Posted on 05/06/2011 11:09:57 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
You wrote:
“Thrilling. That is NOT the same as reading God’s word.”
Who claimed it was? Not me.
” Why did the Apostles - fishermen - know scripture by heart?”
Did they always know it by heart or did that come with walking with God for three years? Why did they use the Septuagint most of the time they wrote, yet we know they spoke in Aramaic? Are you claiming they were well educated? I doubt you are. I don’t believe most people in the Middles Ages were well educated either. BUT THEY KNEW SCRIPTURE.
“Why could they quote it in 35 AD? Here is a hint - it wasn’t because they saw pictures...”
Why were they quoting it in Greek? Was someone writing it for them in Greek? Did they know Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek?
“In England, the first full translation was done by Wycliffe and his friends.”
That might be. They still had scriptures in their own tongue BEFORE him.
“The next was Tyndale’s. There was no complete translation into English before that - for the first 900+ years of the Catholic Church in England.”
As far as we KNOW, there was no COMPLETE translation until the time of Wycliffe. That doesn’t mean one didn’t exist.
“Now THAT is an honest response. Who must protect scripture from being read by commoners? The Catholic Church. Not a boast I would want to make, but it is honest!”
And I didn’t make the boast either, but you are saying I did when I didn’t. Once again we see who is honest and who is not. I am not inventing words and claiming you said them. Are you? Look at what I wrote. Look at what you said I said. They are two completely different ideas. Why is it that anti-Catholics are routinely dishonest men?
About this, “The Church never sold indulgences,” you wrote, “Don’t be silly.”
I’m not. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH NEVER ONCE SOLD AN INDULGENCE, EVER, ANYWHERE, TO ANYONE. There may have been Catholics who violated canon law and sold indulgences, but the Church never did so.
“Wrong. And as I pointed out, Tyndale’s NT had no notes - but it was opposed by the Catholic Church.”
Tyndale was a known heretic who had no permission to print anything in England so he illegally smuggled in his books. Since he was a heretic and acting illegally no one should be surprised that anything he produced was viewed as tainted by his heresy. How convenient of you to not mention that he was commonly viewed as a heretic, was printing books without English permission and smuggling them illegally into the country. Little facts like those matter.
“And don’t give some garbage about mistranslating unless you are prepared to back it up with actual mistranslations’. Thomas More tried, and failed miserably”
He didn’t fail. He also didn’t try. Also, last time I checked, Tyndale is an all-but-forgotten man remembered by anti-Catholics, a handful of scholars, and some 16th century translation fans while Thomas More is a canonized saint, recognized the world over as a great scholar in his day, and has movies, plays and books about him. If that is failure, please, MORE!
“Because they didn’t. / If you were literate in those days, you were mostly a clergyman or a noble (and that too not all Nobels).”
Not true. If it were, there would have been no market for Tyndale’s translation.
Yet at great personal risk, Tyndale’s translation was imported and sold. In 1274, before Wycliffe and the printing press, a Latin Bible would cost the average worker 15 years wages (about 30 Pounds for the Bible). The Wycliffe Bible, done by hand with the goal of getting it to the common man, cost about 1/3 that amount in the 1420s (7-10 Pounds) - still a great amount, but not impossible for a group to buy together, or to buy parts of the Bible. With he help of the printing press, Tyndale’s New Testament - the entire NT, previously unavailable except thru Wycliffe - was down to 1/6th of a Pound.
And people bought them. As Tyndale noted, the Catholic Church had no objection to people buying copies of plays or poems - it only objected to God’s Word being made available.
“Tyndale didn’t make a full translation either. And the 6000 copies published only contained a portion of his partial translation.”
I don’t know how many copies Tyndale was able to produce in spite of the risk to his life, but he had no trouble selling them. The Catholic Church bought a number of copies of his first translation (1526) - so they could be burned. Burned not for notes that didn’t exist, but because it made it possible for a common man to read scripture for himself.
