Replies

You wrote:

“Your reply is what I expected. The Octopus defense. Squirt ink and hope it obscures reality.”

No, I posted FACTS. Facts that you didn’t even know. You didn’t know, for instance, (and we know you didn’t know because you originally claimed otherwise and then admitted the point) that German Bibles existed before Martin Luther came on the scene.

“Your post 43 makes the astonishing boast, “Everyone in England knew the scriptures in English. That’s the language in which it was read to them and explained to them at Mass and in open air preaching. Even the translators of the KJV admitted the Bible existed in English long before they came along.””

It’s not a boast. Everyone was Catholic except for a tiny minority of Jews. Thus, everyone attended Mass, heard the scriptures in their own language, attended open air preaching, watched miracle plays, etc.

“And you continue to push this ridiculous position, now claiming “But I’ve already shown that it was published, distributed and tolerated in the hands of Catholics.””

Nothing I said was ridiculous. Notice how you don’t even attempt to prove otherwise or even show why what I said is supposedly off the mark?

“Really? You’ve shown that? What were the translations that these Catholic Bibles were published as?”

There was no such thing as “published” as we think of it today because there was no way to mass produce books until 1455.

“The DRV didn’t come about until 50 years or so after Tyndale’s death, and was done so poorly that i around 1750, it was ‘revised’ to take much of its text from the KJV, which in turn was primarily from Tyndale!”

No. It was not done poorly. It was done as a translation of the Latin and checked with the Hebrews and Greek. To this day, it is still quite readable in almost all the verses. Some verses are so archaic and laid out according to the Latin syntax that they are difficult for most people to understand. I have had no problem reading it. I have three modern copies of the original Douay-Rheims of one kind or another. The 1749 edition was an attempt to make the DRV flow more naturally. And just as the KJV borrowed from the original DRV, the second edition of the DRV borrowed heavily from the KJV. Also, you might want to look at the KJV and realize that it too was massively revised in the 18th century. The original 1611 edition is almost impossible for the average modern reader to understand. I have a modern copy of the original 1611, and have few problems with it, but many other readers are overwhelmed by it.

“So what were these Bibles that Catholic Priests danced around England, distributing and teaching from?”

Danced? Distributing handmade Bibles? It takes ten months and enormous expense to make one by hand. Did you even know that?

“What are their names?”

They didn’t have names. Names are given to PRINTED editions. They are not generally given to anonymous mss.

“Where were they published?”

Again, “published” implies printing. These were handwritten Bibles.

“Who gave them approval?”

When needed, the bishops. We have such documents. I’ve read them and posted about them in the past here.

“How many sold,”

Many thousands. Like most 600 year old documents, they didn’t survive into our time.

“or were tossed into the hands of grateful children by benevolent dancing priests?

Zero. Books were not tossed to anyone because they were expensive to make. Children could rarely read.

“And those STUPID Englishmen! They could have peacefully read from their Catholic Bibles and die of old age, but instead they risked their lives to read...Wycliffe & Tyndale’s translations.”

They could have even have read Wycliffe’s – as long as it was an approved copy and we know such copies existed.

“Please explain, Doctor of Medieval History, what mass psychosis overcame England, that people would risk death to get a copy from Tyndale of what they could read in peace from the Catholic Church?”

Satan motivates heretics like the early Protestants to rebel against the Church and reason.

“You left one tiny phrase off.”

No, I did not. Matthew 28:20.

“It is the job of the Church to preach THE WORD OF GOD! Not the teachings of men, but of GOD!”

And that’s exactly what the Church does.

“What did Jesus say? “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of a priest.””

Nice attempt at sarcasm, but it just makes you look foolish. Word of mouth. Not writing. Notice that? Christ gave the New Testament to the Church as a gift and guide, but the Church preached without it for decades.

“No, not quite! “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth OF GOD.””

And, again, no writing mentioned.

“Now, if your Catholicism is better than your history, you will admit that the scriptures are “God-breathed”.”

