Persecuted for printing the Bible:

[H. Richard]

William Tyndale (1494-1536) Biblical translator and martyr; born most probably at North Nibley (15 miles south-west of Gloucester), England, in 1494; died at Vilvoorden (6 miles north-east of Brussels), Belgium, Oct. 6, 1536. Tyndale was descended from an ancient Northumbrian family, went to school at Oxford, and afterward to Magdalen Hall and Cambridge.

William Tyndale was the Captain of the Army of Reformers, and was their spiritual leader. He was the first person to take advantage of Gutenberg’s movable-type press for the purpose of printing the scriptures in the English language. Tyndale was a true scholar and a genius, so fluent in eight languages – Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, English, and German, that whichever he speaks, you might think it his native tongue! He is frequently referred to as the “Architect of the English Language”.

William Tyndale wanted to use the translations that are made directly from the originals, with the aid of the Erasmus 1516 Greek-Latin New Testament, and the best available Hebrew texts. In 1525, he had translated the New Testament into English. Tyndale had been forced to flee England, because of the wide-spread rumor that his English New Testament project was underway, causing inquisitors and bounty hunters to be constantly on Tyndale's trail to arrest him and prevent his project. God foiled their plans, and in 1525-1526 the Tyndale New Testament became the first printed edition of the scripture in the English language. His Bible translation also included notes and commentary promoting views that were considered heretical, first by the Catholic Church, and later by the Church of England which was established by Henry VIII .

Tyndale Bibles were burned as soon as the Bishop could confiscate them, but copies trickled through and actually ended up in the bedroom of King Henry VIII. The more the King and Bishop resisted its distribution, the more fascinated the public at large became. The church declared it contained thousands of errors as they torched hundreds of New Testaments confiscated by the clergy, while in fact, they burned them because they could find no errors at all. One risked death by burning if caught in mere possession of Tyndale's forbidden Bible

Today, there are only two known copies left of Tyndale’s 1525-26 First Edition. Any copies printed prior to 1570 are extremely valuable. Tyndale's flight was an inspiration to freedom-loving Englishmen who drew courage from the 11 years that he was hunted. Books and Bibles flowed into England in bales of cotton and sacks of flour. Ironically, Tyndale’s biggest customer was the King’s men, who would buy up every copy available to burn them… and Tyndale used their money to print even more! In the end, Tyndale was caught: betrayed by an Englishman that he had befriended. Tyndale was arrested and imprisoned in the castle of Vilvoorden for over 500 days of horrible conditions. He was tried for heresy and treason in a ridiculously unfair trial, and convicted. Tyndale was then strangled and burnt at the stake in the prison yard, Oct. 6, 1536. Tyndale’s last words were, "Oh Lord, open the King of England’s eyes". This prayer would be answered just three years later in 1539, when King Henry VIII finally allowed, and even funded, the printing of an English Bible known as the “Great Bible”.

As a poster of the closed post stated, it was true that Latin bible known as Latin Vulgate was around long before Tyndale Bible, It wasn't English but it wasn’t really shared with the common peasants. By the 1580's, the Roman Catholic Church saw that it had lost the battle to suppress the will of God: that His Holy Word be available in the English language. In 1582, the Church of Rome surrendered their fight for "Latin only" and decided that if the Bible was to be available in English, they would at least have an official Roman Catholic English translation. And so, using the Latin Vulgate as the only source text, they went on to publish an English Bible with all the distortions and corruptions that Erasmus had revealed and warned years earlier. What happen In the 1490’s, an Oxford professor, and the personal physician to King Henry the 7th and 8th, Thomas Linacre, decided to learn Greek. After reading the Gospels in Greek, and comparing it to the Latin Vulgate, he wrote in his diary, “Either this (the original Greek) is not the Gospel… or we are not Christians.” The Latin had become so bad that it no longer even preserved the message of the Gospel… yet the Church still threatened to kill anyone who read the scripture in any language other than Latin… though Latin was not an original language of the scriptures.

Quote:
Phrasing it this way makes it sound as if the heresy Tyndale was condemned for was the act of translating the Bible into English. This is a common mistake and often repeated. In fact, when doing a bit of research for this article, I came across several web sites on Tyndale that said just this. One stated, "Translating the Bible was considered a heresy" (ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/geoff_whiley/tyndale.htm). Another proclaimed that in 1408 a law was enacted that forbade the translation of the Bible into English and also made reading the Bible illegal (britannia.com/bios/tyndale.html).


when the facts that quite a few others were burned at the stake for translating the Bible and history has shown that there were a lot more ways to be burned at the stake (one of them is just by being an Anabaptist but that is another thread) between 1300 to 1700 between the P and the C, it is no wonder it was called the Dark Ages.

When reading the above, it is clearly seen the reasons why RCC have a thing against Sola Scriptura. This last line is strictly my Opinion from my observation.

 

[Mungo]

The idea that the catholic Church forbade ordinary people to read the Bible, or didn’t want it translated into local languages is a protestant fiction.

The early Church used the Greek LXX Old Testament and the NT was written Greek anyway. So those that could read, read it in Greek, which was the lingua franca of the day. Later translations were also made into Latin. At the end of the fourth century Jerome, tri-lingual in Greek, Latin and Hebrew, made an updated Latin translation using Hebrew and Greek as well as earlier Latin texts. This was completed around 405 AD. However in 406 the barbarian hoards crossed the Rhine and swept into Gaul and Spain, and three years later Italy was attacked and in 410 Rome itself was sacked by Alaric of the Visigoths. Europe descended into barbarism. Learning was kept alive by the Church and Latin was the language of those that could read or write, and not many could.

As the Church expanded translations were made into local languages. For example at the beginning of the eighth century the Venerable Bede, living in his monastery in Jarrow in North East England, translated the Bible (or at least some of it) into Anglo-Saxon. Some say the whole Bible, but according to his scribe, the Deacon Cuthbert, he just completed translating John’s gospel before he died. I doubt he left that until last.

