Bible-Burners (build it yourself bibles)

New Oxford Review ^ | February 2004 | Dwight Longenecker

[NYer]

Tales continue to circulate about how the Catholic Church opposed translating the Bible into the vernacular. But the Church has never opposed that. After all, the Vulgate was originally translated by St. Jerome to make the Bible available in the vernacular of the day, Latin, which continued to be the lingua franca of educated Europe up to the late 18th century and beyond. Nor were the Reformers the first to translate the Bible into more modern European languages. The Catholic Church approved of Gutenberg's German Bible in 1455. The first printed Flemish edition came out in 1477. Two Italian versions of the Bible were printed in 1471, and a Catalan version came out in 1478. A Polish Bible was translated in 1516, and the earliest English version was published in 1525. Most of these were editions of the entire Bible. Individual books had appeared in the vernacular centuries earlier. The first English-language Gospel of John, for example, was translated by the Venerable Bede into Anglo-Saxon in the year 735.

The Church didn't object to William Tyndale's translating the Bible into English. Rather, she objected to the Protestant notes and Protestant bias that accompanied the translation. Tyndale's translation came complete with prologue and footnotes condemning Church doctrines and teachings. Even King Henry VIII in 1531 condemned the Tyndale Bible as a corruption of Scripture. In the words of King Henry's advisors: "the translation of the Scripture corrupted by William Tyndale should be utterly expelled, rejected, and put away out of the hands of the people…."

Protestant Bishop Tunstall of London declared that there were upwards of 2,000 errors in Tyndale's Bible. Tyndale translated the term Baptism into "washing," Scripture into "writing," Holy Ghost into "Holy Wind," bishop into "overseer," priest into "elder," deacon into "minister," heresy into "choice," martyr into "witness," etc. In his footnotes, Tyndale referred to the occupant of the Chair of Peter as "that great idol, the whore of Babylon, the anti-Christ of Rome."

The Catholic response was not to burn the Bible, but to burn Tyndale's Bible. This was an age when making your own version of the Bible seemed to be all the rage. The Reformers cut out the Deuterocanonical Books, Luther wanted to get rid of the Epistle of James as well as Hebrews, Jude, and Revelation because they didn't agree with his theory of justification. The Reformers themselves fought about which version of the Bible was best. Zwingli said of Luther's German version of the Bible, "Thou corruptest the word of God, O Luther; thou art seen to be a manifest corrupter of the holy scripture; how much are we ashamed of thee…!" To which Luther politely answered, "Zwinglians are fools, asses and deceivers." At the same time Molinaeus, the French Reformed theologian, complained that Calvin "uses violence to the letter of the gospel, and besides this, adds to the text."

The Protestant Reformers may have been revolutionaries, but their revolution was extremist, not unlike that of the Taliban. This is exemplified by their zeal for destruction. Catholics burnt some Bibles, but the Protestants burned books on a scale that makes the Catholic fires look like the odd candle flame. In England, when the monasteries were suppressed, their libraries were most often destroyed as well. So the vast monastic libraries of religious texts encompassing many ancient, rare, and hand-copied Catholic Bibles were put to the flames. In 1544 in the Anglican controlled sections of Ireland, the Reformers put an immense number of ancient books, including Vulgate Bibles, onto the bonfires as they ransacked the monasteries and their libraries. In an effort to reduce the Catholic Irish to ignorance, King Henry VIII decreed that in Ireland the possession of a manuscript on any subject whatsoever (including sacred Scripture) should incur the death penalty.

King Henry VIII even burnt the Protestant Bibles of Tyndale, Coverdale, and Matthew, with the Catholic Latin Vulgate helping to feed the fires.

In 1582 The Rheims Catholic New Testament in English was issued. This Catholic version, with its accompanying notes, aroused the fiercest opposition in Protestant England. Queen Elizabeth ordered searches to seek out, confiscate, and destroy every copy. If a priest was found in possession of it, he was imprisoned. The Bible-burning wasn't limited to England. In 1522 Calvin had as many copies as could be found of the Servetus Bible burned, and later Calvin had Michael Servetus himself burned at the stake for being a Unitarian.