“Since he was a heretic and acting illegally no one should be surprised that anything he produced was viewed as tainted by his heresy. How convenient of you to not mention that he was commonly viewed as a heretic, was printing books without English permission and smuggling them illegally into the country. Little facts like those matter.”
And PRAISE GOD that he did! His translation was excellent. I have a copy next to me as I’m typing, available from Amazon.com! And he was viewed as a heretic by the Catholic Church for saying what scripture says:
“For bi grace ye ben sauyd bi feith, and this not of you; for it is the yifte of God, not of werkis, that no man haue glorie.”
http://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/imported_site/biblical_studies/wycliffe/Eph.txt
He was tried for heresy rather than translation because in Belgium there was no death sentence for translating...so by convicting him of heresy, the Catholic Church could have him killed. Yet his translation lives on, including in the KJV and also in the Douay-Rheims Challoner revision.
If you claim he was a heretic, then why didn’t the Catholic Church make a better translation? The answer is found in an earlier post, or in the post of Cronos:
“In a day and age when books were still expensive and rare, one distorted work could spread havoc not only among the illiterates but among literates who had nothing else to compare with” - which I disagree with, but is at least true to history. The Catholic Church opposed the idea of commoners reading scripture because they couldn’t be trusted with God’s Word.
““The vernacular Bible had been Wycliffe’s great gift to posterity, but he was by no means alone in translating the Scriptures...Did you miss it? THE WYCLIFFE BIBLE MAY NOT HAVE BEEN HIS, BUT MAY HAVE BEEN AN ENGLISH CATHOLIC VERSION PASSED OFF AS HIS!!”
Wycliffe probably did NOT personally translate the entire scripture, but it is silliness to suggest that complete English Bibles were being translated and published by Catholics! Or at least, none has ever been found - just versions of Wycliffe, usually dated to a time prior to the Constitutions of Oxford to make them ‘legal’.
“Also, last time I checked, Tyndale is an all-but-forgotten man remembered by anti-Catholics, a handful of scholars, and some 16th century translation fans while Thomas More is a canonized saint, recognized the world over as a great scholar in his day, and has movies, plays and books about him.”
More was no saint, and it disgraces the Catholic Church to proclaim otherwise. He sought out Protestants to kill them, and hunted Tyndale and lied about Tyndale’s translation. He wrote 750,000 words attacking it, and no one takes his bile seriously. When Tyndale refuted his objections by pointing out Erasmus had translated it the same, he made the point Vlad makes - Erasmus was free to make that translation because he was a loyal Catholic, while Tyndale could not because he was a heretic. As if the truth changes for the person.
Meanwhile, the KJV used roughly 90% of Tyndale’s translation, and the changes made were done by King James for political reasons.
Still, within a few years of Tyndale’s death, copies of his NT - embedded in the “Chained Bible” - were available for anyone to read in every church in England! And that was the victory Tyndale wanted - not fame, no being canonized a saint, not plays, but God’s Word, available to the common man!
If any is interested, I recommend the updated spelling version of Tyndale’s New Testament:
You wrote:
“As Tyndale noted, the Catholic Church had no objection to people buying copies of plays or poems - it only objected to God’s Word being made available.”
As I already showed, that was not true.
“More was no saint, and it disgraces the Catholic Church to proclaim otherwise.”
More was a saint. The Church is not at all disgraced by proclaiming what all reasonable people in the 16th century knew.
The problem with this story you keep pushing, that the Church did not want people to have the Bible, is that it is simply untrue.
The first Bible to ever go to print was the Vulgate. The Gutenberg Bible is more important than anything Tyndale did.
There were also printed Bibles in the vernacular well before Tyndale. One example is the Mentel Bible which had 18 editions in print by the year 1522.
It is simply a fairy tale, and someone's wishful thinking, that the Church kept the Bible out of people's hands until Tyndale came along.
The Gutenberg Bible has almost no impact, since only the enormously wealthy could own it. It was NOT meant for the common man, but for the very wealthy - who were in alliance with the Catholic Church. The Church wasn't worried about the nobility, but the common man.