Saints Cyril and Methodius converted the Moravians in the 9th century and created the forerunner of the Cyrillic alphabet to translate the Bible into the local language.

Even earlier, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “In 406 the Armenian alphabet was invented by Mesrob, who five years later completed a translation of the Old and New Testament from the Syriac version into Armenian.”

Regarding English here are a couple of relevant quotes from "Where We Got the Bible" by Father Henry G. Graham, chapter 11 which is entitled "Abundance of Vernacular Scriptures before Wycliff" (more on this book later)

“....After the Norman conquest in 1066, Anglo-Norman or Middle-English became the language of England, and consequently the next translations of the Bible we meet with are in that tongue. There are several specimens still known, such as the paraphrase of Orm (about 1150) and the Salus Animae (1050), the translations of William Shoreham and Richard Rolle, hermit of Hampole (died 1349). I say advisedly 'specimens' for those that have come down to us are merely indications of a much greater number that once existed, but afterwards perished.....”

“Moreover, the 'Reformed' Archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer, says, in his preface to the Bible of 1540: 'The Holy Bible was translated and read in the Saxon tongue, which at that time was our mother tongue, whereof there remaineth yet divers copies found in old Abbeys, of such antique manner of writing and speaking that few men now be able to read and understand them. And when this language waxed old and out of common use, because folks should not lack the fruit of reading, it was again translated into the newer language, whereof yet also many copies remain and be daily found.'”

The two biggest problems for the common man in owning and reading the Bible was that:

1. He couldn’t read
2. He couldn’t afford a Bible.

During Bede’s life the Abbot of Bede’s monastery commissioned the monks to produce three complete Bibles. Each Bible used the hides from 1,030 calves to provide the vellum with nine scribes working on each Bible. When complete one Bible weighed 75 pounds and with its protective box would have taken two men to carry it. Not exactly the thing to slip into your back pocket!

Even when Gutenberg invented the printing press the early ones were very expensive.

The first book off Gutenberg’s press was a Bible – in Latin because that is what educated people used. The cost was almost a years wages for a master craftsman (in paper – 2 years wages for the parchment version).

However for cheap books you need more than just a printing press. You need cheap paper, produced in commercial quantities.

The first paper mill north of the alps was not built until 1390. The first commercially successful paper mill in England was built by John Spilman in Dartford in 1588..

Here are some dates of translations into vernacular languages before Martin Luther printed his German translation.:
By 400AD translations existed in Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Georgian Languages.
405 Jerome’s translation in the Latin (common language of the Roman Empire in the West.
406 Translation into Armenian
7th Century – First translation into French, First translation into German.
8th Century – first translation into English (Anglo Saxon) by Bede
9th Century – first translation into the Slavic language by Cyril and Methodius
1170 – First parallel English Language Bible, Eadwine's Psalterium triplex, which contained the Latin version accompanied by Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Saxon English language renderings.
13thcentury – first translation into Spanish under King AlfonsoV
1300 - first translation into Norwegian
1454 – Catholic Gutenberg produced the first printed Bibles
1466 – first printed German Bible , 58 years before Luther’s
1470 – first printed Scandanvian Bible
1477 – first printed Italian Bible In the years before Luther's Bible was published, the Catholics printed 20 different Italian editions of the Bible.
1475 – first printed Dutch Bible
1466 – first printed French Bible

Yes, there were plenty of vernacular versions produced with full approval by the catholic Church.

Going back to English:
The following quotations are from the book Where We Got The Bible, Chapter 11, An Abundance of Vernacular Scriptures before Wycliffe by The Right Rev. HENRY G. GRAHAM

The Anglo Saxon Period:
“To begin far back, we have a copy of the work of Caedmon, a monk of Whitby, in the end of the seventh century, consisting of great portions of the Bible in the common tongue. In the next century we have the well-known translations of Venerable Bede, a monk of Jarrow, who died whilst busy with the Gospel of St. John. In the same (eighth) century we have the copies of Eadhelm, Bishop of Sherborne; of Guthlac, a hermit near Peterborough; and of Egbert, Bishop of Holy Island; these were all in Saxon, the language understood and spoken by the Christians of that time. Coming down a little later, we have the free translations of King Alfred the Great who was working at the Psalms when he died, and of Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury; as well as popular renderings of Holy Scripture like the Book of Durham, and the Rushworth Gloss and others that have survived the wreck of ages.”


The Anglo Norman or Middle English Period:
“After the Norman conquest in 1066, Anglo-Norman or Middle-English became the language of England, and consequently the next translations of the Bible we meet with are in that tongue. There are several specimens still known, such as the paraphrase of Orm (about 1150) and the Salus Animae (1050), the translations of William Shoreham and Richard Rolle, hermit of Hampole (died 1349). I say advisedly 'specimens' for those that have come down to us are merely indications of a much greater number that once existed, but afterwards perished.


Witness of Thomas Moore, Chancellor of England under Henry VIII who says:
'The whole Bible long before Wycliff's day was by virtuous and well-learned men translated into the English tongue, and by good and godly people with devotion and soberness well and reverently read' (Dialogues III).
And;
'The clergy keep no Bibles from the laity but such translations as be either not yet approved for good, or such as be already reproved for naught as Wycliff's was. For, as for old ones that were before Wycliff's days, they remain lawful and be in some folks' hand. I myself have seen, and can show you, Bibles, fair and old which have been known and seen by the Bishop of the Diocese, and left in laymen's hands and women's too, such as he knew for good and Catholic folk, that used them with soberness and devotion.'”