They indeed are – just as the Church taught even BEFORE the New Testament was written.

“It doesn’t take much intelligence to see that the words of God should be proclaimed, which is hard to do if you don’t allow anyone to read them.”

So proclaiming the word of God is dependent upon the listener actually reading them? So illiterate people can’t be listeners to the Word? And there was no proclaiming of the Word until the Apostles took stylus to papyri? Are you sure you don’t want to go to old State and demand your money back at the Shields Building? Seriously, show them your posts here. That should be enough to convince them. They’ll probably cut you a check by tomorrow.

“Wait! Sorry! I forgot about those dancing priests handing out scripture all over England...”

Why are you making things up? Can’t you actually debate what I said rather than make things up that no one here ever said?

“Yep, filled with errors...and the KJV followed it (over 90% in the NT),”

Again, considered errors – according to what they knew at the time. Also, the KJV has errors in it as well.

“and the current DRV takes from the KJV.”

Not really. The current DRV is from 1899-1938. It takes nothing from the KJV although they agree on many texts just as all Bibles do.

“Of course, the Catholic Church could have corrected it and published, but we get back to the job of the Church...which you believe is NOT to distribute or teach the Word of God.”
Christ told us what the mission of the Church was. It was not about distributing Bibles – which did not even exist when Christ established the Church and would not exist for decades afterward. This obvious point has apparently completely escaped you. Imagine that.

“Most of your remaining post compares Protestant to Mormons and JWs, and says they do a better job of getting out scripture. Except the JWs change it to match their theology,…”

And Protestants don’t? Ever look at the translation of paradosis in the NIV?

“…rather than make their theology match scripture, and the Mormons use the Book of Mormon / Pearl of Great Price / D&C and only permit the Bible ‘so far as correctly translated’ - which, in the tradition of Thomas More, means it is incorrectly translated anytime it disagrees with their theology. The problem with Mormons and JWs is not that they follow the Bible, but that they do NOT!”

All my points still stand. If you condemn the Church because it didn’t give away Bibles (which is not its point for existing; nor did Christ appoint it that task), then it stands that you must praise groups that give away Bibles – including Mormons and JWs. Also, they give away more than your sect does, right? Thus, according to your reason, they are holier groups than yours.

“So we get to the bottom line...no honest historian doubts the enormous impact Luther’s & Tyndale’s translations had, or the way they were devoured by the common folks.”

I do not doubt for a second that Luther’s Bible was very important, for instance, for the shaping of the German language. I do not doubt that Luther’s Bible also contained errors, falsifications, and was deliberately distorted to promote Luther’s novel sect. Tyndale was much less influential, but was influential nonetheless. None of that goes against anything I said. Also, their Bibles were no more devoured than many other Bibles then or now. You earlier mentioned Hans Lufft, and said he printed 100,000 Bibles between 1534 and 1574. So, over 40 years he printed an average of 2,500 Bibles a year. Not exactly an overwhelming number. That was pretty standard actually. When you consider that he was in a university town, selling the most famous heretic’s Bible, it actually is not that impressive of a number in itself.

“You claim the common folk already had Bibles available in their own languages, that “Everyone in England knew the scriptures in English”...so why did they risk their lives to get & read Tyndale’s translation?”

1) I don’t think they did risk their lives. 2) I think people, in times where books were slow to be produced by hand, bought up everything printed (and thus cheaper) that was made available. 3) As a banned, heretical edition it had its own value just like banned things do today.

“How could a hunted criminal, working under threat of death - and eventually dying - do what the Vicar of Christ could not or would not: get the Word of God to the people?”
The people had the written work of God already as is admitted by all reputable historians. And now we’re back to the JWs and Mormons. They make the Bible available to people who speak rare languages at a rate quicker than all other churches do. Does that mean they are right? Does that mean that that is what Christianity is about? Does that even prove that they are Christians?

“The answer, of course, is that the ‘Vicar of Christ’ WOULD NOT!”

