[boatbums]

What do you think “Romance languages” means if not translations? If the Church was forbidding them, they must have been unauthorized. You need to read things in an historical perspective.

Perhaps it is YOU who needs an historical perspective that goes beyond the sanitized, biased Roman Catholic revised version of history?

By 500 AD the Bible had been translated into over 500 languages. Just one century later, by 600 AD, it has been restricted to only one language: the Latin Vulgate! The only organized and recognized church at that time in history was the Catholic Church of Rome, and they refused to allow the scripture to be available in any language other than Latin. Those in possession of non-Latin scriptures would be executed! This was because only the priests were educated to understand Latin, and this gave the church ultimate power… a power to rule without question… a power to deceive… a power to extort money from the masses. Nobody could question their “Biblical” teachings, because few people other than priests could read Latin. The church capitalized on this forced-ignorance through the 1,000 year period from 400 AD to 1,400 AD knows as the “Dark and Middle Ages”. Pre-Refomation History of the Bible

[HiTech RedNeck]

It was a dark, dark time when the church had gotten so entangled in the state that it could even do something like that. I believe that was the seat of such arrogance. And yes, of all people, Protestants have gotten into such entanglements too when they should have completely known better!

The church had so given short credit to the gospel of YES, a gospel which when still alive sold itself quite vigorously, that it was neck deep in the “gospel” of NO. A state church would do an awfully poor job with the gospel of YES because it would have taken on unbelievers by very definition. The city of God, to use a metaphor favored by Aquinas, has sheep in it. No goats.

[SoothingDave]

Your ploemics do not change that what i said was true. Unauthorized translations that were used by heretics to lead people astray were forbidden.

We agree, except you add vitriol and untruths. Which 500 languges were the Bible in in 500 AD? Do you really believe that there were no literate people besides priests?

[terycarl]

By 500 AD the Bible had been translated into over 500 languages. Just one century later, by 600 AD, it has been restricted to only one language: the Latin Vulgate!

who was doing these 500 translations? who was hand copying the thousands of books that must have existed. How were they getting into the hands of the VERY FEW who could read whatever language? What percentage of the people on Earth in the year 500A.D. had any idea at all of what thebible was and why they should be interested in it......and, if there were people who were, indeed, knowledgeable about the teachings of Christ, wouldn't they have been educated by Catholics....there were no other Christians on the planet.

as the teachings spread, don't you think that the church, at thaat time, felt a major obligation to insure that it was done correctly, ...according to "official" interpretation?? Perhaps you think that they should have accepted anyones interpretations, anyones teachings, anyones concepts.....wouldn't that have made early church leaders (Catholics) irresponsibly when it came to the protection and preservation of the true word of God????? Doesn't that sound a little like the problems with the Protestant revolution???