Fr, Graham summarises :
[SIZE=10pt]“There is no need, it seems to me, to waste further time and space in accumulating proofs that the Bible was known, read and distributed by the Catholic Church in the common language of the people in all countries from the 7th down to the 14th century. I have paid more attention to the case of [/SIZE][SIZE=10pt]England[/SIZE][SIZE=10pt] because of the popularity of the myth about Wycliff having been the first to translate it, and to enable the poor blinded Papists, for the first time in their experience, to behold the Figure of the Christ of the Gospels in 1382. Such a grotesque notion can only be due either to ignorance or concealment of the now well-known facts of history. One would fain hope that, in this age of enlightenment and study, no one valuing his scholarship will so far imperil it as to attempt to revive the silly fable.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]It seems his hope was in vain[/SIZE]

 

[Mungo]

Protestants ban the reading of the Bible

Interestingly Protestants did officially ban the reading of the Bible.

“1543 was to bring its own catastrophic set-back for the cause of reform, the notorious Act, passed on 10th May, "for the advancement of true religion"... Severe penalties were therefore imposed on those who had or kept any books containing doctrines contrary to those authorised since 1540. The Act targeted unauthorised versions of the scriptures, in particular Tyndale's New Testament, and it forbade altogether the reading of scripture in private by "women… artificers, prentices, journeymen, serving men of the degrees of yeomen or under, husbandmen or labourers.", though noble and gentlewomen might read the Bible in private. Persistent clerical offenders against this Act might be burned, laymen were subject to forfeiture of goods and perpetual imprisonment.”
(Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars pp432-433)

 

[H. Richard]

The idea that the catholic Church forbade ordinary people to read the Bible, or didn’t want it translated into local languages is a protestant fiction.

The early Church used the Greek LXX Old Testament and the NT was written Greek anyway. So those that could read, read it in Greek, which was the lingua franca of the day. Later translations were also made into Latin. At the end of the fourth century Jerome, tri-lingual in Greek, Latin and Hebrew, made an updated Latin translation using Hebrew and Greek as well as earlier Latin texts. This was completed around 405 AD. However in 406 the barbarian hoards crossed the Rhine and swept into Gaul and Spain, and three years later Italy was attacked and in 410 Rome itself was sacked by Alaric of the Visigoths. Europe descended into barbarism. Learning was kept alive by the Church and Latin was the language of those that could read or write, and not many could.

As the Church expanded translations were made into local languages. For example at the beginning of the eighth century the Venerable Bede, living in his monastery in Jarrow in North East England, translated the Bible (or at least some of it) into Anglo-Saxon. Some say the whole Bible, but according to his scribe, the Deacon Cuthbert, he just completed translating John’s gospel before he died. I doubt he left that until last.

Saints Cyril and Methodius converted the Moravians in the 9th century and created the forerunner of the Cyrillic alphabet to translate the Bible into the local language.

Even earlier, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “In 406 the Armenian alphabet was invented by Mesrob, who five years later completed a translation of the Old and New Testament from the Syriac version into Armenian.”

Regarding English here are a couple of relevant quotes from "Where We Got the Bible" by Father Henry G. Graham, chapter 11 which is entitled "Abundance of Vernacular Scriptures before Wycliff" (more on this book later)

“....After the Norman conquest in 1066, Anglo-Norman or Middle-English became the language of England, and consequently the next translations of the Bible we meet with are in that tongue. There are several specimens still known, such as the paraphrase of Orm (about 1150) and the Salus Animae (1050), the translations of William Shoreham and Richard Rolle, hermit of Hampole (died 1349). I say advisedly 'specimens' for those that have come down to us are merely indications of a much greater number that once existed, but afterwards perished.....”

“Moreover, the 'Reformed' Archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer, says, in his preface to the Bible of 1540: 'The Holy Bible was translated and read in the Saxon tongue, which at that time was our mother tongue, whereof there remaineth yet divers copies found in old Abbeys, of such antique manner of writing and speaking that few men now be able to read and understand them. And when this language waxed old and out of common use, because folks should not lack the fruit of reading, it was again translated into the newer language, whereof yet also many copies remain and be daily found.'”

The two biggest problems for the common man in owning and reading the Bible was that:

1. He couldn’t read
2. He couldn’t afford a Bible.

During Bede’s life the Abbot of Bede’s monastery commissioned the monks to produce three complete Bibles. Each Bible used the hides from 1,030 calves to provide the vellum with nine scribes working on each Bible. When complete one Bible weighed 75 pounds and with its protective box would have taken two men to carry it. Not exactly the thing to slip into your back pocket!

Even when Gutenberg invented the printing press the early ones were very expensive.

The first book off Gutenberg’s press was a Bible – in Latin because that is what educated people used. The cost was almost a years wages for a master craftsman (in paper – 2 years wages for the parchment version).

However for cheap books you need more than just a printing press. You need cheap paper, produced in commercial quantities.

The first paper mill north of the alps was not built until 1390. The first commercially successful paper mill in England was built by John Spilman in Dartford in 1588..

Here are some dates of translations into vernacular languages before Martin Luther printed his German translation.:
By 400AD translations existed in Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Georgian Languages.
405 Jerome’s translation in the Latin (common language of the Roman Empire in the West.
406 Translation into Armenian
7th Century – First translation into French, First translation into German.
8th Century – first translation into English (Anglo Saxon) by Bede
9th Century – first translation into the Slavic language by Cyril and Methodius
1170 – First parallel English Language Bible, Eadwine's Psalterium triplex, which contained the Latin version accompanied by Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Saxon English language renderings.
13thcentury – first translation into Spanish under King AlfonsoV
1300 - first translation into Norwegian
1454 – Catholic Gutenberg produced the first printed Bibles
1466 – first printed German Bible , 58 years before Luther’s
1470 – first printed Scandanvian Bible
1477 – first printed Italian Bible In the years before Luther's Bible was published, the Catholics printed 20 different Italian editions of the Bible.
1475 – first printed Dutch Bible
1466 – first printed French Bible

Yes, there were plenty of vernacular versions produced with full approval by the catholic Church.

