Posted on 10/25/2013 1:32:26 PM PDT by Gamecock
"I defy the pope and all his laws; and, if God spares me, I will one day make the boy that drives the plow in England to know more of the Scriptures than the pope does!" So said translation pioneer William Tyndale.
Born near Dursley, Gloucestershire, UK, between 1484 and 1496, Tyndale developed a zeal to get the Bible into the hands of the common man—a passion for which he ultimately gave his life.
Educated at Oxford and Cambridge, Tyndale became fluent in at least seven languages. In 1522, the same year Luther translated the New Testament into German, Tyndale was an ordained Catholic priest serving John Walsh of Gloucestershire. It was during this time, when Tyndale was 28 years of age, that he began pouring over Erasmus’ Greek New Testament. The more he studied the more the doctrines of the Reformation became clear. And like a great fire kindled by a lighting strike, so Tyndale’s heart was set ablaze by the doctrines of grace:
By grace . . . we are plucked out of Adam the ground of all evil and graffed in Christ, the root of all goodness. In Christ God loved us, his elect and chosen, before the world began and reserved us unto the knowledge of his Son and of his holy gospel; and when the gospel is preached to us openeth our hearts and giveth us grace to believe, and putteth the spirit of Christ in us: and we know him as our Father most merciful, and consent to the law and love it inwardly in our heart and desire to fulfill it and sorrow because we do not.
Rome’s Opposition to an English Translation
Nearly 200 years earlier, starting in 1382, John Wycliff and his followers (known as Lollards) distributed hand-written English translations of Scripture. The Archbishop of Canterbury responded by having Wycliffe and his writings condemned.
But Rome was not finished. In 1401, Parliament passed a law making heresy a capital offence. Seven years later, the Archbishop of Canterbury made it a crime to “translate any text of the Scripture into English or any other tongue . . . and that no man can read any such book . . . in part or in whole." The sentence was burning. Across Europe, the flames were ignited and the Lollards were all but destroyed. Rome was determined to keep God’s Word out of the people’s hands.
. . . as a boy of 11 watched the burning of a young man in Norwich for possessing the Lord’s Prayer in English . . . John Foxe records . . . seven Lollards burned at Coventry in 1519 for teaching their children the Lord’s Prayer in English.
John Bale (1495-1563)
Rome was not finished with Wycliffe either: 44 years after his death, the pope ordered Wycliffe’s bones exhumed, burned, and his ashes scattered.
Tyndale was truly in great danger.
Tyndale’s End
Fearing for his life, Tyndale fled London for Brussels in 1524 where he continued his translation work for the next 12 years. Tyndale’s time in exile was dreadful, as he describes in a 1531 letter:
. . . my pains . . . my poverty . . . my exile out of mine natural country, and bitter absence from my friends . . . my hunger, my thirst, my cold, the great danger wherewith I am everywhere encompassed, and finally . . . innumerable other hard and sharp fighting’s which I endure.
On the evening of May 21, 1535, Tyndale was betrayed to the authorities by a man he trusted, Henry Philips. For the next 18 months, Tyndale lived a prisoner in Vilvorde Castle, six miles outside of Brussles. The charge was heresy.
The verdict came in August, 1536. He was condemned as a heretic and defrocked as a priest. On or about October 6, 1536, Tyndale was tied to a stake, strangled by an executioner, and then his body burned. He was 42 years old. His last words were, “Lord! Open the King of England’s Eyes!”
Tyndale’s Legacy
Tyndale’s translations were the foundations for Miles Coverdale’s Great Bible (1539) and later for the Geneva Bible (1557). As a matter of fact, about 90% of the Geneva Bible’s New Testement was Tyndale’s work. In addition, the 54 scholars who produced the 1611 Authorized Version (King James) bible relied heavily upon Tyndale’s translations, although they did not give him credit.
Tyndale is also known as a pioneer in the biblical languages. He introduced several words into the English language, such as Jehovah, Passover, scapegoat, and atonement.
It has been asserted that Tyndale's place in history has not yet been sufficiently recognized as a translator of the Scriptures, as an apostle of liberty, and as a chief promoter of the Reformation in England. In all these respects his influence has been singularly under-valued, at least to Protestants.