Sadly, the destruction was not limited to the burning of Bibles. Sixteenth-century England and Ireland witnessed the most monumental pillage of sacred property and destruction of Christian architecture, art, and craftwork the world has ever seen. In England between the winter of 1537 and spring 1540 over 318 monasteries and convents were destroyed. Parish churches were ransacked. Beautiful paintings and carvings were smashed. Sacred vestments and altar hangings with rich embroidery were confiscated and recycled into curtains and clothes. Vessels of the altar were stolen, melted down, and sold. The Protestants destroyed a religious heritage with the zeal and fury of terrorists, and what was left by the iconoclasts during the reign of Henry VIII was smashed further during the Puritan regime of Oliver Cromwell.

In France the Calvinists, in one year alone (1561), according to one of their own estimates, "murdered 4,000 priests, monks and nuns, expelled or maltreated 12,000 nuns, sacked 20,000 churches, and destroyed 2,000 monasteries" with their priceless libraries, Bibles, and works of art. The rare manuscript collection of the ancient monastery of Cluny was irreparably lost, along with many others.

Living in England, as I do, the legacy of this mindless destruction by anti-Catholic forces is present everywhere. A map of the countryside marks countless bare ruins of medieval monasteries, abbeys, and convents. Visit the medieval parish church in any village and you will notice the empty niches, the whitewashed walls, the side chapels turned into store-rooms, the stained-glass windows once riotous with pictures of the saints and stories from Scripture, now merely plain glass windows. The iconoclasm was followed by a campaign which, for three hundred years, continued to persecute Catholics relentlessly, while it concealed the destructive fury of the Protestant forces and continued to paint the Catholic Church as the incarnation of evil.

The final irony is that the very forces that pulled down and smashed the images of the saints in the medieval churches soon filled those same churches with carved memorial stones and statues of the rich and famous of their day. The figures of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints and angels are now replaced by figures of English military heroes, prime ministers, and forgotten landed aristocrats. The church which exemplifies this most is Westminster Abbey. Any Catholic visitor to London will be amazed at how this once proud Benedictine Abbey has been turned into a museum of English civil heroes. At every turn one finds statues of statesmen, kings, and politicians, while the heroes of the Christian faith are relegated to the margins.

Time does not heal all wounds. Terrible and violent events cannot simply be forgotten. Telling ourselves that certain things never happened is a lie. Saying that they don't matter now after so many years is another form of the same lie. Terrible events need to be faced, acknowledged, repented of, and forgiven. The violent events and terrible persecution of both Catholics and Protestants can only be put right through repentance and mutual forgiveness.

Catholics must own up to their own faults and sins of the past. In the Jubilee Year, Pope John Paul II took an amazing step forward with his historic mea culpa for the sins of Catholics. On Ash Wednesday in the year 2000 he led the Catholic Church in a public act of repentance. However, this admission of guilt and act of repentance has been met here in England and throughout the Protestant world with stony silence. Not one Protestant leader has offered a similar corporate examination of the past. Isn't it time that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Queen of England took the lead as international Protestant leaders, and offered their own reassessment of the past? If they did so, maybe others would follow and the process of healing could begin.

[AnAmericanMother]

Your timeline's off.

Mary Tudor didn't marry Philip of Spain until AFTER she was legitimated and crowned queen (1553) - long after Henry was dead and after Edward VI's reign in between. So Henry didn't make ANY decisions based on Mary's marriage . . . because at that point he'd been dead for years.

[AnAmericanMother]

To Banbery came I, O prophane one
Where I saw a Puritane-one,
A-hanging of his Cat on Monday,
For killing of a Mouse on Sonday

[dangus]

Well, Luther asserted that the deuterocanonical books were apocrypha that were not originally part of the scripture. He had been deceived by their absence from the Jewish scriptures of his day. For a Protestant acknowledgment that the deuterocanonical books were part of a Pre-Christian canon, see here: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-73165 (Qumran)

For acknowledgment that the Alexandrian canon -- the one universally read by Hellenic Jews at the time of Christ -- included "additional chapters" of Daniel and Esther, see here: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-73164

Or here, describing how the post-Christian Council of Jamnia is where the Jews first rejected the deuterocanonicals, in 70 AD: http://biblescripture.net/Canon.html

Given that we KNOW for certainty that Luther was wrong, I can't BEGIN to tell you how the "Reformers" justify excluding the deuterocanonicals.