Going back to English:
The following quotations are from the book Where We Got The Bible, Chapter 11, An Abundance of Vernacular Scriptures before Wycliffe by The Right Rev. HENRY G. GRAHAM

The Anglo Saxon Period:
“To begin far back, we have a copy of the work of Caedmon, a monk of Whitby, in the end of the seventh century, consisting of great portions of the Bible in the common tongue. In the next century we have the well-known translations of Venerable Bede, a monk of Jarrow, who died whilst busy with the Gospel of St. John. In the same (eighth) century we have the copies of Eadhelm, Bishop of Sherborne; of Guthlac, a hermit near Peterborough; and of Egbert, Bishop of Holy Island; these were all in Saxon, the language understood and spoken by the Christians of that time. Coming down a little later, we have the free translations of King Alfred the Great who was working at the Psalms when he died, and of Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury; as well as popular renderings of Holy Scripture like the Book of Durham, and the Rushworth Gloss and others that have survived the wreck of ages.”


The Anglo Norman or Middle English Period:
“After the Norman conquest in 1066, Anglo-Norman or Middle-English became the language of England, and consequently the next translations of the Bible we meet with are in that tongue. There are several specimens still known, such as the paraphrase of Orm (about 1150) and the Salus Animae (1050), the translations of William Shoreham and Richard Rolle, hermit of Hampole (died 1349). I say advisedly 'specimens' for those that have come down to us are merely indications of a much greater number that once existed, but afterwards perished.


Witness of Thomas Moore, Chancellor of England under Henry VIII who says:
'The whole Bible long before Wycliff's day was by virtuous and well-learned men translated into the English tongue, and by good and godly people with devotion and soberness well and reverently read' (Dialogues III).
And;
'The clergy keep no Bibles from the laity but such translations as be either not yet approved for good, or such as be already reproved for naught as Wycliff's was. For, as for old ones that were before Wycliff's days, they remain lawful and be in some folks' hand. I myself have seen, and can show you, Bibles, fair and old which have been known and seen by the Bishop of the Diocese, and left in laymen's hands and women's too, such as he knew for good and Catholic folk, that used them with soberness and devotion.'”


Fr, Graham summarises :
[SIZE=10pt]“There is no need, it seems to me, to waste further time and space in accumulating proofs that the Bible was known, read and distributed by the Catholic Church in the common language of the people in all countries from the 7th down to the 14th century. I have paid more attention to the case of [/SIZE][SIZE=10pt]England[/SIZE][SIZE=10pt] because of the popularity of the myth about Wycliff having been the first to translate it, and to enable the poor blinded Papists, for the first time in their experience, to behold the Figure of the Christ of the Gospels in 1382. Such a grotesque notion can only be due either to ignorance or concealment of the now well-known facts of history. One would fain hope that, in this age of enlightenment and study, no one valuing his scholarship will so far imperil it as to attempt to revive the silly fable.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]It seems his hope was in vain[/SIZE]

Then why did the RCC have William Tyndale burned at the stake?

From the OP; God foiled their plans, and in 1525-1526 the Tyndale New Testament became the first printed edition of the scripture in the English language. His Bible translation also included notes and commentary promoting views that were considered heretical, first by the Catholic Church, and later by the Church of England which was established by Henry VIII .

 

[tom55]

Then why did the RCC have William Tyndale burned at the stake?

From the OP; God foiled their plans, and in 1525-1526 the Tyndale New Testament became the first printed edition of the scripture in the English language. His Bible translation also included notes and commentary promoting views that were considered heretical, first by the Catholic Church, and later by the Church of England which was established by Henry VIII .

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, and not be suffered to go abroad among his subjects." Protestant Bishop Tunstall of London declared that there were upwards of 2,000 errors in Tyndale's Bible.
He was arrested and tried (and sentenced to die) in the court of the Holy Roman Emperor NOT by the RCC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire

He wasn't persecuted for printing the bible. He MIS-translated the bible. Would you want to read the words of God that were not true or accurate?

(He should not have been executed for it)

 

[Mungo]

Then why did the RCC have William Tyndale burned at the stake?

From the OP; God foiled their plans, and in 1525-1526 the Tyndale New Testament became the first printed edition of the scripture in the English language. His Bible translation also included notes and commentary promoting views that were considered heretical, first by the Catholic Church, and later by the Church of England which was established by Henry VIII .

Your question is a diversion.

That there were numerous version of the Bible in English before Tyndale is a historic fact, as I have shown.

That the Catholic Church approved many translations into local languages is a fact, as I have shown.

To question “why did the RCC have William Tyndale burned at the stake?” is to suggest that the above facts can be dismissed on account of the treatment of one person. They cannot be.

Whatever you think of the treatment of Tyndale it was not for printing Bibles per se. It is a separate issue

And it would seem that you answered your own question, though I have found no evidence that the Catholic Church wanted him killed. I understand that was done by the Imperial authorities.

Either way it has no bearing on the provision of Bibles in English by the Catholic Church.

Another point worth bearing in mind regarding English translations is that English was not (as it is today) a stable, uniform language.

William Caxton who was the first person to print a book in English related, in his preface to Eneydos (1490), how a group of London sailors headed down the Thames for Holland, and finding themselves becalmed went ashore and asked a local farmer’s woman “for mete and specially he axed for eggys. Shee looked at them blankly and answered that ‘she coude speake no frenshe’”. They had travelled only about 50 miles.

Caxton, born around 1415~1422, himself noted “And certainly our language now used varyeth ferre [far] from that which was used and spoken when I was borne.”

Educated people (who could read) spoke Latin which was a stable language.
From "Where We Got the Bible" by Father Henry G. Graham:
“The learned Protestant author, Dr. Cutts, in his book, Turning Points of English Church History, refers to this fact [that those who could read at all could read Latin] when he says: 'Another common error is that the clergy were unwilling that the laity should read the Bible for themselves, and carefully kept it in an unknown tongue that the people might not be able to read it. The truth is that most people who could read at all could read Latin, and would certainly prefer to read the authorised Vulgate to any vernacular version'”

And
“Mr. Karl Pearson (Academy, August, 1885),
'The Catholic Church has quite enough to answer for, but in the 15th century it certainly did not hold back the Bible from the folk: and it gave them in the vernacular (i.e. their own tongue) a long series of devotional works which for language and religious sentiment have never been surpassed.’”

