Did the Catholic Church Supress Knowledge of the Bible?

[FractalFire]

The Douai Rheims Version, perhaps?

(No sarcasm intended.)

Relevant, but published during the counter-reformation. So by this point, some of the resistance to an English translation had been removed. Certainly a note of progress on the catholic side towards providing a Bible in the common tongue.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douay%E2%80%93Rheims_Bible

P.S. Woops. I didn’t notice Abu had already mentioned it above.

 

[Maddie26]

I am a NICU nurse. We chain breast pumps to a stand. That doesn’t mean we don’t want mothers to express, it means we’ve already had lots stolen. Actually, looking at old Bibles in museums around the world, I’ve never actually seen one that had a loop for a lock. I wonder if the Chained Bible story comes from only a single source or period.

Wycliffe wasn’t the first Bible “translator” there were plenty of Anglo Saxon versions beforehand. Even the Greek version was a translation, as was the Latin. The Bible was put into Latin so more people could read it. If your average peasant couldn’t read then a translated handwritten Bible costing millions of dollars wouldn’t help. The Church started producing other versions like the Douay after literacy and the price of books improved.

When my German novice mistress entered an English convent her mother (a chemist) could converse with the nuns in Latin since all scholarly people learned Latin. It was the language of education and nearly all scholarly books were written in Latin until about 200 years ago.

And personally, as someone who has travelled the world and experienced the vernacular Mass in many languages, I feel that using Latin in the liturgy today gives a better witness of the unity of the Church. As a scholar I often refer back to both the Latin and Greek versions of the Bible and treat them as more reliable than any translation, as do Protestant scholars. Even Protestant translators don’t provide a modern version of Wycliffe but instead a translation from the Greek and Latin to avoid the Chinese Whispers effect, which is in itself a good argument for the preservation of Latin.

If the Catholic Church wanted to suppress knowledge of the Bible then they should have stopped copying it and preserving it, preaching from it, patronising art based on it, studying it and teaching it. They must have been confused about what “suppress” means back then. Protestants have the Bible because the Catholic Church gave it to them.

 

[edwest2]

NOTE: There are some older Catholics (mostly in America, born before Vatican II) who claim that they were not allowed to read the Bible when they were kids.

This was not true, but they thought it was true based on a misunderstanding.

The Church always taught that the Bible must be read and interpreted within the context of the Church… but that didn’t mean you couldn’t read it at home.

It simply meant that it’s important to understand what the Church teaches the meaning of those verses are, not to come up with your own interpretation or only listen to the interpretation of non-Catholics. When reading Scripture, Catholics should seek Catholic commentary, and understand what the Church teaches about Scripture verses.

Many priests also would recommend that Catholics only read approved Catholic translations, so no King James, etc. This was mainly due to the commentaries, notes, and any possible bad translations.

Some Catholic parents back then told their kids not to read the Bible in order to prevent Protestant ideas. This was wrong. Instead of teaching their children how to properly interpret the Bible, they told them not to read it on their own. Again, this was wrong and was not Church teaching. Some even claim their priests told them that, but 99% of the time wasn’t the case. Its was the lay person mis-understanding the priest.

So again, you will here this from time to time. I most recently heard it from someone who teaches CCD and a member of the Adult Faith Formation team. She didn’t’ believe me when I tried to explain that it was a misunderstanding, because for her, I’m just some 38 year kid who wasn’t alive back then. For her, she wasn’t allow that’s all there is to it.

But this was NEVER the official teaching of the Church.

God bless

It was common practice to keep a Bible in the home before Vatican II. It had pages in the back that were used to record marriages, births and deaths. Just type Catholic Bible 1958 in a site that offers used books.

Ed

 

[Gorgias]

This info may be helpful:

huffingtonpost.com/bernard-starr/why-christians-were-denied-access-to-their-bible-for-1000-years_b_3303545.html

So, so happy that the Huff Po is there to tell us the truth about how evil the Catholic Church is…!

Decree of the Council of Toulouse (1229 C.E.): “We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books.”