But this is just wierd:

Luther and the Reformers claim "sola scriptura": If it isn't in the bible, it's a false doctrine. (Of course sola scriptura isn't in the bible.)

But at the Diet of Worms, the Catholic Church convincingly proved to Luther that the doctrines he so detested actually WERE in scripture.

Luther then reasoned that if what SEEMED to be scripture contained doctrines he hated, it couldn't possibly be true scripture. Seizing apon the fact that the Jews didn't consider many of hte most problemmatic books to be scripture, Luther used that as a justification that they weren't scripture. (Of course, he was unbothered by the fact that the Jews accepted NONE of the New TEstament...)

But Luther was ignorant of two matters. 1. There were other defenses of the doctrines he hated in the bible; the Diet of Worms merely stated some of the easiest defenses. 2. The books WERE, in fact, treated as scripture by Jews until the Council of Jamnia in 70 AD.

At this time, the assertion that the deuterocanonicals had ever, at any time, been considered non-scriptural by any orthodox Christian* at any time prior to Luther is so strongly refuted that the assertion constitues an outright deliberate lie by any knowledgeable person who repeats it, but unfortunate the lie is so pervasive in American society, it is cited as fact in many of the very same reference books which include the positive debunking of the fact, including the Oxford Biblical Commentary, the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, etc. Hence, it is commonly repeated as "common knowledge" by many people who plainly acknowledge its falseness!

(*By orthodox Christian, I mean only to exclude Judaizers and those who sought to exclude all traces of Judaism from Christianity, such as the Manicheans.)

[Smokin' Joe]

In Maryland, in the 1730s there was a Protestant Reformation.

(Ironic, as Protestants had been allowed to settle in a predominantly Catholic colony which was founded on the basis of freedom of religion.)

To escape hanging, a Jesuit priest sold himself to one of my ancestors, and thus became property of the Manor Lord, and untouchable under English Law. He was redeemed (purchased his freedom back) after things had settled down.

Others were hanged without such protection. The reaction was brutal and violent, and largely not understandable by today's standards, in which we all get along, even if we disagree.

Northern Ireland is a notable exception, but there are political implications there as well.

[Conservative til I die]

America is the result of this division and has prospered from it.

First off, America is a moral toilet.

Second, I believe the Bible says that true prosperity is about storing up treasure in Heaven, not on Earth. I know that doesn't jibe with society as a whole's self-worship and mammon-worship (not to mention certain elements of the Right's worship of America and worship of President G.W. Bush), but...

[Señor Zorro]

The comment to which I was responding was somewhat obnoxious in its dismissal of books found in the Catholic Bible. It showed "snippy" behavior (at best) or outright ignorance (most likely from a 19-year-old) at worst.

I was neither snippy nor ignorant. I knew how the Apocrypha was eliminated. I don't claim perfect knowledge, though. Your ad-hominem is a discredit to your opinions and faith and if you have nothing more to offer, I will not reply.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

cutting the stomachs of pregnant Protestant women and ripping out the babies while the mother was still alive, by the thousands

And where was that done???

As I understand it, the violent actions of the Protestants was in response to the murderous, heineous crimes perpetrated by the Catholics in England and throughout Europe AND in the period known as the dark ages; 500-1500 A.D. where the Catholic church murdered anything that moved that wouldn't bow down to the pope...

Could you detail these murders and crimes?

And, as I understand it, the Catholic church has for centuries claimed anyone outside the church to be anathema and worthy of death

Anathema is equivalent to a solemn excommunication.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

You are seriously embracing the Albigensians/Cathars as Protestant Christians?

[Señor Zorro]

I was asking more about the sections of Daniel specifically. It appears as though they were rejected because they were written in Greek rather than Hebrew. I am already familiar with the Apocrypha's history. I cannot view full-text of Britannica (requires a subscription).

