You wrote:
“OK. German Bibles were readily available before Luther with the support of the Catholic Church - in your world.”
How can you ignore over a dozen editions of the German Bible in multiple printings BEFORE Luther? How can you do that? That’s simply dishonest to deny the reality that these Bibles existed and were eagerly bought and read by people. It has nothing to do with “your world” - it simply is a fact.
“In mine, those translations just never ended up in the hands of the people, while Luther’s did. 100,000 copies in 40 years.”
Again, you’re wrong. If those Bibles did not end up in the hands of people, then who read them? Who bought them? Who printed them? Often in 12 or 13 printings no less! That means these Bibles were in print and being printed in the thousands year after year. Who do you think bought all of those Bibles? Remember, we’re talking about over a dozen editions of the Bible or NT. Who bought them? If you think it was ONLY the clergy, think again, because they were probably buying Vulgates first and foremost because that was the Bible of choice.
I don’t mind arguing with people who clearly have no idea of what they’re talking about. What amazes me is how you can ignore more than a dozen editions of the Bible as if they never existed. As the old Catholic Encyclopedia makes plain:
The history of Biblical research in Germany shows that of the numerous partial versions in the vernacular some go back to the seventh and eighth centuries. It also establishes the certainty of such versions on a considerable scale in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and points to a complete Bible of the fifteenth in general use before the invention of printing. Of special interest are the five complete folio editions printed before 1477, nine from 1477 to 1522, and four in Low German, all prior to Luther’s New Testament in 1522. They were made from the Vulgate, differing only in dialect and presenting variant readings. Their worth even to this day has been attested by many scholars. Deserving notice as belonging to the same period are some fourteen editions of the Psalter and no less than ninety editions of the Epistles and Gospels for Sundays and Holy Days. On the authority of a Nuremberg manuscript, Jostes (Histor. Jahrbuch, 1894, XV, 771, and 1897, XVIII, 133) establishes the fact of a complete translation of the Bible by John Rellach, O.P., of Constance (before 1450), and thinks it was the first German version printed.
How can you ignore all of that? Are you going to pretend it doesn’t exist? Is that rational? Do you have any evidence to the contrary? Any at all? Nope. you have nothing. You have presented NONE.
“Odd isn’t it. The Catholics supported getting scripture into the hands of common men (according to you), yet it just didn’t happen.”
Clearly it did - as the above evidence shows.
“It took a heretic to make it happen, and he did it in a couple of years. One year for the New Testament.”
Nope. Clearly the Bible was already freely available in multiple dialects and printings. I have no doubt that Luther’s version sold many copies. We all know people often love to have their ears tickled by heresy and novel teachings and that is what Luther presented in his NT.
As Johannes Janssen, the famed German historian noted in his great work, History of the German People From the Close of the Middle Ages, the German language Cologne Bible - publishe din 1480 (that’s 42 years before Luther’s NT)had this in its prologue:
“All Christians should read the Bible with piety and reverence, praying the Holy Ghost, who is the inspirer of the Scriptures, to enable them to understand . . . The learned should make use of the Latin translation of St. Jerome; but the unlearned and simple folk, whether laymen or clergy . . . should read the German translations now supplied, and thus arm themselves against the enemy of our salvation.”
History of the German People From the Close of the Middle Ages, [16 vols., tr. A.M. Christie, St. Louis: B. Herder, 1910 (orig. 1891), v. 1, pp. 58-60]
So, it was already acknowledged INSIDE GERMAN BIBLES that in 1480 that German Bibles were plentiful. so much for your baseless, unresearched contentions.
The simple fact is that even German Protestant scholars don’t buy the nonsense you’re selling. E. von Dobschutz, all the way back in about 1900, wrote:
It can no longer be said that the Vulgate alone was in use and that the laity consequently were ignorant of Scripture . . . We must admit that the Middle Ages possessed a quite surprising and extremely praiseworthy knowledge of the Bible, such as might in many respects put our own age to shame.
Deutsche Rundschau, 101, 1900, pp. 61ff
Also, you still have not shown a single shred of evidence that More lied. The fact that the modern NAB might disagree with an understanding of More in 1525 or so doesn’t mean More lied. I realize that you might not understand that concept because it would take the ability to make judicious distinctions - something anti-Catholics have never, ever been known for. Present a sourced confession that More lied and I’ll believe it. Present evidence from his own pen in his own day and I’ll believe it. Showing that someone in 1970 disagrees with More’s understanding of Greek - if that is even the case - proves nothing except that More and the modern translators of the NAB would disagree. By your logic, someone could just as easily say it is the NAB editors are the liars. But that too makes no sense. Show evidence of lying and I’ll believe it. Showing there is disagreement simply shows there is disagreement.
Also, relying on wikipedia about the original DRV is pointles. Again, I actually have a facsimilie copy and have a modern reprint as well. I have no difficulty reading it. I know some people say a handful of sentences are hard to read. I have encountered all of about two. Even the KJV needed revisions as was done. It should be no surprise that revisions were made to the DRV as well.
Yes, there were German Bibles before Luther. Where did they end up? Not in the hands of commoners. There is a reason Luther’s Bible transformed Germany and the German language, just as there is a reason why Tyndale’s had that effect in England - and it isn’t because the market was sated with vernacular translations.
Luther’s translation transformed Germany.
“German humanist Johann Cochlaeus complained that
Luther’s New Testament was so much multiplied and spread by printers that even tailors and shoemakers, yea, even women and ignorant persons who had accepted this new Lutheran gospel, and could read a little German, studied it with the greatest avidity as the fountain of all truth. Some committed it to memory, and carried it about in their bosom. In a few months such people deemed themselves so learned that they were not ashamed to dispute about faith and the gospel not only with Catholic laymen, but even with priests and monks and doctors of divinity.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Bible
That happens when there is a vast need that isn’t met, not in a saturated market.
But you go on believing the Germans were up to their ears in Bibles - I cannot stop you. I’ll let other readers here decide if they believe Luther’s translation had the impact it did in a market where Bibles abounded!
“We all know people often love to have their ears tickled by heresy and novel teachings and that is what Luther presented in his NT.”
Yep. Like Tyndale, they were attracted to the heresy - so just what heresy is found in his or Tyndale’s translation? None. The problem wasn’t that they made bad translation, but that they made good ones. The ‘heresy’ was the word of God itself, being read and understood by common people.
“Present a sourced confession that More lied and I’ll believe it. Present evidence from his own pen in his own day and I’ll believe it.”
Oh golly. All I have to do to satisfy you is to have a confession by the liar himself. But More knew Greek, and Tyndale accurately translated the Greek. He attack Tyndale’s translation on points no Greek scholar could support. Thus he was either stupid (not true) or a liar.
The ease with which Tyndale refuted More nearly one million word attack suffices to prove the point. More’s arguments were ludicrous.
http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC04301170&id=TOLOU6-00yUC&pg=PP9&lpg=PP11#v=onepage&q&f=false
“Also, relying on wikipedia about the original DRV is pointles. “
More to the point, perhaps, is that virtually no one has bought a DR Bible since 1760. If it were a good translation, it would have survived - as has Luther’s. But it was so little used that it was ‘revised’ in the mid 1700s, and that revision (pulled from the KJV) is what is now for sale virtually anywhere the “DR Bible” is sold.