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That "no lens" is a lens, - it is a modernist lens. For example, you consider the "power of men" to stand between you and God, but that is a modern age attitude. It did not exist in the age when knowledge was transmitted through men, rather than through books.

I disagree. You know that the Bible is packed with verses about the power and truth of God being superior to the power and truth of men. Paul tells us to test everything against God's word. This is not a modern idea. It MAY be true that fewer men actually taught that idea back then, but if true that does not go against the truth of scripture, it only goes to some not teaching it correctly.

When I first started reading parts of the Bible in high school I had no lens. The sum total of my knowledge of Catholicism was that you had a Pope. The sum total of my knowledge of "Protestantism" was that they didn't. I had never attended any church. While of course I didn't understand any complex doctrine on a first reading, the approach I took then is still the same as today. Look at what the words say, use common sense, and see what the Bible says about the same subject in other places. I only later found out that only "Protestants" do this.

"If" I had any lens at all it would be that an all powerful God who would give His followers a Holy Book would make it include everything the believers needed. I did assume that, but I didn't get it from anyone else. Obviously, my own anecdote is a big reason why I think that an unbiased reading leads sooner to some form of Protestantism.

"Look at what the words say, use common sense, and see what the Bible says about the same subject in other places."

You didn't learn Greek first though, likely in high school you knew little or nothing of the societal of 1st century Greece and the Middle East and you used which version of the Scriptures, FK? English language lens, Western Enlightenment/Protestantant Reformation pov of history and society lens and (am I wrong?)the KJV lens.

Its near impossible for anyone today to avoid lenses when reading the Scripture, even if they have never seen it before in their lifetime, FK. This was certainly true for the Reformers. It was true for many of the powerful in the Latin Church. Indeed it was even true for the Eastern Fathers. But they had an advantage the others didn't; they knew the society, they knew the language and some of the very early ones knew one or more of the Apostles.

Well, for the loyal opposition, allow me, between winces (feets makin' trouble today), to say ....

First that your post is interesting and stimulates something resembling thought in my frazzled brain.

And second, We had a meeting/retreat/"Day of Recollection" for the suckers, uh, I mean converts yesterday. I thought it was really good. And toward the end one of the friars came in to talk about "Lectio Divina - praying with the Bible".

And what he said was that in the bad old days before printing the Benedictines (and presumably other monks) would have their assigned time with the Monastery's one copy of the Bible, that maybe more than a hundred or even several hundred monks had to share. And they or some of them wanted to memorize it, or parts of it. And found (as so many of us have) that when you read the Bible and savor it lovingly and attentively you find that God does engage in conversation (or something sorta kinda like it) with you. And so the little teaching on lectio divina progressed.

But the relevance is that maybe our modern "lens" is provided by our sitz im leben. For more than half of the time since the Resurrection the Bible just wasn't avaiable, in practical terms outside of the living community. Not only was gentile Europe shockingly (when compared to our Jewish older brothers) illiterate, but even had they been able to read, there weren't that many Bibles to go around.

Whether this is true or not, I don't know, but my Church History prof said that in post reformation England churches had bibles chained to the lectern for the laity to come read. So, in terms of the history of the Church, the Solitary reading of Scripture just wasn't an option. You came to it from the Church community and returned from it to the Church community, the sacraments, the office (largely psalms anyway), the life and teaching of Church with its paradosis.

Of course, Your mileage varies, but an image I'm trying to suggest (influenced by today's appointed psalm for Congregations preparing catechumens - and the antiphon: Taste and see the goodness of the Lord) from a nutritional POV partaking only of Scripture is a newfangled and unbalanced diet, and not what Christians ate for centuries. So one might conjecture that an unbalanced diet (Sola Scriptura) would lead to an unbalanced opinion (ditto). I don't mean this as some kind of triumphant "Aha!" but just to depict/adumbrate another POV.