The Council of Toulouse was a local council, not an ecumenical one. It met in order to address the Albigensian heresy. The Albigensians were using their own translation of the Bible (in the vernacular, as it happens) in order to ‘prove’ their heretical ideas, so the council forbade the use of that Bible locally (in an attempt to curb the spread of the heresy). Far from being a universal ban on Bible reading, it was rather a local attempt to limit the effects of an unapproved translation.

Ruling of the Council of Tarragona of 1234 C.E.: “No one may possess the books of the Old and New Testaments in the Romance language, and if anyone possesses them he must turn them over to the local bishop within eight days after promulgation of this decree, so that they may be burned…”

IIRC, in that place and time, there were Muslim groups who created a ‘doctored’ version of the Bible that claimed that Ishmael (and not Isaac) was the son of Abraham who received the blessing and inheritance. Therefore, the provincial council (again – not an ecumenical council) attempted to get copies of that corrupted translation out of circulation.

In both cases, we have a local and temporary solution to a particular problem of a corrupted and unauthorized translation of the Bible. In neither case was the Church attempting to stop Catholics in general from reading the Bible, nor did it attempt to limit the distribution and reading of authorized translations of the Bible.

But hey – why let the facts get in the way of a good story?!?

 

[Todd977]

Hi,

I have heard this claimed before. Is it just a protestant talking point? Did the Catholic church attempt to keep people from reading the bible in their own language?

Any links or articles on this matter would be greatly appreciated!

Should the Bible be read by everyone? The Bible itself says:
There are some things in them [St Paul’s letters] hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. (2 Peter 3:16)

If St Paul’s letters are admittedly “hard to understand” and, if “the ignorant and unstable,” i.e., those without a solid grounding in the apostolic faith, twist them and the other Scriptures “to their own destruction,” doesn’t it make sense that the Church restrict the reading of her books to only those who are properly prepared, lest the Church be complicit in the destruction of the ignorant and unstable who misunderstand and twist the Scriptures?

 

[phil19034]

Naturally. I do not accuse the medieval church of not printing when it was impossible to print, I merely accuse them of resisting the translation when printing had been invented.

As a reminder, some of the Protestant translations were made before the printing press existed. (Tyndale’s for example.) Some Catholic-approved translation were too, but they were, it appears, rare and not widely circulated.

First: no one will argue that the Church is slow to adopt technology. Some priests today still don’t use email! But slowness to utilize technology is not the same thing as being against people reading the Bible.

Saying vernacular Catholic versions of the Bible were “rare” is also twisting the Truth.

Protestants pushed for worshiping in the vernacular. So why would Lutherans or Anglicans keep reading a Latin Bible when they stopped worshiping in Latin? It was logistically necessary for them to push translations so all Protestant churches could have them. Just imagine an entire service in English or German; but scripture readings were in Latin? That wouldn’t work and would have been a disaster for the early Protestants. So they needed to use the printing press so all the Protestant Churches would have one.

You have to keep everything in context. Catholics knew Latin. They knew how to pray in Latin, they could understand novenas and devotions in Latin, educated people who knew how to read knew how to read in Latin. Anyone who knew how to read in English or German, knew how to read Latin. So for the Catholic Church, we had time for a quality translation. We were not in a rush because our liturgy still used Latin.

So again, before the Protestant revolt; there really wasn’t much need for vernacular Bibles because people who could read knew how to read Latin.

The Protestant revolt led to the eventual disuse of Latin in Europe; as Protestant countries no longer taught Latin to the average person.

Translations needed context. The fact is that many early translations (esp in the 1200s) lacked the historical context to insure a proper translation.

Finally, you were not going to have many copies of vernacular Catholic Bibles because in the Protestant areas, (like England) it’s was, for all practical purposes, against the law to be Catholic. So why would you have a lot of English Bibles back then?

When studying history, it’s important to understand what people believed and understand the culture in order to understand their motivations.

God Bless

 

[FractalFire]

Saying vernacular Catholic versions of the Bible were “rare” is a twist on the Truth.

