading Lutherans at Cambridge and regarded by men such as Thomas More as a notorious heretic.

Certainly, Juhász offers a full historiographical account of Joye's alienation and more recent rehabilitation, but that story is not the most interesting part of the book. Juhász truly hits his stride when he turns to the many dimensions of the debate, beginning with the import of the words themselves. The disagreement over the translation takes us to one of the most significant, and rarely acknowledged, theological discussions of the Reformation, the fate of the person after death. The Reformers, including Luther eventually, had repudiated the doctrine of purgatory. Answering the question of where the dead go, however, remained a problem, particularly given the unclear biblical evidence. Juhász provides an extensive examination of a broad range of writers, Protestant and Catholic, whose works would have been known to Tyndale and Joye. This approach allows us, for example, to see the influence of Zwingli's writing on Joye. As Juhász argues, there was no unified Protestant view of the topic, and a range of possibilities was offered.

The Tyndale-Joye controversy, and the latter's profound interest in the question of postmortem existence, was no eccentricity. The large body of writing on the topic and the lively debate between the reformers themselves on the questions of eternity demonstrate that it was a “hot topic.” Why? In many respects the most important answer was pastoral. The late-medieval world of intercession had a persuasive logic by which people could remain in relationship with loved ones through prayer and charitable activity. What the Protestants seem to offer was cold comfort. At the moment of death a person's fate was sealed and only two options existed: heaven and hell. But what did that mean for the Last Judgment if the departed had already gone to the fate? Numerous Protestant pastoral tracts and sermons attempted to address this real concern of men and women in the churches. For some, the dead slept until the trumpet sounded, for others they were already rejoicing in the presence of Christ. It was the latter view that Joye sought to convey with his “lyfe after this.” Tyndale was less sure, although as Juhász remarks, “the principle of sola scriptura is seemingly sacrificed here for the sake of Tyndale's own ‘catholyck fayth’ and reasoning” (338).

Juhász provides a telling account of Joye's nontheological and theological reasons for his choice of words. In his theological arguments, Joye presents an answer to the Protestant dilemma. He saw humans as divided into two distinct components, body and soul. At the moment of death the soul undergoes immediate judgment and heads for heaven or hell. The fullness of that judgment, however, will come only with the bodily resurrection when Christ returns. Juhász presents a detailed and compelling treatment of Joye's most significant account of his views, the Apologye of February 1535. What he finds, against Joye's critics, is a work of high scholarly standards for its day and fair in its use of Tyndale. Joye’ s Apologye is often repetitive, yet it makes use of a wide body of sources in a critical manner, not simply by parroting them. Above all, Joye emerges as a man committed to the unity of the church.

One of the many strengths of this book is the manner in which Juhász draws together various strands allowing the reader to appreciate the historical contexts, the intellectual and theological currents, and personalities of the individuals. Most effective, however, is his analysis of the life and mind of George Joye. Juhász demonstrates that Joye sought to bring variety into his translations, possessing fondness for words and language. Yet, his theological convictions ran deep. He was profoundly concerned to maintain the integrity of the bodily resurrection while emphasizing that the souls of the blessed already rejoice with Christ. Joye's translation, according to Juhász, manifest deeply held convictions that the Word of God should be rendered as clearly as possible so as not to require further explanation. The text is “self-evident.”

Juhász has written a book that puts crucial issues of the early English reformers in the wider stream of the continental Reformation. He provides a detailed, thoughtful, and powerfully written account of theology in historical contexts, mindful of the personalities involved. The book is not without polemic, and the deriders of Joye are repeatedly attacked, but the quality of scholarship is highly impressive. Study of the early Reformation has fallen out of favor in recent years. Juhász has not only provided a persuasive case for fresh engagement, but he has set the bar high.