***Permission was clearly freely given and many millions of Catholic Bibles have been printed and distributed since. Permission was SO FREELY GIVEN that the rules in question were essentially never practiced in any regard other than the granting of imprimaturs and nihil obstats.****
From the Translators to the Reader (KJV)
§ 10 [The unwillingness of our chief adversaries, that the Scriptures should be divulged in the mother tongue, etc.]
• 1 Now the Church of Rome would seem at the length to bear a motherly affection towards her children, and to allow them the Scriptures in their mother tongue: but indeed it is a gift, not deserving to be called a gift, an unprofitable gift: [dwron adwron kouk onhsimon. Sophocles.] they must first get a licence in writing before they may use them, and to get that, they must approve themselves to their confessor, that is, to be such as are, if not frozen in the dregs, yet soured with the leaven of their superstition.
• 2 Howbeit, it seemed too much to Clement the Eighth that there should be any licence granted to have them in the vulgar tongue, and therefore he overruleth and frustrateth the grant of Pius the Fourth. [See the observation (set forth by Clement’s authority) upon the 4th rule of Pius the IV’s making in the Index, lib. prohib. pag. 15. ver. 5.]
• 3 So much are they afraid of the light of Scripture, (Lucifugæ Scripturarum, as Tertullian speaketh) [Tertul. de resur. carnis.] that they will not trust the people with it, no not as it is set forth by their own sworn men, no not with the licence of their own bishops and inquisitors.
• 4 Yea, so unwilling they are to communicate the Scriptures to the people’s understanding in any sort, that they are not ashamed to confess that we forced them to translate it into English against their wills.
• 5 This seemeth to argue a bad cause, or a bad conscience, or both.
• 6 Sure we are, that it is not he that hath good gold that is afraid to bring it to the touchstone, but he that hath the counterfeit; neither is it the true man that shunneth [John 3:20] the light, but the malefactor, lest his deed should be reproved: neither is it the plain dealing merchant that is unwilling to have the weights or the meteyard brought in place, but he that useth deceit.
• 7 But we will let them alone for this fault, and return to translation.
And this: Look it up.
§ 13 [An answer to the imputations of our adversaries.]
To clear this matter up, Tyndall was executed under Emperor Charles of Germany, after Henry VIII invoked the treaty of Cambrai to demand his arrest.
OK, that sounds more like what it was. Sorry VLAD! My mistake.
“Oh, read a bloody book. Wycliffe was the very start of the development of English grammar, not the end of a process. You hardly have to have a PhD in medieval languages to know the truth of what I write.”
I’m finding myself wondering how this is, in any way, a serious debate. First of all, Wyclif hails from the 14th century. Tyndale from the 16th. That’s quite a lot of time. There’s also a great deal of written works in the English language going back even farther than that, which, if no one actually learned how to write in it, would make it hard to explain its existence. Secondly, I don’t have a PhD in medieval languages. I do know, however, just as one of those random things I know, that Shakespeare as a child was educated in the English language using such tools as the “ABCs and the Catechism.” That’s why I googled around for an image of it in the first place. Indeed, even Shepherds, if they could spare a sheep or two, could get an education in both reading and writing in the English language.
“…In a little time having learned to read competently well, I was desirous to learn to write, but was at a great loss for a master, none of my fellow shepherds being able to teach me. At last I bethought myself of a lame young man who taught some poor people’s children to read and write; and having by this time got some two sheep of my own, I applied myself to him and agreed to give him one of my sheep to teach me to make the letters and join them together.”
http://early-moderneurope.blogspot.com/2009/09/problem-of-literacy.html
Of course, as I said before, during the time when Catholics were dominant, this was not the case, since they kept these things primarily for the higher classes, particularly the clergy. However, with the reformation came that literacy, and a desire to make men as literate as possible. How and why you dispute this, I do not know.
“Even Shakespeare, at the end of that era, has various spellings for the same word many, many times over.”
That’s true, though, of course, he also invented quite a lot of words in the first place, even though he only got to about the third grade and received only the basics of instruction in the language he would greatly add to.
Ruy you might be right about me being wrong wall before 2005. I know dangus is right.
Tyndale was executed on the continent - and not in that sliver of France still owned by England. His execution could not have been at the hands of Henry VIII then. I freely admit, however, that years ago I did believe Tyndale had been executed by the English because I had believed what Protestant writers had said about him and all of them had said Tyndale had been 1) executed for translating the Bible, and 2) executed (essentially hunted down and executed) by Henry VIII. It was only after doing some deeper research that I found out Protestants were consistently wrong on the subject.