"In 1466, before Martin Luther was even born, the Mentel Bible, a High-German vernacular Bible was printed at Strassburg. This edition was based on a no-longer-existing fourteenth-century manuscript translation of the Vulgate from the area of Nuremberg. Until 1518, it was reprinted at least 13 times."
The Menten Bible was an awkward translation from the Latin, but it still had enough appeal to get published - typically in more expensive editions, but at least it was SOMETHING.
So what was different when Luther translated it?
"Luther’s significance was largely due to his influence on the emergence of the German language and nationalism. This importance stemmed predominantly from his translation of the Bible into the vernacular, which was potentially as revolutionary as canon law and the burning of the papal bull.[18] Luther’s goal was to equip every Christian in Germany with the ability to hear the Word. Thus, by 1534 he completed his translation of the old and new testaments from Hebrew and Greek into the vernacular, one of the most significant acts of the Reformation.[19] Although Luther was not the first to attempt this translation, his was superior to all its predecessors. Previous translations contained poor German and were that of Vulgate, (translations of translations) rather than a direct translation to German text.[18] Luther sought to get as close to the original text as possible but at the same time, his translation was guided by how people spoke in the home, on the street and in the marketplace.[20] Luther combined his faithfulness to the language spoken by the common people to produce a work which the common man could relate to.[21] This aspect of Luther’s creation led German writers such as Goethe and Nietzsche to thoroughly praise Luther’s Bible.[22] The fact that the new Bible was printed in the vernacular allowed it to spread rapidly as it could be read by all. Hans Lufft, a renowned Bible printer in Wittenberg printed over one hundred thousand copies between 1534 and 1574 which went on to be read by millions.[23] Luther’s Bible was virtually present in every German Protestant’s home, and there can be no doubts regarding the vast biblical knowledge attained by the German common masses."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Bible
Notice a trend here? God's word for COMMONERS. Printed in editions commoners could afford to buy. And both Luther and Tyndale made brilliant translations.
You also seem quick to ignore the many writings where Catholic officials attacked the idea of commoners reading God's word.
"Owing to lack of culture among the Germanic and Romanic peoples, there was for a long time no thought of restricting access to the Bible there. Translations of Biblical books into German began only in the Carolingian period and were not originally intended for the laity. Nevertheless the people were anxious to have the divine service and the Scripture lessons read in the vernacular. John VIII in 880 permitted, after the reading of the Latin gospel, a translation into Slavonic; but Gregory VII, in a letter to Duke Vratislav of Bohemia in 1080 characterized the custom as unwise, bold, and forbidden (Epist., vii, 11; P. Jaff�, BRG, ii, 392 sqq.). This was a formal prohibition, not of Bible reading in general, but of divine service in the vernacular.
With the appearance, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, of the Albigenses and Waldenses, who appealed to the Bible in all their disputes with the Church, the hierarchy was furnished with a reason for shutting up the Word of God. The Synod of Toulouse in 1229 forbade the laity to have in their possession any copy of the books of the Old and the New Testament except the Psalter and such other portions as are contained in the Breviary or the Hours of the Blessed Mary. "We most strictly forbid these works in the vulgar tongue" (Harduin, Concilia, xii, 178; Mansi, Concilia, xxiii, 194). The Synod of Tarragona (1234) ordered all vernacular versions to be brought to the bishop to be burned. James I renewed thin decision of the Tarragona synod in 1276. The synod held there in 1317 under Archbishop Ximenes prohibited to Beghards, Beguines, and tertiaries of the Franciscans the possession of theological books in the vernacular (Mansi, Concilia, xxv, 627). The order of James I was renewed by later kings and confirmed by Paul II (1464-71). Ferdinand and Isabella (1474-1516) prohibited the translation of the Bible into the vernacular or the possession of such translations (F. H. Reusch, Index der verbotenen B�cher, i, Bonn, 1883, 44).