 

[H. Richard]

I get it that those in the RCC will defend to the end their religion. But there is one thing they can not dismiss.

The RCC had many killed just because they refused to accept the RCC doctrine. They can hide behind all the words available but they can not defend the fact that the RCC is just as guilty of murder as the Pharisees were when they plotted and had Jesus murdered.

The Catholics did the same thing and that is why, I personally believe, they are an anti-Christ.

Now will come the garbage that the protestants did the same thing. That is just an excuse to justify the RCC of murder. Any religion that plots to harm others, or murders people is a false religion.

 

[H. Richard]

Your question is a diversion.

That there were numerous version of the Bible in English before Tyndale is a historic fact, as I have shown.

You have shown nothing but your words. My sources say that Tyndale was the first to published his Bible in English. His work later became important as a basis for the King James version of the Bible

My source is the "THE WORLD BOOK ENCYCLOPEDIA." Volume 19, Copyright 1990, USA by World Book, Inc.

It is not a work of the RCC.

 

[epostle1]

I get it that those in the RCC will defend to the end their religion. But there is one thing they can not dismiss.

The RCC had many killed just because they refused to accept the RCC doctrine. They can hide behind all the words available but they can not defend the fact that the RCC is just as guilty of murder as the Pharisees were when they plotted and had Jesus murdered.

The Catholics did the same thing and that is why, I personally believe, they are an anti-Christ.

Now will come the garbage that the protestants did the same thing. That is just an excuse to justify the RCC of murder. Any religion that plots to harm others, or murders people is a false religion.

This is nothing but hate speech, always asserted, but never documented. The only evidence you have is from psychotic anti-Catholics. Guess what, Richard: the Catholic Church has never ordered the death of anyone. You try to tear down the Church with myths just to justify your rebellion. Modern scholarship has exposed your myth making (Inquisition, Crusades) as Protestant propaganda. I would be happy to enlighten you with scholarly documentation that refutes your paranoid fundamentalist hate speech. You, so far, have offered nothing.

 

[heretoeternity]

Kepka and Mungo......Learn to call it Roman church please, you are misrepresenting everything including the name, because you are ashamed to call it Roman church right?

 

[epostle1]

You have shown nothing but your words. My sources say that Tyndale was the first to published his Bible in English. His work later became important as a basis for the King James version of the Bible

My source is the "THE WORLD BOOK ENCYCLOPEDIA." Volume 19, Copyright 1990, USA by World Book, Inc.

It is not a work of the RCC.

So what was the real reason William Tyndale was condemned? Was translating the Bible into English actually illegal? The answer is no. The law that was passed in 1408 was in reaction to another infamous translator, John Wycliff. Wycliff had produced a translation of the Bible that was corrupt and full of heresy. It was not an accurate rendering of sacred Scripture.

Both the Church and the secular authorities condemned it and did their best to prevent it from being used to teach false doctrine and morals. Because of the scandal it caused, the Synod of Oxford passed a law in 1408 that prevented any unauthorized translation of the Bible into English and also forbade the reading of such unauthorized translations.\

It is a fact usually ignored by Protestant historians that many English versions of the Scriptures existed before Wycliff, and these were authorized and perfectly legal (see Where We Got the Bible by Henry Graham, chapter 11, "Vernacular Scriptures Before Wycliff"). Also legal would be any future authorized translations. And certainly reading these translations was not only legal but also encouraged. All this law did was to prevent any private individual from publishing his own translation of Scripture without the approval of the Church.
Which, as it turns out, is just what William Tyndale did. Tyndale was an English priest of no great fame who desperately desired to make his own English translation of the Bible. The Church denied him for several reasons.

First, it saw no real need for a new English translation of the Scriptures at this time. In fact, booksellers were having a hard time selling the print editions of the Bible that they already had. Sumptuary laws had to be enacted to force people into buying them.

Second, we must remember that this was a time of great strife and confusion for the Church in Europe. The Reformation had turned the continent into a very volatile place. So far, England had managed to remain relatively unscathed, and the Church wanted to keep it that way. It was thought that adding a new English translation at this time would only add confusion and distraction where focus was needed.

Lastly, if the Church had decided to provide a new English translation of Scripture, Tyndale would not have been the man chosen to do it. He was known as only a mediocre scholar and had gained a reputation as a priest of unorthodox opinions and a violent temper. He was infamous for insulting the clergy, from the pope down to the friars and monks, and had a genuine contempt for Church authority. In fact, he was first tried for heresy in 1522, three years before his translation of the New Testament was printed. His own bishop in London would not support him in this cause.

Finding no support for his translation from his bishop, he left England and came to Worms, where he fell under the influence of Martin Luther. There in 1525 he produced a translation of the New Testament that was swarming with textual corruption. He willfully mistranslated entire passages of Sacred Scripture in order to condemn orthodox Catholic doctrine and support the new Lutheran ideas. The Bishop of London claimed that he could count over 2,000 errors in the volume (and this was just the New Testament).

The secular authorities condemned it as well. Anglicans are among the many today who laud Tyndale as the "father of the English Bible." But it was their own founder, King Henry VIII, who in 1531 declared that "the translation of the Scripture corrupted by William Tyndale should be utterly expelled, rejected, and put away out of the hands of the people."

So troublesome did Tyndale’s Bible prove to be that in 1543—after his break with Rome—Henry again decreed that "all manner of books of the Old and New Testament in English, being of the crafty, false, and untrue translation of Tyndale . . . shall be clearly and utterly abolished, extinguished, and forbidden to be kept or used in this realm."

