Tindal, Matthew (c.1656–1733)

English religious thinker, a leading figure in the movement known as deism, which proposed a ‘religion of nature’ in place of traditional Christian beliefs. He was the author of Christianity as Old as the Creation, 1730. Popularly known as ‘The Deist's Bible’, it claimed to explain the basic tenets of Christianity free of all the doctrine of organized religion.

Tindal was born at Bere Ferrers, Devon, and educated at Lincoln College, Oxford. In 1678, he became a fellow of All Souls. He was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1685, but returned to the Church of England three years later. His polemical pamphlets and books, such as The Rights of the Christian Church Against all Romish and Other Priests, 1706, aroused vehement opposition from all the established churches.