Twenty five years ago I believed Wycliffe had been executed for translating the Bible because that’s what Protestant sources had said and that had so influenced popular texts and thought. Only when researching the topic did I discover he had never been executed at all and died in his bed! So I freely admit that I might very well have told you something that was completely incorrect about Henry VIII executing Tyndale years and years ago. And if I did that I am very sorry for having done so and apologize. I learned my lesson. I research things and have zero trust now in Protestant renderings of history. Live and learn.
Latin was the official language of the empire. No matter what the "common local" language was the Latin served as the international language. Much as English is the standard language for airline pilots today. It was also the language for the law.
Because the Greeks were the most recent conquerors/ inhabiters of the area prior to the Romans and it was a common language. You do recall that even the OT had been translated into Greek in the Septuagint.
Somehow the Supplementary bookmark paer of the link you posted got turned into ixzz2imIFZOMi, but it is http://www.peacebyjesus.net/ancients_on_scripture.html#Supplementary
You of course have proof of this ridiculous statement.
Look at the founding fathers how many of them were literate in the classical languages, compared with the majority of the population at that time.
The invention of the printing press with movable type is what made it affordable. Further it took time to build enough presses to make it cost effective.
This is a stupid question. You are comparing apples to oranges. You are trying to compare the "divine right of kings" to a modern humanistic culture. This is the same as saying why didn't' the doctors give George Washington penicillin instead of using leeches to bleed him?
Then you don’t believe he received justice, do you?
Would you rather get penicillin or leeches? Good question actually, because what you’re describing is not really medicine at all.
And I’m asking about true justice. Tyndale did not receive justice. Me can dance with the divine right of kings all afternoon, but that does not change the fact that Tyndale did not receive justice.
I've already answered this twice and given my reasons in detail. Let me ask you a question: given the historical conditions and the standards of the time and the fact that the publishing of seditious material (including heretical Bibles) was deemed a criminal act by the state, can you judge the actions of people of those times by our present standards? These are the same historical standards that allowed John Calvin in Geneva to burn heretics at the stake. Does this prove Protestantism wrong?
Also, take the case of Samuel and Agag in the Old Testament (1 Samuel 15:32). Because Saul had disobeyed Samuel and not killed Agag, Samuel took his sword and cut Agag to pieces. Should we judge Samuel by today's standards?
That is simply an undocumented assertion. What we do know from actual scholarship, including Catholic, testifies not to easy access, but (in contrast with attitude) to a long term hindrance of reading Scripture via forbidding reading of it in the common tongue without special permission. And which power to grant permission (under Sixtus V and Clement VIII) was even reserved to the pope or the Sacred Congregation of the Index of Prohibited books. And sometimes a local decree could forbid reading the vernacular altogether. .
And which restriction testifies to the second class status to which Rome relegates the wholly inspired words, exalting herself above it. And unlike the NT church, dealing with the danger of challenges to her claims not by subjecting herself to testing by Scripture, by which apostolic claims were proven by noble souls, (Acts 17:11) but by keeping the Scriptures from the people under the premise of her assured veracity.
Today, having lost her unScriptural use of the sword of men, and her control over the multitudes, while she encourages Bible reading, she impugns its authority via her own claims and liberal scholarship, and is contrary to objective examination of evidence in order to ascertain the veracity of her claims.
"A dumb and difficult book was substituted for the living voice of the Church...We must also keep in mind that whenever or wherever reading endangers the purity of Christian thought and living the unum necessarium it has to be wisely restricted." — A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture (London: Thomas Nelson, 1953) pp. 11-12.
A Catholic dictionary states that, “In early times the Bible was read freely by the lay people. and the Fathers encouraged them to do so...No prohibitions were issued against the popular reading of the Bible...New dangers came in during the Middle Ages...To meet those evils, the Council of Toulouse, France (1229) and Terragona, Spain, (1234) [local councils], forbade the laity to read the vernacular translations of the Bible. (Toulouse was in response to the Albigensian heresy, and while this reveals a recourse of restrinction of access to Scripture when faced with challenges, it is understood that when the Albigensian problem disappeared, so did the force of their order, which never affected more than southern France.) http://www.lazyboysreststop.org/true_attitude.htm; A Catholic Dictionary: William Edward Addis, ?Thomas Arnold, p. 82
The local Council of Toulouse, 1229, Canon 14: "We prohibit the permission of the books of the Old and New Testament to laymen, except perhaps they might desire to have the Psalter, or some Breviary for the divine service, or the Hours of the blessed Virgin Mary, for devotion; expressly forbidding their having the other parts of the Bible translated into the vulgar tongue" (Pierre Allix, Ecclesiastical History of Ancient Churches of the Albigenses, published in Oxford at the Clarendon Press in 1821, reprinted in USA in 1989 by Church History Research & Archives, P.O. Box 38, Dayton Ohio, 45449, p. 213).