Ultimately, it was the secular authorities that proved to be the end for Tyndale. He was arrested and tried (and sentenced to die) in the court of the Holy Roman Emperor in 1536. (a secular authority, not the Catholic Church) His translation of the Bible was heretical because it contained heretical ideas—not because the act of translation was heretical in and of itself. In fact, the Catholic Church would produce a translation of the Bible into English a few years later (The Douay-Reims version, whose New Testament was released in 1582 and whose Old Testament was released in 1609).

When discussing the history of Biblical translations, it is very common for people to toss around names like Tyndale and Wycliff. But the full story is seldom given.

This present case of a gender-inclusive edition of the Bible is a wonderful opportunity for Fundamentalists to reflect and realize that the reason they don’t approve of this new translation is the same reason that the Catholic Church did not approve of Tyndale’s or Wycliff’s. These are corrupt translations, made with an agenda, and not accurate renderings of sacred Scripture.

And here at least Fundamentalists and Catholics are in ready agreement: Don’t mess with the Word of God.

And we must remember that this was not merely a translation of Scripture. His text included a prologue and notes that were so full of contempt for the Catholic Church and the clergy that no one could mistake his obvious agenda and prejudice. Did the Catholic Church condemn this version of the Bible? Of course it did.

Tyndale's Heresy

The Real Story of the 'Father of the English Bible'

 

[brakelite]

It is true that there were numerous copies of the scriptures in Britain before Tyndale. These however were not derived from the corrupted Latin Vulgate, but from the Syriac or Peshitta translations of Lucian of Antioch. These formed the basis of the Cristian faith of such venerable Christians such as Dinooth, Aiden, Patrick, Columba and Columbanus of the Celtic church. Also the Waldensian Christians of northern Italy and southern France, as well as the Gaelic believers throughout Asia minor. The Christianity which came to these Celtic and Gaelic people was apostolic...it came direct from missionaries from Palestine and Syria, as did their scriptures, not from Rome, which by that time was slowly being corrupted by Origen, whose philosophies has been inculcated into Jeromes Bible, with Eusebius' editorial help he also being a fan of Origen.
Furthermore, Dr. Adam Clarke claims that the examination of Irish customs reveals that they have elements which were imported into Ireland from Asia Minor by early Christians. Since Italy, France, and Great Britain were once provinces of the Roman Empire, the first translations of the Bible by the early Christians in those parts were made into Latin. The early Latin translations were very dear to the hearts of these primitive churches, and as Rome did not send any missionaries toward the West before 250 A.D., the early Latin Bibles were well established before these churches came into conflict with Rome. Not only were such translations in existence long before the Vulgate was adopted by the Papacy, and well established, but the people for centuries refused to supplant their old Latin Bibles by the Vulgate. “The old Latin versions were used longest by the western Christians who would not bow to the authority of Rome — e. g., the Donatists; the Irish in Ireland, Britain, and the Continent; the Albigenses, etc.”
What brought about Tyndale's untimely demise could be attributed to two things. One, his constant objections and debates with local priests and bishops over Catholic superstitions, and two, the fact that the translation into English which he offered the people was deeply influenced by Erasmus, a student of the Greek NT and advocate for the line of manuscripts derived from the italic/Syriac Peshitta which the early church used as opposed to the Vaticanus which by then was exclusively Rome's favourite. A Bible in the hands of the common people in their own language which exposed Rome's deceptions and false doctrines was what brought about the English reformation.

 

[brakelite]

This is nothing but hate speech, always asserted, but never documented.

Come on Kepha, enough of the politically correct nonsense that are simply dredged up to deter or stifle debate. The very term "hate speech" was coined for the purpose of turning away the truth from being heard, try another tack, no-one's falling for it.
The abominations of the Catholic church are very well documented, and would be more so if the church hadn't gone out of her way to destroy the evidence. Get real and stop denying the obvious.

 

[brakelite]

The commonly diffused Catholic argument that the Catholic Church "preserved the sacred scriptures for 2000 years" and that if not for the Catholic Church "we would not have a Bible" is patently false, a lie, and an attempt to establish a myth as fact. It is said by the RCC that it was in 400AD, or thereabouts, that the church got all the manuscripts together to form the "first Bible'. That also is a lie. Throughout Christendom Bibles existed from the 2nd century, and were carefully copied into the language of the day, the lower Latin, throughout the western Roman empire. They all were derived from Antioch, in Syria, where God's people were first called Christians, and these Bibles or portions thereof were spread throughout the churches of Asia minor, Persia, India, Europe and Britain. The later version of Rome, the Vulgate, was rejected by these churches as being inferior and corrupt...the older italic versions continued to be used so long as the lower latin language was spoken, upward of 1000 years....and in those lands where the Romans had no influence, it was kept in the languages of the local people, all without any influence, protection, or sponsorship or credit going to Rome at all.
It is sad but true that Catholics today are still only too ready to accept their church's lies without any open and honest investigation into the facts of history, and are thus completely duped. It is time that Catholics woke up and realized that the reformation didn't come about because some odd priest here and there started teaching heresy. The reformation came about because after reading the actual scriptures for themselves instead of taking their teachers word for what they said, many very serious and highly educated Bible scholars discovered that it was Rome who was the true Antichrist of the Bible, began to 'protest' the truth of scripture and object to the ridiculous superstitions and heresies and false doctrines of their own church. Seeking to "reform" the church they loved, they met with a brick wall and stubborn refusal to repent, and were forced out. Excommunicated, persecuted, and the majority killed. Along with the followers. Their writings burned. Their Bibles burned. The homes destroyed. Their lands stolen. And thus was the "preservation of Biblical truth" applied by Mother. What is even more sad is the ease with which the Protestant churches which developed from these courageous founders, are returning to Mother, and thus fulfilling the prophecy which names them harlots. It is only one completely ignorant of scripture who could pretend that the Lutheran Federation and the Catholic Church now agrees 100% on justification by faith alone. Luther, if he weren't now a small pile of dust, would be tearing his hair out.