I am not attempting to twist the truth – I am telling it as I see it. Please do not accuse me of lying for merely disagreeing with you. These are the facts as I have heard them my entire life – from History books and teachers (the teacher who taught me about the Reformation was a Catholic, for goodness sakes). If you want to make me agree with you, you will have to provide better evidence than I currently possess, which will be challenging.

You have to keep everything in context. Catholics knew Latin. They knew how to pray in Latin, they could understand novenas and devotions in Latin, educated people who knew how to read knew how to read in Latin. Anyone who knew how to read in English or German, knew how to read Latin.

Before the Protestant revolt; there really wasn’t much need for vernacular Bibles because people who could read knew how to read Latin.

The Protestant revolt led to the eventual disuse of Latin in Europe; as Protestant countries no longer taught Latin to the average person.

You have said the following:

a) Latin was widespread among the educated and church-members.

I agree.

b) Anyone who knew English and German knew Latin.

Without further evidence, I disagree. It may have been common among the highly educated, but it was not universal. There were many literates who did not read Latin. Not all the common people were as illiterate as we are sometimes lead to believe and once the printing press came around, more were able to learn in their own language (far easier than in a foreign scholar’s tongue).

c) There was no need for Vernacular Bibles before the Reformation.

I disagree. We may or may not have been able to print them before the reformation time period, but the fact that they spread so quickly despite intense pressure indicates that there was indeed a need for them. To suggest otherwise does not jive well with the actual events.

d) The Protestant Reformation eventually led to the loss of Latin as a common language.

Agreed. Unfortunate, perhaps, but true. The printing press would probably have done this on its own, though.

 

[Michael_Francis]

Off topic posts have been removed. Remain on the topic of possible suppression of the Bible by the church.

 

[Church_Militant]

It seems that many of us could do with some better education on this topic.

I suggest that you invest in a copy of Where We Got the Bible… Our Debt to the Catholic Church

For the sake of instant gratification you can read it online at the following link.

Where we got the Bible - Catholic Apologetics Information

 

[pnewton]

Hi,

I have heard this claimed before. Is it just a protestant talking point? Did the Catholic church attempt to keep people from reading the bible in their own language?

The Church taught the Bible. The great artwork of the Middle Ages was the Scripture in picture, the only way most of the people could understand. I think this myth stems from an imposition of more modern values onto a time that was vastly different. With little literacy, not printing and poor communication, the Catholic Church did the best possible with what existed at that time, including the first major translation of the Bible from the original languages.

 

[Abu]

Great post Gorgias (#16).

How strange that since the Catholic Church gave the world the only Christ-authorised written Sacred Scriptures, and the fullness of Truth from Him, that so many should be so misled as to feel that they know better. That is the reason for the banning of error where insinuated into a version, and the reason for Her infallibility in teaching faith and morals, and the banning of dissent.

 

[fisherman_carl]

NOTE: There are some older Catholics (mostly in America, born before Vatican II) who claim that they were not allowed to read the Bible when they were kids.

This was not true, but they thought it was true based on a misunderstanding.

The Church always taught that the Bible must be read and interpreted within the context of the Church… but that didn’t mean you couldn’t read it at home.

It simply meant that it’s important to understand what the Church teaches the meaning of those verses are, not to come up with your own interpretation or only listen to the interpretation of non-Catholics. When reading Scripture, Catholics should seek Catholic commentary, and understand what the Church teaches about Scripture verses.

Many priests also would recommend that Catholics only read approved Catholic translations, so no King James, etc. This was mainly due to the commentaries, notes, and any possible bad translations.

Some Catholic parents back then told their kids not to read the Bible in order to prevent Protestant ideas. This was wrong. Instead of teaching their children how to properly interpret the Bible, they told them not to read it on their own. Again, this was wrong and was not Church teaching. Some even claim their priests told them that, but 99% of the time wasn’t the case. Its was the lay person mis-understanding the priest.

So again, you will here this from time to time. I most recently heard it from someone who teaches CCD and a member of the Adult Faith Formation team. She didn’t’ believe me when I tried to explain that it was a misunderstanding, because for her, I’m just some 38 year kid who wasn’t alive back then. For her, she wasn’t allow that’s all there is to it.