In England Wyclif's Bible-translation caused the resolution passed by the third Synod of Oxford (1408): "No one shall henceforth of his own authority translate any text of Scripture into English; and no part of any such book or treatise composed in the time of John Wycliffe or later shall be read in public or private, under pain of excommunication" (Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, vi, 984). But Sir Thomas More states that he had himself seen old Bibles which were examined by the bishop and left in the hands of good Catholic laymen (Blunt, Reformation of the Church of England, 4th ed., London, 1878, i, 505). In Germany, Charles IV issued in 1369 an edict to four inquisitors against the translating and the reading of Scripture in the German language. This edict was caused by the operations of Beghards and Beguines. In 1485 and 1486, Berthold, archbishop of Mainz, issued an edict against the printing of religious books in German, giving among other reasons the singular one that the German language was unadapted to convey correctly religious ideas, and therefore they would be profaned. Berthold's edict had some influence, but could not prevent the dissemination and publication of new editions of the Bible. Leaders in the Church sometimes recommended to the laity the reading of the Bible, and the Church kept silence officially as long as these efforts were not abused....
...In 1584 Pius IV published the index prepared by the commission mentioned above. Herein ten rules are laid down, of which the fourth reads thus: "Inasmuch as it is manifest from experience that if the Holy Bible, translated into the vulgar tongue, be indiscriminately allowed to every one, the rashness of men will cause more evil than good to arise from it, it is, on this point, referred to the judgment of the bishops or inquisitors, who may, by the advice of the priest or confessor, permit the reading of the Bible translated into the vulgar tongue by Catholic authors, to those persons whose faith and piety they apprehend will be augmented and not injured by it; and this permission must be had in writing. But if any shall have the presumption to read or possess it without such permission, he shall not receive absolution until he have first delivered up such Bible to the ordinary." Regulations for booksellers follow, and then: "Regulars shall neither read nor purchase such Bibles without special license from their superiors." Sixtus V substituted in 1590 twenty-two new rules for the ten of Pius IV. Clement VIII abolished in 1596 the rules of Sixtus, but added a "remark" to the fourth rule given above, which particularly restores the enactment of Paul IV. The right of the bishops, which the fourth rule implies, is abolished by the "remark," and the bishop may grant a dispensation only when especially authorized by the pope and the Inquisition (Reusch, ut sup., i, 333). Benedict XIV enlarged, in 1757, the fourth rule thus: "If such Bible-versions in the vernacular are approved by the apostolic see or are edited with annotations derived from the holy fathers of the Church or from learned and Catholic men, they are permitted." This modification of the fourth rule was abolished by Gregory XVI in pursuance of an admonition of the index-congregation, Jan. 7, 1836, "which calls attention to the fact that according to the decree of 1757 only such versions in the vernacular are to be permitted as have been approved by the apostolic see or are edited with annotations," but insistence is placed on all those particulars enjoined by the fourth rule of the index and afterward by Clement VIII (Reusch, ut sup., ii, 852)...
...In England the reading of the Bible was made by Henry VIII (1530) to depend upon the permission of the superiors. Tyndale's version, printed before 1535, was prohibited. In 1534 the Canterbury convocation passed a resolution asking the king to have the Bible translated and to permit its reading. A folio copy of Coverdale's translation was put into every church for the benefit of the faithful, and fastened with a chain. In Spain the Inquisitor-General de Valdes published in 1551 the index of Louvain of 1550, which prohibits "Bibles (New and Old Testaments) in the Spanish or other vernacular" (Reusch, ut sup., i, 133). This prohibition was abolished in 1778. The Lisbon index of 1824 in Portugal prohibited quoting in the vernacular in any book passages from the Bible. In Italy the members of the order of the Jesuits were in 1596 permitted to use a Catholic Italian translation of the Gospel-lessons. In France the Sorbonne declared, Aug. 26,1525, that a French translation of the Bible or of single books must be regarded as dangerous under conditions then present; extant versions were better suppressed than tolerated. In the following year, 1526, it prohibited the translation of the entire Bible, but permitted the translation of single books with proper annotations. The indexes of the Sorbonne, which by royal edict were binding, after 1544 contained the statement: "How dangerous it is to allow the reading of the Bible in the vernacular to unlearned people and those not piously or humbly disposed (of whom there are many in our times) may be seen from the Waldensians, Albigenses, and Poor Men of Lyons, who have thereby lapsed into error and have led many into the same condition. Considering the nature of men, the translation of the Bible into the vernacular must in the present be regarded therefore as dangerous and pernicious" (Reusch, ut sup., i, 151). "
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.v.lxi.htm
This is not open for dispute. The Catholic Church actively tried to keep scripture out of the hands of profane commoners - like me. No fairy tale. Not wishful Protestant thinking, but Catholic doctrine supported by Catholic Popes.