 

[Mungo]

It is true that there were numerous copies of the scriptures in Britain before Tyndale. These however were not derived from the corrupted Latin Vulgate, but from the Syriac or Peshitta translations of Lucian of Antioch. These formed the basis of the Cristian faith of such venerable Christians such as Dinooth, Aiden, Patrick, Columba and Columbanus of the Celtic church. Also the Waldensian Christians of northern Italy and southern France, as well as the Gaelic believers throughout Asia minor. The Christianity which came to these Celtic and Gaelic people was apostolic...it came direct from missionaries from Palestine and Syria, as did their scriptures, not from Rome, which by that time was slowly being corrupted by Origen, whose philosophies has been inculcated into Jeromes Bible, with Eusebius' editorial help he also being a fan of Origen.

Let’s have some real history of the Church in England.

There were Christians in the British Isles quite early. It’s difficult to know how early, but the first martyr that we know of was St. Alban who was executed around 287 at Verulanium (now called St. Albans).

Three English bishops attended the Council of Arles (in France) in 314, which formally condemned the heresy of Donatism. This was 300 years before Aiden and the other Irish missionaries.

These were all part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church

After the Romans Legions left England in 407 England was invaded by Pagans such as the Picts (from Scotland) and the Saxons (from Germany), followed by the Angles, the Jutes and later the Vikings.. In 410 the Visigoths sacked Rome.

England became virtually pagan. But gradually Christianity came back in as various Anglo-Saxon kings converted. In 604 the son (Oswald) of the pagan king of Northumberland fled when his uncle killed his father to gain the throne. He spent many years at the monastery in Iona, an island off the Scottish coast, where monks from Ireland had settled. He converted to Christianity. In 633, his uncle died and Oswald became king of Northumbria. In 634 he invited the monks to send missionaries from Iona to convert his kingdom, led by Aidan. Thus began a line of great Saints such as Aidan (died 651), Cuthbert (634-687) and Bede (672/673 –735) .

In the south Pope Gregory had sent Benedictine monks, led by Augustine, to convert the English. He landed in 597 in Kent and made Canterbury his base. By 625 his mission had spread north, founding a diocese at York. Then the two branches of Catholicism met and disputes arose because of different liturgical practices and different calendars. A great synod was held at Whitby in 664 to settle the differences and agreed that the Roman calendar and practices should be adopted by all.

Note these were not doctrinal differences but such issues as the date of Easter..

The Synod was presided over by King Oswiu of Northumberland.

In the end the argument was settled when “Oswiu then asked both sides if they agreed that Peter had been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven by Christ and pronounced to be “the rock” on which the Church would be built, to which they agreed. Oswiu then declared his judgment in favour of the holder of the keys, i.e. the Roman (and Petrine) practice.”

Both sides of the argument were in submission to the Pope and therefore accepted the Roman practice because that was the practice of the Pope.

They were not two different branches of Christianity but two different Rites, just as today there are different Rites within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church in communion with the Pope, the Bishop of Rome.

 

[Mungo]

You have shown nothing but your words.

I have shown you the words of others.

I can only prersume you did not bother to read the quotations I have given.
For example:
“Moreover, the 'Reformed' Archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer, says, in his preface to the Bible of 1540: 'The Holy Bible was translated and read in the Saxon tongue, which at that time was our mother tongue, whereof there remaineth yet divers copies found in old Abbeys, of such antique manner of writing and speaking that few men now be able to read and understand them. And when this language waxed old and out of common use, because folks should not lack the fruit of reading, it was again translated into the newer language, whereof yet also many copies remain and be daily found.'”

That was the Reformer- Cranmer, not a Catholic

[SIZE=10pt]Fr. Graham quotes from the Preface of the Authorised Translation:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=10pt]'Much about that time,' they say (1360), even in our King Richard the Second's days, John Trevisa translated them into English, and many English Bibles in written hand are yet to be seen that divers translated, as it is very probable, in that age . ... So that, to have the Scriptures in the mother tongue is not a quaint conceit lately taken up, either by the Lord Cromwell in [/SIZE][SIZE=10pt]England[/SIZE][SIZE=10pt] [or others] ... but hath been thought upon, and put in practice of old, even from the first times of the conversion of any nation.' [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]Dean Hook (Anglican), tells us that:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=10pt]'long before Wycliff's time there had been translators of Holy Writ.'[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt](All quotes from Fr. Graham's book)[/SIZE]

 

[Trekson]

As a reader of this topic I have no opinion but I'm wondering if someone could show an example of these heretical scriptures from Wycliff and Tynsdale and how they are different from our modern day versions and how they differed from the accepted Catholic or Church of England versions.

 

[tom55]

I get it that those in the RCC will defend to the end their religion. But there is one thing they can not dismiss.

The RCC had many killed just because they refused to accept the RCC doctrine. They can hide behind all the words available but they can not defend the fact that the RCC is just as guilty of murder as the Pharisees were when they plotted and had Jesus murdered.

The Catholics did the same thing and that is why, I personally believe, they are an anti-Christ.

Now will come the garbage that the protestants did the same thing. That is just an excuse to justify the RCC of murder. Any religion that plots to harm others, or murders people is a false religion.

Historically we know that it Is not "garbage" that the Protestants had Catholics executed for not accepting their doctrine. Just because the RCC or the newly formed Protestant church of the time killed people doesn't make their DOCTRINE wrong. It just means both churches were being run by some misguided men.

Based on your logic the Protestant church at the start of the Reformation could be and fits the definition of the antichrist also. Furthermore, The Reformation greatly divided the Christian religion and has caused the Church to be divided into (some say) 30,000 different denominations with different teachings of the same bible. Instead of One Church Under God with One Truth we now have 30,000 truths and churches.

Looks like the antichrist started winning when the Reformation started.

 

[H. Richard]

Historically we know that it Is not "garbage" that the Protestants had Catholics executed for not accepting their doctrine. Just because the RCC or the newly formed Protestant church of the time killed people doesn't make their DOCTRINE wrong. It just means both churches were being run by some misguided men.