Between 1567 and 1773, not a single edition of an Italian-language Bible was printed anywhere in the Italian peninsula. “When English Roman Catholics created their first English biblical translation in exile at Douai and Reims, it was not for ordinary folk to read, but [primarily] for priests to use as a polemical weapon.—the explicit purpose which the 1582 title-page and preface of the Reims New Testament proclaimed. Only the Jansenists of early seventeenth-century France came to have a more positive and generous attitude to promoting Bible-reading among Catholics" (Oxford University professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Reformation: A History, 2003, p. 406; p. 585.)
The Douay–Rheims Bible...is a translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English undertaken by members of the English College, Douai in the service of the Catholic Church.
Which translation we do not for all that publish, upon erroneous opinion of necessity, that the Holy Scriptures should always be in our mother tongue..In our own country [there was] no vulgar translation commonly used or employed by the multitude...(http://www.bombaxo.com/douai-nt.html)
From The Catholic Encyclopedia (http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=10624):
During the course of the first millennium of her existence, the Church did not promulgate any law concerning the reading of Scripture in the vernacular. The faithful were rather encouraged to read the Sacred Books according to their spiritual needs (cf. St. Irenæus, "Adv. haer.", III, iv...).
The next five hundred years show only local regulations concerning the use of the Bible in the vernacular. On 2 January, 1080, Gregory VII wrote to the Duke of Bohemia that he could not allow the publication of the Scriptures in the language of the country. The letter was written chiefly to refuse the petition of the Bohemians for permission to conduct Divine service in the Slavic language. The pontiff feared that the reading of the Bible in the vernacular would lead to irreverence and wrong interpretation of the inspired text. ( St. Gregory VII, "Epist.", vii, xi).
The second document belongs to the time of the Waldensian and Albigensian heresies. The Bishop of Metz had written to Innocent III that there existed in his diocese a perfect frenzy for the Bible in the vernacular. In 1199 the pope replied that in general the desire to read the Scriptures was praiseworthy, but that the practice was dangerous for the simple and unlearned. ("Epist., II, cxli; Hurter, "Gesch. des. Papstes Innocent III", Hamburg, 1842, IV, 501 sqq.)....
On 24 March, 1564, Pius IV promulgated in his Constitution, "Dominici gregis", the Index of Prohibited Books . According to the third rule, the Old Testament may be read in the vernacular by pious and learned men, according to the judgment of the bishop, as a help to the better understanding of the Vulgate.
The fourth rule places in the hands of the bishop or the inquisitor the power of allowing the reading of the New Testament in the vernacular to laymen who according to the judgment of their confessor or their pastor can profit by this practice.
Sixtus V reserved this power to himself or the Sacred Congregation of the Index, and Clement VIII added this restriction to the fourth rule of the Index, by way of appendix.
Benedict XIV required that the vernacular version read by laymen should be either approved by the Holy See or provided with notes taken from the writings of the Fathers or of learned and pious authors. It then became an open question whether this order of Benedict XIV was intended to supersede the former legislation or to further restrict it.
This doubt was not removed by the next three documents: the condemnation of certain errors of the Jansenist Quesnel as to the necessity of reading the Bible , by the Bull "Unigenitus" issued by Clement XI on 8 Sept., 1713 (cf. Denzinger, "Enchir.", nn. 1294-1300); the condemnation of the same teaching maintained in the Synod of Pistoia, by the Bull "Auctorem fidei" issued on 28 Aug., 1794, by Pius VI; the warning against allowing the laity indiscriminately to read the Scriptures in the vernacular, addressed to the Bishop of Mohileff by Pius VII, on 3 Sept., 1816.
