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.
Bump..
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A Catholic named Gutenberg did far more than Tyndale ever could imagine to get the bible into the hands of the everyman. Tyndale wasn’t hired to spread the bible; he was hired to find a theological basis for England backing out of its dependance on Rome. Whereas King John’s efforts to deliver England to the Muslims to get out from under Rome backfired (the Muslims wouldn’t have him), Tyndale figured England could be “Christian” without being part of the Catholic church.
Thank God for Mr. Tyndale and his compatriots.
Thank God for the Reformation.
Part of the reason for the Black Legend that the Catholic church opposed people reading the bible for themselves was that the Catholic church opposed the agenda-driven Tyndale translation. Prior to a Catholic inventing the printing press, anyone who could read could read Latin. The use of Latin, however, helped people to recognize that the prayers in mass were biblical, which undermined the objective’s of Tyndale’s employers.
Early, Catholic, German translations included Wulfila, Charlemagne, and Augsburger-Wentzel.
Bede and Aelfric published English bibles, but without the printing press, and with few people who could read English but not Latin, the demand was vastly insufficient for the incredible expense, and these translations were rarely used; Wycliffe’s was promulgated by the British parliament.
The Geneva Bible (1557) demonstrated the demand for an English bible, once Gutenberg’s invention brought the price down. In England, the Catholic Church’s initial response to Gutenberg was to promote Latin literacy, but after the Geneva bible, the demand for an English bible was plain. But the brutal repression of the Catholic Church in England, and the seizure of all the monasteries and abbots made the process of publishing one difficult.
Finally, in 1582 and 1609, the Douay-Rheims bible was published by British exiles living in France. This was long after the Geneva Bible (1557), but before the King James Bible (1611). The Douay-Rheims was noted for having retained the Latin-derived words used in the Catholic mass and in Catholic theology, whereas the King James and the Geneva bible even used different translations in different places for the same words, to obscure the conceptual relations.
Sometimes people forget it was Henry the VIII who killed William Tyndale. The King had nothing to do with the Catholic church at this time.
“Part of the reason for the Black Legend that the Catholic church opposed people reading the bible for themselves was that the Catholic church opposed the agenda-driven Tyndale translation. Prior to a Catholic inventing the printing press, anyone who could read could read Latin.”
What fantasy world are you living in? Most people only got to about the 3rd grade in those days, being able to read English, but certainly not much Latin. Anything they learned beyond that, they had to learn on their own. That was one of Ben Johnson’s, actually, insults against Shakespeare, who actually never went to any higher education. “He knows ‘little’ Latin and Greek,” he said, compared to people who went to university who, represented at best, 1 percent of the population of England, probably less, as an example.
So what you’re basically saying is that it was okay for the Catholics to restrict the possession of scripture since 1 percent of the population could read it just fine.
LOL
“Bede and Aelfric published English bibles, but without the printing press, and with few people who could read English but not Latin, the demand was vastly insufficient for the incredible expense, and these translations were rarely used; Wycliffe’s was promulgated by the British parliament.”
Of course, it also helps that you could not even own or read a Bible on your own unless you had permission to do so by a Bishop. The cost of putting together a Bible, whether in Latin or English, is the same, so it does not follow that this is a real excuse for the RCC forbidding translations in the common language for people to actually understand. A Latin Bible belched out by a Priest is meaningless to 99 percent of the congregation, and they have to rely on the Priest’s interpretation and translation on the spot, instead of reading an English or other scripture in the common language.
Of course, thanks be to God, we no longer have to get permission from the Bishop or the RCC to even use a Bible!
Okay, so Catholics burning Protestants equals legend, and Protestant burning Catholics equals brutal repression. Also, differences in Bibles boils down to Catholics making things clear, and Protestants making things obscure.
I mean, it’s not like any FReepers are actually adults. All you really need are black and white, and about three tons of condescension, and you’re done.