Based on your logic the Protestant church at the start of the Reformation could be and fits the definition of the antichrist also. Furthermore, The Reformation greatly divided the Christian religion and has caused the Church to be divided into (some say) 30,000 different denominations with different teachings of the same bible. Instead of One Church Under God with One Truth we now have 30,000 truths and churches.

Looks like the antichrist started winning when the Reformation started.

Surely you jest! Those that continue in those religions are just as guilty and yes it does matter. It is still run by misguided men.

Of course the protestant are guilty of the same. I said that in my writings.

It started before Paul died. Those under the Law of Moses insisted that Paul's converts go under the law. The RCC is a blend of the Jewish religion and Paul's gospel of grace. The RCC continues to place people under the Law. It is seen in all the pageantry and rituals that the RCC has come up with. The idols that they bow down to and kiss (the man made cross). It is seen in the outlandish robes and hats they wear so that the peasantry can see their elevated position above them. It can be seen in the Greek Orthodox church where the vial is seen behind their pulpit. The vial that was ripped open when Jesus died is still there in their churches. --- And yes it is seen in the Protestant churches too.

In the early protestant churches the preachers wore the same clothes as the rest of the men wore. Now they too wear robes to show their elevated position above others. Somehow I just can't see Paul wearing clothes that set him apart from others.

Under grace all men are equal. There is not an elevated class above the rest of mankind.

 

[H. Richard]

So what was the real reason William Tyndale was condemned? Was translating the Bible into English actually illegal? The answer is no. The law that was passed in 1408 was in reaction to another infamous translator, John Wycliff. Wycliff had produced a translation of the Bible that was corrupt and full of heresy. It was not an accurate rendering of sacred Scripture.

Both the Church and the secular authorities condemned it and did their best to prevent it from being used to teach false doctrine and morals. Because of the scandal it caused, the Synod of Oxford passed a law in 1408 that prevented any unauthorized translation of the Bible into English and also forbade the reading of such unauthorized translations.\

It is a fact usually ignored by Protestant historians that many English versions of the Scriptures existed before Wycliff, and these were authorized and perfectly legal (see Where We Got the Bible by Henry Graham, chapter 11, "Vernacular Scriptures Before Wycliff"). Also legal would be any future authorized translations. And certainly reading these translations was not only legal but also encouraged. All this law did was to prevent any private individual from publishing his own translation of Scripture without the approval of the Church.
Which, as it turns out, is just what William Tyndale did. Tyndale was an English priest of no great fame who desperately desired to make his own English translation of the Bible. The Church denied him for several reasons.

First, it saw no real need for a new English translation of the Scriptures at this time. In fact, booksellers were having a hard time selling the print editions of the Bible that they already had. Sumptuary laws had to be enacted to force people into buying them.

Second, we must remember that this was a time of great strife and confusion for the Church in Europe. The Reformation had turned the continent into a very volatile place. So far, England had managed to remain relatively unscathed, and the Church wanted to keep it that way. It was thought that adding a new English translation at this time would only add confusion and distraction where focus was needed.

Lastly, if the Church had decided to provide a new English translation of Scripture, Tyndale would not have been the man chosen to do it. He was known as only a mediocre scholar and had gained a reputation as a priest of unorthodox opinions and a violent temper. He was infamous for insulting the clergy, from the pope down to the friars and monks, and had a genuine contempt for Church authority. In fact, he was first tried for heresy in 1522, three years before his translation of the New Testament was printed. His own bishop in London would not support him in this cause.

Finding no support for his translation from his bishop, he left England and came to Worms, where he fell under the influence of Martin Luther. There in 1525 he produced a translation of the New Testament that was swarming with textual corruption. He willfully mistranslated entire passages of Sacred Scripture in order to condemn orthodox Catholic doctrine and support the new Lutheran ideas. The Bishop of London claimed that he could count over 2,000 errors in the volume (and this was just the New Testament).

The secular authorities condemned it as well. Anglicans are among the many today who laud Tyndale as the "father of the English Bible." But it was their own founder, King Henry VIII, who in 1531 declared that "the translation of the Scripture corrupted by William Tyndale should be utterly expelled, rejected, and put away out of the hands of the people."

So troublesome did Tyndale’s Bible prove to be that in 1543—after his break with Rome—Henry again decreed that "all manner of books of the Old and New Testament in English, being of the crafty, false, and untrue translation of Tyndale . . . shall be clearly and utterly abolished, extinguished, and forbidden to be kept or used in this realm."

Ultimately, it was the secular authorities that proved to be the end for Tyndale. He was arrested and tried (and sentenced to die) in the court of the Holy Roman Emperor in 1536. (a secular authority, not the Catholic Church) His translation of the Bible was heretical because it contained heretical ideas—not because the act of translation was heretical in and of itself. In fact, the Catholic Church would produce a translation of the Bible into English a few years later (The Douay-Reims version, whose New Testament was released in 1582 and whose Old Testament was released in 1609).

When discussing the history of Biblical translations, it is very common for people to toss around names like Tyndale and Wycliff. But the full story is seldom given.

This present case of a gender-inclusive edition of the Bible is a wonderful opportunity for Fundamentalists to reflect and realize that the reason they don’t approve of this new translation is the same reason that the Catholic Church did not approve of Tyndale’s or Wycliff’s. These are corrupt translations, made with an agenda, and not accurate renderings of sacred Scripture.

And here at least Fundamentalists and Catholics are in ready agreement: Don’t mess with the Word of God.

And we must remember that this was not merely a translation of Scripture. His text included a prologue and notes that were so full of contempt for the Catholic Church and the clergy that no one could mistake his obvious agenda and prejudice. Did the Catholic Church condemn this version of the Bible? Of course it did.

Tyndale's Heresy

The Real Story of the 'Father of the English Bible'

What you have proved is the excuse that they gave for killing them. I can't see God wanting men to kill others for what they believe. I think He reserves that for Himself.

Where does the scriptures teach that murder is acceptable in light of the commandment not to kill.