I'm glad the Catholic Church has changed its mind, but then, it didn't have much choice, due to the acts of Luther and Tyndale.
Ping to post 69...
Why was there still a market among these rich folks? Well, of course, one may be able to better understand in their own language, however, your question was why did it try to keep it out of the hands of those who were literate -- it didn't -- they had access to the Bibles in the Churches which were in Latin and which were accurate, unlike the translations we see used by Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses
Remember, a translation could be distorted and in those days it was not really possible to verify this.
Poems or plays are fine -- but I ask you again -- you know of the Jehovah's Witness's version of the bible the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT), correct? Is that not a distortion? Now, if that had been available in the 1500s, many would have followed it as they had no other reference if they said "just by the book".
Let's see what happened in the timelines from the Apostles times. Christians in the Roman Empire spoke Latin, that was also the common man's language until nearly the second millenium. French and Spanish only differentiated themselves later in the Middle Ages.
Worship was in the vernacular namely in vulgar Latin and Greek (West and East).
Vernacular, vetted translations were allowed -- there were Middle English versions prior to Wyclife, but the key point was that they were vetted. If someone printed a Jehovah's Witness version in those days and said "see look, no trinity" -- the illiterates couldn't disagree except to say "that isn't what we were taught" and more especially the LITERATES were in danger because they could read this and may have had access to only one or a few books so no chance of googling something to verify!
Of course we're worried about the common man -- the same reason why you don't give a teenager the Jehovah's Witness translation of the Bible and even more so in the days before the internet, before freely available books when one mistranslated Bible could wreak havoc -- what if someone say wrote "oath's" instead of "oaths'"? It gives a subtle change in meaning, right?
"In 1466, before Martin Luther was even born, the Mentel Bible, a High-German vernacular Bible was printed at Strassburg. This edition was based on a no-longer-existing fourteenth-century manuscript translation of the Vulgate from the area of Nuremberg. Until 1518, it was reprinted at least 13 times." -- yes, this is proof the the Church was ok with books translated into the vernacular - if it was properly vetted. What was wrong with Luther's? Well, the addition of the word alone to Romans 1:17 is a good example of how one can build up philosophy from a wrong translation
Granted, this was not as bad as the wholescale mistranslation of the Jehovah's witnesses or Gnostics etc.
That's a laugh. The first movable-type printed book in the world is what even made it possible for Tyndale to print his New Testament (please note that it wasn't really a Bible he published).
It was NOT meant for the common man
You seem to have the impression that the plowboys at this time could all read. I'm still waiting for you to tell us what you think the literacy rate was during this period. And of those who could read, they could read Latin, and the Bible was available to them. But not just in Latin. In fact, before Tyndale, there were Scripture translations in Gothic, Italian, Spanish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Polish, etc.
The Church wasn't worried about the nobility, but the common man.
Myth.
The Menten Bible was an awkward translation from the Latin, but it still had enough appeal to get published - typically in more expensive editions, but at least it was SOMETHING.
So, you are admitting that there were Bibles in the vernacular before Tyndale. That's progress. And note that these Bibles in the vernacular were complete Bibles, unlike Tyndale's translation. The Menten Bible was so "awkward" that a total of 18 editions were printed.
Notice a trend here? God's word for COMMONERS.
