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To: Mrs. Don-o
Not exclusively clergy
Okay also those training for or under the direct influence of clergy. The common people had no chance at reading Scripture on their own. None. And why not have it in their own language? Moses wrote in his own language as did the prophets. The NT was wrote in the language then current throughout the Roman world. The translation of the Bible into English was by John Wycliffe and associates @1380 and led to a great reformation in England. For this he was attacked. The same for Luther (translating into German). Catholicism was losing its monopoly but wasn't going down without a fight. 43 years after his death Wycliffe bones were dug up and burned by the Council of Constance. Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake. God protected Martin Luther from the same fate.
16 posted on 06/27/2014 9:11:22 AM PDT by BipolarBob (Obama - The Scandal a Week President.)
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To: BipolarBob
A sense of history is lacking. Whadya think they had in the 800's - 1300's? $2 paperbacks?

I don't think you realize that handwritten copies (which is all there were) were so labor-intensive and scarce, private ownership of even one book of the Bible in the medieval period would be more or less like private ownership of a jet airplane. It happened, but not much.

Most of the books of the Bible existed separately and were read as individual texts. Even a Cathedral or a a large monastic house could afford only the pericopes used in the Liturgy.

People who don't know the bibliographic history often think that Wycliffe was the first one who did a translation into a modern European language, but this is not so. In the late 600's, Venerable Bede and Aldhelm translated the complete Book of Psalms and large portions of other scriptures into Old English.

In the 10th century an Old English translation of the Gospels was made in the Lindisfarne Gospels: a word-for-word gloss inserted between the lines of the Latin text by Aldred. This is the oldest extant translation of the Gospels into the English language. There were probably many more in such monastic centers as Jarrow, Iona, etc. but the Vikings came and pillaged them, burning the texts and keeping the book covers, which were jeweled. Whole libraries were lost that way.

The mass distribution of books was not, at that time, physically possible. Hence, the royalty and nobility kept their books secure in their treasure-rooms. The Church kept them attached to the lecterns.

THis is comparable to the mid-20th century use of telephone directories "chained" to phone booths. And for what purpose? To prevent people from using telephone directories? Or to make them available where they were needed,and prevent them being stolen!

One needs to have a realistic historic sense, un-distorted by the ignorant polemic against historic Christianity.

17 posted on 06/27/2014 9:42:24 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (When I grow up, I'm gonna settle down, chew honeycomb & drive a tractor, grow things in the ground.)
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