As I am sure you are aware, the Apocrypha was not first disputed by Luther. Jerome disputed it in the fifth century. The Catholic church itself did not declare the books canonical until the Council of Trent in 1546. Both Luther (http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/apocryph.htm) and Jerome (http://www.justforcatholics.org/a108.htm) considered them "good reading", but not authoritative.

Luther and the Reformers claim "sola scriptura": If it isn't in the bible, it's a false doctrine. (Of course sola scriptura isn't in the bible.)

I believe you have misrepresented sola scriptura. I think it is better boiled down to (and, remember, definitions of sola scriptura are not universal) "the Bible alone is inerrant." This is opposed to the teaching of the Catholic church, which declares that the pope, when acting in the capacity of his office, makes a declaration it is also inerrant (divinely inspired).

Or, as A.A. Hodge put it, "Whatever God teaches or commands is of sovereign authority. Whatever conveys to us an infallible knowledge of his teachings and commands is an infallible rule. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the only organs through which, during the present dispensation, God conveys to us a knowledge of his will about what we are to believe concerning himself, and what duties he requires of us." This does not equate to "whatever not found in the Bible is false."
I contend that the Bible alone is inerrant. There are things that are true that are not found in the Bible, but nothing is true that contradicts it (and the Catholic Church has contradicted it).

Martin Luther was a godly man (though by no means inerrant) who has done much good for the Kingdom of God and, in doing so, changed the course of history. I am tired of hearing him bashed.

The Jews were guilty of adding to the Scriptures even if you discount the Apocrypha. Jesus denounced the Pharisees for this (Matthew 15:3-9). As for not being able to understand why Protestants reject the Apocrypha, the typical reasons I know are on this page: http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/apocryph.htm. For this page I offer one note: the author states that Catholics are not Christians. I would counter that anyone who believes everything the Catholic church teaches is not a Christian, but that there are Christians in the Catholic church. If you looked at my FR homepage, you know one of my favorite authors is GK Chesterton--a Catholic.
The finding of Tobias, Sirach, Letter of Jeremiah, and Psalm 151 at Qumran answer only the first objection and only for those books.

Which of Luther's teachings were proven false through Scripture at Worms and what were the arguments used to refute them? The Exsurge Domine does not refute anything. It just makes forty-one declarations.

The Catholics themselves have rejected books from the Septuagint. III Macabees, I Esdras, and the Prayer of Manasseh. Why did the Roman Church reject those as non-canonical?

Whatever you hold, there is one fundamental aspect to this whole thing to keep in mind: acceptance of a canon (by anyone in any religion) is a matter of faith. No Christian can ever prove that any set of books is the word of God, but by the Holy Spirit working in us we can sense truth, are convicted of our crime and are brought before the cross to confess our sins and be cleansed in the fiery river of Jesus's blood spilled for us that whoseoever believes may have life and have it to the fullest. Whatever else we may agree or disagree on, let us agree on these (no, I am not shying from the discussion at hand; as humans it is always good for us to remember the broader picture):

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son." John 3:16-18

"If anyone does not love the Lord—a curse be on him. Come, O Lord! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you." 1 Corinthians 16:22-23

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Ummm ... okay, but there was no Catholic Church in England in 1538. Henry VIII had nationalized it.

[Gamecock]

Nah. I guess the RC church was right in slaughtering them. < /sarcasm>

[Hermann the Cherusker]

as far as the church of england repenting for the sins of killing catholics I think it would be a good idea to do as the catholics have done but I think that would be like me saying I am sorry for slavery or the Holocaust I wasn't there I didn't do or support and of it.

But given the sinfulness of human nature, had you been there, you probably would have acquiesced. Its easy today to say you wouldn't have cooperated.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

George Washington and the Continental army burned down loyalist houses and buildings--were they terrorists too?

Yes, but they won, so they got to write the history. The reason they had to pledge their lives, fortunes and sacred honor was because they were formally committing treason and acts of terrorism in an organized conspriacy against established state authority.

The cause was righteous, but lets not forget this background. Had they lost, it would have been up the long ladder and down the short rope for them, with a nice little snap of the neck at the end.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Just for your information, before the Reformation, the canonicity of what you call the deuterocanonical books had not been officially decided by Rome.