Except the part, of course, about who burned who first. Because some people might feel that matters, since the first burners could be seen as the repressionists, and the second burners could be seen as retaliating, or even fighting back, in a political war for their very lives.
I know, I know, that’s an additional color past black and white.
Sorry.
They would have us believe that Jesus grew up reading the Psalms in Latin.
Whenever the blood drenched history of the Catholic church is brought up the water basins are brought out and the justifications begin. Here we go.
Henry VIII did not execute Tyndale. He wanted him dead no doubt, but he was executed on the continent (Seventeen Provinces/modern day Belgium if I remember correctly) , not England and he was executed after an inquisition trial.
“Of course, it also helps that you could not even own or read a Bible on your own unless you had permission to do so by a Bishop.”
In England, after 1408, yes. Elsewhere that was not the case.
“The cost of putting together a Bible, whether in Latin or English, is the same,”
False. It was more expensive to publish an English Bible for three reasons: 1) Latin Bibles abounded and were thus relatively inexpensive to copy, 2) English Bibles did not exist in complete form and a translator would have to work on such a project for years. That’s expensive., 3) Latin is a more compact language than English which can mean fewer pages and less cost.
“so it does not follow that this is a real excuse for the RCC forbidding translations in the common language for people to actually understand.”
There NEVER was a general prohibition against “translations in the common language for people to actually understand.” I know of two regional prohibitions - not comprehensive by any means - and both were in regard to specific heretical movements.
“A Latin Bible belched out by a Priest is meaningless to 99 percent of the congregation, and they have to rely on the Priest’s interpretation and translation on the spot, instead of reading an English or other scripture in the common language.”
You - unless you know Hebrew or Greek - rely on a Protestant translator. So?
“Of course, thanks be to God, we no longer have to get permission from the Bishop or the RCC to even use a Bible!”
Unless you were English after 1408 or in France during the Albigensian heresy you never needed anyone’s permission in the first place. But why let reality interfere with someone’s anti-Catholic fantasy, right?
“Gimme that ol’ time religion,
it’s good enough for me.”
“Unless you were English after 1408 or in France during the Albigensian heresy you never needed anyone’s permission in the first place. But why let reality interfere with someone’s anti-Catholic fantasy, right?”
Or, if you are a Papist, you wouldn’t want anyone to interfere with your fantasy, right? On the general prohibition of reading the scripture in the vernacular, limited to the permission of the church:
“It is only in the beginning of the last five hundred years that we meet with a general law of the Church concerning the reading of the Bible in the vernacular. 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 from 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.” (The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on ..., Volume 13, edited by Charles George Herbermann, Edward Aloysius Pace, Condé Bénoist Pallen, Thomas Joseph Shahan, John Joseph Wynne, Pg. 640)
Read more: http://www.peacebyjesus.net/ancients_on_scripture.html#supplementary#ixzz2imIFZOMi";
“False. It was more expensive to publish an English Bible for three reasons: 1) Latin Bibles abounded and were thus relatively inexpensive to copy, 2) English Bibles did not exist in complete form and a translator would have to work on such a project for years. That’s expensive., 3) Latin is a more compact language than English which can mean fewer pages and less cost.”
The other Papist on this thread just got done lauding all these Catholic translators, and even gave the printing press to the glory of Catholicism. So, which is it? Was it too expensive to produce an English Bible, or wasn’t it? Were there no translators who could do it, or were there? Or was there a bunch of English Papist Bibles about that the evil Tyndale sought to replace, because there was no demand for an English Bible at all? So which is it?
“On the general prohibition of reading the scripture in the vernacular, limited to the permission of the church:”
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. The rules were more about creating a framework to use to oppress heresy wherever it was believed to appear - and heretics misuse of scripture - rather than any actual effort to curb the use of vernacular Bible among the laity. This is shown by the many millions of Catholic Bibles produced and distributed ever since. That’s the reality.
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