This is such gross historical revisionism as to be embarrassing!
“1) Throughout much of Church history, if you could read, you could read Latin. The Church translated the Bible into Latin in the first few centuries of its inception so that all who could read would be able to do so.”
Not true. In England, for example, there were folks reading Old English from 600 AD thru 1000 AD. Otherwise, why would Bede have translated it into Old English (735 AD)? And King Alfred had a translation done around 900 AD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_Bible_translations
2) The Church distributed the Bible in every country it was in and in the common language of the people from the 7th down to the 14th century and beyond.
Not true. In England, for example, some translations were made, but they were for the elite, not the commoners. The Catholic Church, to put a good spin on it, didn’t want commoners reading scripture apart from ‘sacred tradition’. The problem wasn’t lack of desire from people, nor lack of ability, but fear of what scripture might do if read apart from the Catholic Church.
Thus, when Tyndale made his translation, he answered the objections of the Catholic Church and Sir Thomas More thus:
Comfort to Persecuted Bible Readers . . .
Excerpts from William Tyndale’s Introduction to The Obedience of a Christian Man - 2nd October 1528
Let it not make thee despair, neither yet discourage thee, O reader, that it is forbidden thee in pain of life and goods, or that it is made breaking of the king’s peace, or treason unto his highness, to read the Word of thy soul’s health; … for if God be on our side, what matter maketh it who be against us, be they bishops, cardinals, popes …
Five Objections: Answered
1. They tell you that Scripture ought not to be in the mother tongue, but that is only because they fear the light, and desire to lead you blindfold and in captivity…
2. They say that Scripture needs a pure and quiet mind, and that laymen are too cumbered with worldly business to understand it. This weapon strikes themselves: for who is so tangled with worldly matters as the prelates?
3. They say that laymen would interpret it each after his own way. Why then do the curates not teach the people the right way? The Scripture would be a basis for such teaching and a test of it. At present their lives and their teaching are so contrary that the people do not believe them, even when they preach truth…
4. They say our tongue is too rude. It is not so. Greek and Hebrew go more easily into English than into Latin. Has not God made the English tongue as well as others? They suffer you to read in English of Robin Hood, Bevis of Hampton, Hercules, Troilus, and a thousand ribald or filthy tales. It is only the Scripture that is forbidden. It is therefore clearer than the sun that this forbiddal is not “for love of your souls, which they care for as the fox doth for the geese.”
5. They say we need doctors to interpret Scripture [because] it is so hard… There are errors even in Origen and Augustine; how can we test them save by the Scripture?… We do not wish to abolish teaching and to make every man his own master, but if the curates will not teach the gospel, the layman must have the Scripture, and read it for himself, taking God for his teacher.
“3) “626 editions of the Bible, in which 198 were in the language of the laity, had issued from the press, with the sanction and at the instance of the Church, in the countries where she reigned supreme, before the first Protestant version of the scriptures was sent forth into the world.” (Where We Got The Bible)” / “4) There were 27 versions of the Bible in the German language before Martin Luther’s version came out.”
An edition too expensive and too difficult for a commoner to read didn’t help. Consider this - in the 40 years after Luther’s translation, it sold over 100,000 copies!
“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.[12] 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.[14] Luther combined his faithfulness to the language spoken by the common people to produce a work which the common man could relate to.[15] This aspect of Luther’s creation led German writers such as Goethe and Nietzsche to thoroughly praise Luther’s Bible.[16] 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.[17] 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.[18] As a testament to the vast influence of Luther’s Bible, he even had large print Bibles made for those who had failing eyesight.[16] German humanist Johann Cochlaeus depicted this notion perfectly as he complained that
Luther’s New Testament was so much multiplied and spread by printers that even tailors and shoemakers, yea, even women and ignorant persons who had accepted this new Lutheran gospel, and could read a little German, studied it with the greatest avidity as the fountain of all truth. Some committed it to memory, and carried it about in their bosom. In a few months such people deemed themselves so learned that they were not ashamed to dispute about faith and the gospel not only with Catholic laymen, but even with priests and monks and doctors of divinity.”[19]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Bible
“5) It was almost solely in those countries which have remained most Catholic that popular versions of the Bible had been published; while it was precisely Protestant countries (like England, Scotland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway) that no bible existed when they embraced Protestantism (Dublin Review - Oct 1837). So there is no evidence that access to a Bible in the vernacular caused people to become more protestant. If anything, it made them become more Catholic.”
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not hardly. England started to swing Protestant before there were Protestants, when Wycliffe and friends translated and distributed scripture. Charged with heresy, they thought their best defense was the word of God. That was in the late 1300s, when Wycliffe’s “Bible Men” traveled the land and read scripture to the common people. It was in reaction to this that, at the prompting of the Catholic Church, England banned any unapproved bibles...and that included Wycliffe’s.
“Wyclif’s Bible is the name now given to a group of Bible translations into Middle English that were made under the direction of, or at the instigation of, John Wycliffe. They appeared over a period from approximately 1382 to 1395.[1] These Bible translations were the chief inspiration and chief cause of the Lollard movement, a pre-Reformation movement that rejected many of the distinctive teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. In the early Middle Ages, most Christian people encountered the Bible only in the form of oral versions of scriptures, verses and homilies in Latin (other sources were mystery plays, usually conducted in the vernacular, and popular iconography). Though relatively few people could read at this time, Wycliffe’s idea was to translate the Bible into the vernacular.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyclif%27s_Bible
I’ve cited what Luther’s translation, into the common tongue instead of high German - had on Germany. Tyndale also had a tremendous impact. Copies had to be smuggled in at risk of life, but they were...and in large numbers. Thomas More didn’t write 750,000 words attacking Tyndale because it was fun.