Yes it had. See the Decree of Damasus of AD 381, the Decree of Gelasius of AD 492, the Decree of the Council of Florence of AD 1438, all establishing the current Catholic Canon with dogmatic exactitude.

Loyal Roman Catholic scholars were on both sides of the issue.

No they weren't.

Since Judaism had excluded these pre-Christian Jewish texts from their canon in about 100 AD, there was a good argument for Christians to follow suit

And those reasons were .... ?????

Rome officially included them...but even then calling them secondary-canonical (the literal meaning of deuterocanonical).

They are nowhere called that in any Roman decree.

They are good for history and understanding ancient Jewish culture, but do not have the authority of God's word.

According solely to your own opinion. Do you have the mind of God, or an inside track to know what He has and has not inspired?

Just read the book of Tobit, and tell me that doesn't read like a fairy tale. Bears no resemblence to authentic scripture, but it does help us understand the Jewish mindset at the time of Jesus.

It isn't particularly dissimilar from the "fairy tales" concerning how Abraham got his wife pregnant, how Isaac and Jacob got their wives, or of Joseph, Moses, and Daniel interpreting dreams.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Likewise, there are a few other "apocrypha" which historical records suggests have been used in certain liturgical contexts, although they possess no unique doctrine, such as 3 Maccabees, and "Psalm 151." They may be found in certain Orthodox and Coptic bibles, but are not typically reprinted in the Catholic bibles.

These along with the 3 Esdras you mention and 4 Esdras (which is used in the Requiem Mass for the chant "Reqiuem aeternum") are part of the appendix to the official Vulgate, if I have my books straight.

[Sloth]

Tyndale translated the term Baptism into "washing," Scripture into "writing," Holy Ghost into "Holy Wind," bishop into "overseer," priest into "elder," deacon into "minister," heresy into "choice," martyr into "witness," etc.

Uh, most of those are accurate translations.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

On the other hand, foreign words like "episcopos"/bishop, "presbyteros"/priest, could obscure the plain meaning of the sentences. The one who speaks in an unknown tongue, speaks mysteries -- but the one who wants to be understood, translates it into the vernacular.

Ummm ... Bishop - (e)Biscop(os) - and Priest - Pres(by)t(eros) - are the literal transliterations of new words into English, where no previous word would correctly convey the intended meaning. You are aware that we do this sort of thing all the time in languages, aren't you? If we stuck to "pure vernacular English" you'd need to throw out every word of Latin, Greek, or French origin, which is about 60% of modern English.

[sanormal]

Sorry, you have misunderstood my post which is my fault.

I was establishing a political parallel between Henry and what would happen later with his daughter.

Henry's marriage to Catherine was made in order to solidify English independence against French attacks on English lands on the Continent. The Spanish pledged to support Henry in this endeavor.

In 1519, Catherine's nephew, Charles was elected Holy Roman Empire uniting the Kingdom of Spain with most of Western Europe. Henry was now married into the Imperial family. ANY heir that Henry and Catherine would have would inherit inferior vassal status in relation to the Holy Roman Empire.

Additionally, Charles was successfully waging war against the French and Italians, expanding his rule into Italy and important wars against Suleyman the Magnificent and the Ottomans in Vienna and Central Europe. Charles was the uber-Emperor styling himself as the first Imperial Majesty who ruled an Empire upon which the sun did not set.

The only path that would ensure England's independence was for Henry to remove his heirs from the Holy Roman Empire's dynastic totem pole. Hence his divorce and corresponding removal of Mary as heir.

Years later, Mary would use the marital strategy to ensure her rule. Her strategy was to wed to Charles' son, Philip. Unfortunately, this path would lead directly to vassalage for England and was strongly opposed by the English for this reason. Mary's choice brought a dilemma to English Catholics who understood that support for Queen Mary would lead to the end of England as a politically independent and sovereign kingdom.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Your timeline's off.

What's a little historical innaccuracy between friends?

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Nah. I guess the RC church was right in slaughtering them.

What natural law principals were violated in violently opposing a violent murder/suicide/death cult?