Regarding the aforementioned
Bull Unigenitus, it was published at Rome, September 8, 1713, and as part of its censure of the propositions of Jansenism*, also condemned the following as being errors:
79. It is useful and necessary at all times, in all places, and for every kind of person, to study and to know the spirit, the piety, and the mysteries of Sacred Scripture.
80. The reading of Sacred Scripture is for all.
81. The sacred obscurity of the Word of God is no reason for the laity to dispense themselves from reading it.
82. The Lord's Day ought to be sanctified by Christians with readings of pious works and above all of the Holy Scriptures. It is harmful for a Christian to wish to withdraw from this reading.
84. To snatch away from the hands of Christians the New Testament, or to hold it closed against them by taking away from them the means of understanding it, is to close for them the mouth of Christ.
85. To forbid Christians to read Sacred Scripture, especially the Gospels, is to forbid the use of light to the sons of light, and to cause them to suffer a kind of excommunication. (INNOCENT XIII 1721-1724 BENEDICT XIII 1724-1730, CLEMENT XII 1730-174, http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Clem11/c11unige.htm)
And the aforementioned
Pius IV required bishops to refuse lay persons leave to read even Catholic versions of Scripture unless their confessors or parish priests judged that such reading was likely to prove beneficial.” (Catholic Dictionary, Addis and Arnold, 1887, page 82).
Trent did allow reading of Scripture, but only after a license in writing was obtained from the proper ecclesiastical authority:
Since it is clear from experience that if the Sacred Books are permitted everywhere and without discrimination in the vernacular, there will by reason of the boldness of men arise therefrom more harm than good, the matter is in this respect left to the judgment of the bishop or inquisitor, who may with the advice of the pastor or confessor permit the reading of the Sacred Books translated into the vernacular by Catholic authors to those who they know will derive from such reading no harm but rather an increase of faith and piety, which permission they must have in writing. Those, however, who presume to read or possess them without such permission may not receive absolution from their sins till they have handed over to the ordinary. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/trent-booksrules.asp
Officiorum ac Munerum, Encyclical letter of Pope Leo XIII. The prohibition and censorship of books Apostolic Constitution, January 25, 1897:
Editions of the Original Text and of the ancient Catholic versions of Holy Scripture, as well as those of the Eastern Church, if published by non-Catholics, even though apparently edited in a faithful and complete manner, are allowed only to those engaged in Theological and Biblical Studies, provided also that the Dogma of Catholic Faith are not impugned in the Prolegomena or Annotations.
Those who, without the Approbation of the Ordinary, print, or cause to be printed, books of Holy Scripture, or notes of commentaries on the same [by non-Catholics], incur ipso facto excommunication, but not reserved.
If one justifies RC censorship in the past then he must explain why that is not necessary now.
The problem is that of the person or entity doing so claiming autocratic power, superior above Scripture, and what assured veracity it affords to authority. And also using means of enforcement not afforded to it by Scripture.
It fascinates me to watch Catholics deny not only secular history but the written history of the very organization they hold to.
Servetus did not receive justice in Calvin’s courts. I perceive you have difficulty saying someone in the past has done something wrong. Do you think the Al Qaeda rebel in Syria who ate the Syrian soldier’s heart was wrong? After all...cross-cultural differences....
There is always an exception when God Himself talks to you and tells you to carry out His orders.
But Calvin doesn’t say God spoke to Him directly. God’s prophet Samuel did. And, his life proved God’s direct communication with Samuel.
So, God is the Shepherd and we are the Sheep. A shepherd can dispose of sheep as he sees fit...some even for the cooking pot. And there is no injustice.
That said, Tyndale did not receive justice.
LOL! So as in gun licensing, it's "may read" versus "shall read," and we all know how badly that usually goes, cf. Maryland, where "may issue," is a transparent excuse for authoritarian suppression of a fundamental right, based on either an irrational fear or a malignant desire for unwarranted control. Interesting analogy.
BTW, thanks for the research. I had seen this discussed before without clear resolution, but your last post is very helpful.
There is no great scandal to the fact that there were no Italian-language bibles published in Italy, at a time when Italian was to Latin what Ebonics is to English! The situation that those who could read could read Latin was universal throughout the jurisdiction of the Latin patriarchy. There is no evidence that anyone wrote anything in Italian at all until nearly 1000 AD!
Insisting on Latin rather than Italian (or even French) is far more akin to insisting on the King James Version instead of slang and Ebonics bibles than it is to “banning the bible.”
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