Why would that be a concern to him when Christ appointed him to achieve other things as Matthew 28 shows? Christ never said, “Produce Bibles. That’s what Christianity is all about – giving out copies of the Bible!”

Is St. Paul also a failure to you since he never distributed copies of OT scriptures? He may even have taken them away from people at one point. 2 Timothy 4:13

“He had no desire for common men to read the scriptures, and ask, “Where is Purgatory?”

2 Maccabees 12.

“Where are Indulgences?”

Matthew 16.

“Where are offices for sale?”

Not a doctrine, but an abuse banned by canon law.
Protestants commit plenty of sins too.

“Where is THE POPE?”

Matthew 16.

“As for the Church running England in the 1300s/1400s...I did not mean to suggest the Pope directly was the head of government, nor do I believe that is a reasonable assumption about what I said.”

You said the Church ran the country. Please don’t try to twist your own words now to get out of your embarrassment. You said what you said.

“However, consider Thomas Arundel, who I mentioned before:”

Yes, and? So, he, as the highest Church official in the land accompanied the king and participated in the coronation? So?

“Now, tell me again about the meek Catholic Church, only seeking spiritual good, buffeted by all those mean monarchs, and who really had no resources to counter those big, bad Lollards!”

When did I ever claim that? Again, why do you make things up and claim I said them? Show me where I ever said anything even remotely like that. Can you?

“And while you are at it, tell me again about all those approved translations made between 1408 and 1538...or even those made in the 1300s, and that continued to be published and distributed to the common man, and why the English instead risked their lives to read Wycliffe & Tyndale.”
There were thousands of Bibles made in Middle English and Early Modern English between the 1300s and 1500s. None were published, because that is associated with printing which did not even exist until the later 15th century.

But we know they existed:

Even Foxe, who hated the Catholic Church, wrote: “If histories be well examined we shall find both before the Conquest and after, as well before John Wickliffe was born as since, the whole body of the Scriptures was by sundry men translated into our country tongue.”

Look in dusty old books and you see where Protestants have lied for centuries pretending there were no Catholic Bibles in England:

“A third copy of the English Scriptures—the very manuscript now displayed in the British Museum as Wyclif’s translation, to which I referred at the commencement of this paper—formerly belonged to Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, the firm friend and ally of that uncompromising opponent of Lollard opinions, Archbishop Arundel. Indeed, the inventory of the Duke of Gloucester’s goods, now in the Record Office, shows that, besides “ the Bible in English in two big volumes bound in red leather,” he possessed in his by no means extensive library an English Psalter and two books of the Gospels in English.1 Another copy of this version of the New Testament was the property, and has the autograph, of Humphrey—” the good Duke Humphrey “—of Gloucester, the generous benefactor of St. Albans, and the constant friend of its abbot, Whethamstede, whose hostility to Lollard doctrines is well known.

[Footnote: ]1 R. O. Exch. Q. R. Escheator’s Accts. y. The celebrated biblical scholar, Dr. Adam Clarke, who formerly possessed this manuscript, considered that it was certainly not Wyclifite in origin. The Thomas of Woodstock for whom the book was illuminated was the youngest son of Edward III., and was murdered at Calais in 1397. “ How long before 1397 this work was written is uncertain,” writes Dr. Clarke, “ but it must have been in the very nature of things several years before this time.” (Townley, Biblical Literature, ii., p. 44.)

“A copy of the English Bible, now at Lambeth, formerly belonged to Bishop Bonner, that Malleus hereticorum, and another, now at Cambridge, to William Weston, the Prior ofSt. John’s, Clerkenwell.

“In like manner a copy of the English translation of the New Testament, now attributed to Wyclif, among the manuscripts of the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick, was originally, and probably not long after the volume was written, the property of another religious house. On the last page is the name of Katerina Methwold, Monacha, Katherine Metlrwold, the nun.”

Clearly there were copies circulating!