Literacy among commoners did not start to become significant until after the printing press came about. That's when "God's word for COMMONERS" even became practical in printed form. Commoners before the printing press could not read and could not afford to own a Bible. It wasn't a matter of the Church keeping the Bible out of their hands.
This is not open for dispute.
What's not open for dispute is that there were translations of the whole Bible in the vernacular before Tyndale. There were whole Bibles printed before Tyndale. There were whole Bibles in the vernacular printed before Tyndale. Tyndale's published Bible was not a Bible at all, but was limited only to the New Testament. To claim that Tyndale did more to bring Scripture to the people than the entirety of the 1500 years of Church history before Tyndale is myth.
Amen and amen!
However, Luther and Tyndale were excellent translators who were able to use the newly collated TR of Erasmus.
Salvation is by faith ‘alone’, without works (Eph.2:8-9, Tit.3:5), so it is all of grace.
And if it is by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more of grace, otherwise work is no more work’(Rom.11:6)
“A Companion to Britain in the Later Middle Ages“ makes the argument that literacy in England began increasing starting in 1100, after which all the kings were literate in Latin and French, although there was again a difference between reading and writing. By 1500, he estimates the literacy among males still did not exceed 10-25%.In addition, let us add what was the population:In Europe, which had always been much more under the influence of Latin, the first person to break through the Latin barrier was “Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), arguably the greatest medieval poet. Dante wrote in Latin but, more frequently, he used the Tuscan vernacular
In England+Wales in the 1400s this was actually lower than 4 million, here are the figures from Black death
population of England+Wales in 1400 was 2.5 million ONLY, Scotland was 0.4 millionIn comparison, France had 8 million, Italy 7 and Spain 5 where Latin vulgate was still understandable. In the Holy Roman Empire it was 12.5 with many still knowing Latin (ok, but definitely not as understandable for the French, Italians, Spanish)
So, the common man in the UK out of 3 million folks was still 90% illiterate, that means that in 1400 only 300,000 to 450,000 folks in the UK could read / write.
Of course we're worried about the common man -- the same reason why you don't give a teenager the Jehovah's Witness translation of the Bible and even more so in the days before the internet, before freely available books when one mistranslated Bible could wreak havoc -- what if someone say wrote "oath's" instead of "oaths'"? It gives a subtle change in meaning, right?you got a problem with this? Do you agree or disagree that the word "alone" was added in? I'm not arguing about the doctrine but about the mistranslation -- Our main topic is on the errors in translation. If you want to stick to one topic at a time, it would be good."In 1466, before Martin Luther was even born, the Mentel Bible, a High-German vernacular Bible was printed at Strassburg. This edition was based on a no-longer-existing fourteenth-century manuscript translation of the Vulgate from the area of Nuremberg. Until 1518, it was reprinted at least 13 times." -- yes, this is proof the the Church was ok with books translated into the vernacular - if it was properly vetted. What was wrong with Luther's? Well, the addition of the word alone to Romans 1:17 is a good example of how one can build up philosophy from a wrong translation
Granted, this was not as bad as the wholescale mistranslation of the Jehovah's witnesses or Gnostics etc.
Unless you wish to argue with us if you think that the Jehovah's Witness translation of the Bible is good?
And soon after Master Tyndall happened to be in the company of a learned man, and in the communing and disputing with him drove him to that issue that the learned man said, we were better be without God's law than the pope's: Maister Tyndall hearing that answered him, I defy the Pope and all his laws, and said if God spare my life ere many years,I will cause a boy that driveth the plough, shall know more of the scripture than thou dost. The works echo Erasmus in his 'paraclesis' (William Tyndale, A Biography, David Daniell, p.79)The work cited for this is The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe. The source for Foxe was Richard Webb, a priest. Another work cites the statement by Tyndale as well, stating that it was this outburst that led Tyndale to flee lest he be brought up on heresy charges again. (God's Bestseller, Brian Moynahan, p.31) Neither historian questions the fact that Tyndale, did in fact, make that comment.
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