More’s attack’s were also dishonest. For example, he objected to using elder instead of bishop, and congregation instead of church - yet both were more accurate to the Greek in Tyndale’s. Also, he strongly objects to replacing “Do penance” with the accurate “Repent”.
Tyndale was executed for heresy, since executing him for translating the Bible would have required extraditing him to England, where he might be let free. Since heresy was a crime everywhere under Charles V, and since it was heresy to say we are saved by grace thru faith, it was easy to execute Tyndale for heresy.
The copies of scripture hand made of Wycliffe’s and mass produced by Tyndale had enormous impact on England becoming Protestant. Luther’s translation of scripture had enormous impact on Germany becoming Protestant.
As for Catholic Spain, read here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_translations_of_the_Bible
The Catholic Church fought hard to suppress common language translations. When possible, it executed those who translated or distributed them.
Probably true. Was there universal education back then? Could Everyone read? Or was education something that only the 'elites' could afford?
The Catholic Church, to put a good spin on it, didn’t want commoners reading scripture apart from ‘sacred tradition’. The problem wasn’t lack of desire from people, nor lack of ability, but fear of what scripture might do if read apart from the Catholic Church.
Again, I would have to agree with you. Just ask any one of these folks who firmly believed in their own personal interpretation of Scripture:
Simonians of Acts 8, Cerintheians. Judaizers, Circumcisers of Acts 15:1, Nicolaitans of Rev.2:6, Nazareans or "Jewish-Christians", Docetists, Gnostics, Neo-Gnostics, Agnostics, Marcionites, Ebionites, Montanists, Monarchians, Tritheists, Modalists, Basidilians, Carpocratians Tertullianists, Origenists, Manicheans, Millenarians, Novatians, Donatists, Arians, Macedonians, Appollinarists, Jovinians, Vigilantians Pelagians, Semipelagians, Nestorians, Predestinarians, Monophysites, Paulicians, Monothelites (like Monophysites of the Fifth Century), Iconoclasts, Adoptionists, Petrobrosians, Henricians, Waldenses, Albiguenses, Fraticelli, Flagellants, Lollards of John Wycliffe, Hussites, Moravians, "Church of the Brotherhood", United Brethren Lutherans, Zwinglians, Church of England, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Episcopalians, Mennonites, Presbyterians, Puritans, Congregationalists, Huguenots, Reformed Dutch, Unitarians, Socinians, ad infinitum, ad nauseum and etc.
Really the Roman Catholic Church has had her arms full of heretics trying to attack her and her authority ever since the Pentecost, but rebellion against authority does not have its source in the Divine and ergo, you get what you get.
I think you need to read over something.
In the original post there was this:
“2) The Church distributed the Bible in every country it was in and in the common language of the people from the 7th down to the 14th century and beyond.
You wrote:
“Not true. In England, for example, some translations were made, but they were for the elite, not the commoners.”
Whoa! Commoners are PEOPLE. Common language is what they speak. The opening post said “common language of the people” while you used a DIFFERENT WORD AND IDEA = “commoners”.
Some commoners could read. Some could not. But just about everyone in England after 1300 knew the common tongue. Before that that was not the case. The elite often spoke a different language (and it wasn’t Latin either although many of them knew that language). Wealthy, well educated people in late medieval England often knew several languages. They spoke either Old/Middle English or Norman French at home. In Church matters they spoke Latin. In common law courts they used a highly developed dialect of French particular to the courts. We get words some of our legal terms like voir dire from that Anglo-Norman dialect.
The Catholic Church, to put a good spin on it, didn’t want commoners reading scripture apart from ‘sacred tradition’. The problem wasn’t lack of desire from people, nor lack of ability, but fear of what scripture might do if read apart from the Catholic Church.”
. . . some translations were made, but they were for the elite, not the commoners . . .
Your 20th century outlook betrays you. For the first 10 centuries or so in Europe, only the elite COULD read. And they read mostly Latin. After the Roman Empire fell, there was nothing that could be called a middle class. You were a member of the royalty or nobility, a cleric or religious, or a peasant tied to the soil. The one exception was the development in England of a class of yeomen, who were farmers but independent rather than serfs. They were still mostly illiterate, though.
In England, King Alfred was a very public spirited person who thought that the Bible and other religious material should be translated into Anglo-Saxon, but this was still for the upper classes and the clerics because nobody else had the leisure time to learn to read. Alfred himself learned to read late in life, he could read fairly well but he never learned to write (according to his biographer Asser). There was a long-standing tradition of anti-academic feeling among the nobility, to the point that as late as the 16th century there were plenty of peers, quite well born ones, who took it as a point of pride that they LACKED learning. They felt it was beneath them. They could hire a secretary if something needed to be read.
Argue all you want but how is it "dishonest"? Both "bishop" and "church" were established words meaning Christian overseers (bishop was never "elder" even in Greek) and Christian assemblies. If you start using "front-sitter" instead of "president" today, would I be dishonest if I prefer the word people know and understand to its back-formation from Latin roots? Who, exectly, would be "dishonest"?
"Repent" vs. "do penance" can, of course, be argued, but this is sneaking Protestant false theology into a linguistic dispute. It is clear from the scripture that St. John and Jesus Himself actually did something and not merely had penitent thoughts. St. John for example wore a hairshirt and fasted and so did Jesus. The modern meaning of that is that they "did penance". Judas, on the other hand, "repented" -- felt a regret. While either "repent" or "do penance" are adequate renderings of "metanoiete" linguistically, the Protestant version ignores the Christian context.
Let us not forget that Luther's translation had a deliberate lie in it, in Romans 3:28. This was done to insert into the Bible things that were never in it. Some "translation".