And you’ll love this:

“There are, moreover, instances of the English Bible—the production, the secret production, of the Lollard scribes—that perilous piece of property to possess, as we are asked to believe—there are instances of this being bequeathed by wills publicly proved in the public courts of the Bishop.”
Clearly it wasn’t “perilous” if they could openly be left to people in wills!!!

“Others, not less publicly, are bestowed upon churches or given to religious houses. It is, of course, obvious that this could never have been done had the volume so left been the work of Wyclif or of his followers, for it would then indeed have been, as a modern writer describes the Wyclifite books, “a perilous piece of property.” Thus, before the close of the fourteenth century, namely, in 1394, a copy of the Gospels in English was bequeathed to the chantry of St. Nicholas, in the Church of Holy Trinity, York, by John Hopton, Chaplain there. 1 Fancy what this means on the theory that the English Scriptures were the work of Wyclifite hands ! It means nothing less than that a catholic priest publicly bequeaths, in a will proved in his Bishop’s court, to a catholic church, for the use of catholic people, the proscribed work of some member of an heretical sect.”

“Again, in 1404, Philip Baunt, a Bristol merchant, leaves by will a copy of the Gospels in English to a priest named John Canterbury, attached to St. Mary Redcliffe’s Church. And—not to mention many cases in wills of the period, where it is probable that the Bible left was an English copy there is an instance of a bequest of such a Bible in the will of a priest, William Revetour, of York, in 1446. The most interesting gift of an English New Testament, as a precious and pious donation to the Church, is that of the copy now in the possession of Lord Ashburnham,1 which in 1517 \vas given to the Convent of our Lady of Syou. by Lady Danvers. On the last page is the following dedication :—
The aforseid Dame Anne Danvers hathe delyvered this booke by the hands of her son Thomas Danvers on Mydde Lent Sunday in the 8th yere of our lord King Henry VIII. and in the yere of our Lord God a M. fyve hundred and seventeene. Deo gracias.”

“And, whilst on the subject of Syon, attention must be called to another very important piece of evidence for the existence of a Catholic version of the Scriptures. It is contained in a devotional book, written probably not later than the year 1450 for the use of these sisters of Syon, and printed “ at the desyre and instaunce of the worshypfull and devoute lady abbessel of the worshypful Monastery of Syon and the revendre fadre in God2 general confessowre of the same” about the year 1530. It is called The Myrroure of our Lady very necessary for religious persons, and it is practically a translation of their Church services into English to enable the nuns the better to understand their daily ecclesiastical duties. The point to which attention is directed is the following paragraph in the “ first prologue,” written, remember, not later than the middle of the fifteenth century: “Of psalms I have drawn (i.e., translated) but fewe,” says the author, “ for ye may have them I of Richard Hampoules drawinge, and out of Englysshe 1 bibles if ye have lysence thereto.” 1 It is not very likely that these pious sisters would have been able to get their psalms from Wyclifite versions.
It is clear that the compiler of this book of devotions did in fact obtain them on imprimatur of authority for the translations of various quotations from Scripture in the volume. He writes :—

” And for as much as it is forbidden under pain of cursing that any man should have or translate any text of Holy Scripture into English without licence of the Bishop diocesan ; and in diverse places of your service are such texts of Holy Scripture. Therefore I asked and have licence of our Bishop to translate such things into English to your ghostly comfort and profit, so both our conscience in translating and yours in the having may be more sure and clear in our Lord’s worship, which may it keep us in His grace and bring us to His bliss.” Amen.2

All of this proves my point. 1) Catholic Bibles existed. 2) yes, people received approvals for making translations. 3) They circulated.

When will Protestants stop the lies? All of this info, and so much more is contained in a famous book called The old English Bible, and Other Essays, by Francis Aidan Gasquet which was published in 1897.
http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&id=dwYXAAAAIAAJ#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Here it is over 100 years later and Protestant anti-Catholics are still spreading the exact same lies despite all the evidence.