But this was NEVER the official teaching of the Church.

God bless

Ive heard people say that they were discouraged from reading the bible as well. However, you say they misunderstood. That’s a lot of people who misunderstood? I am wondering how you know that it was a misunderstanding if so many people claimed it? I would like to have an answer next time I hear this because they won’t believe me unless I can show them.

 

[mattp0625]

Ive heard people say that they were discouraged from reading the bible as well. However, you say they misunderstood. That’s a lot of people who misunderstood? I am wondering how you know that it was a misunderstanding if so many people claimed it? I would like to have an answer next time I hear this because they won’t believe me unless I can show them.

There are Catholics and non Catholics alike who do not have an in-depth understanding of the Church, tradition, canon law, practices, and the like.

The Church wants people to understand scripture within the context of its catechism. This requires extra individual effort and/or catechesis.

When you leave folks to interpret as they see fit, you end up with schisms. This is not saying that folks should not read the bible. There is a balance and a need for background.

Lastly, Catholic schools taught Latin so people could follow mass.

 

[Bonnie]

Ive heard people say that they were discouraged from reading the bible as well. However, you say they misunderstood. That’s a lot of people who misunderstood?

It may have been a “misunderstanding” the same way limbo was a “misunderstanding.” It was taught as real by religious educators, but the theologians in their ivory towers never noticed.

When I found out that limbo was only a construct and not a doctrine, I wondered how many other things were erroneously taught the same way. Now I know at least one other - that Catholics were not allowed to read the Bible.

How many more “misunderstandings” are going to be revealed?

 

[Della]

It may have been a “misunderstanding” the same way limbo was a “misunderstanding.” It was taught as real by religious educators, but the theologians in their ivory towers never noticed.

When I found out that limbo was only a construct and not a doctrine, I wondered how many other things were erroneously taught the same way. Now I know at least one other - that Catholics were not allowed to read the Bible.

How many more “misunderstandings” are going to be revealed?

Well, the prohibition against Bible reading, in some areas, was not really a matter of what constructs were taught, but of prudential judgment on the part of priests and bishops at the time. If they erred, they erred on the side of caution–of what they believed best for the faithful under their guidance and spiritual protection. It was done for what they considered to be good reasons, not because Catholics are not allowed to read the Bible. Indeed, the Church gave indulgences for Bible reading long before VII encouraged more Bible reading.

For example, women religious were restricted from reading the Song of Songs because its imagery was considered too disturbing to virgins. We might think that silly now, but it was done with the best intentions, if not really needed.

In our own day people believe many things that modern, minimalists are teaching that are not actually Church teaching, but their own ideas. The pendulum swings back and forth in such things. We need to remember that theological constructs are not doctrine or dogma. If people’s salvation was/is not damaged by being taught things that were/are only constructs it doesn’t matter. After all, that is our ultimate goal–salvation–union with God. That is our “reward”–to be with Christ and his Church in heaven.

 

[Bonnie]

We need to remember that theological constructs are not doctrine or dogma. **If people’s salvation was/is not damaged by being taught things that were/are only constructs it doesn’t matter. ** After all, that is our ultimate goal–salvation–union with God. That is our “reward”–to be with Christ and his Church in heaven.

What it teaches people is to not trust the Church - I think that matters. I’m much more leery now about what I read - and that includes material that comes from the Church.

 

[Samsun]

The vast majority of people were illiterate, and there was no printing before the XVth century, so there were very few entire Bibles, and fewer people were able to read them. And the ones who could read, also knew Latin, because instruction was Latin-only during the Middle Ages. But medieval translations existed, like the Bible Historiale in French, which was translated in the XIIth century, and nineteen German translations. The problem was not with vernacular translations, it was with the heretical groups who asked for these translations, like the Waldensians or the Cathars.

 

[Della]

What it teaches people is to not trust the Church - I think that matters. I’m much more leery now about what I read - and that includes material that comes from the Church.

Well, it is actually material that comes from the Church or material that comes from a particular clergy/theologian/lay person? You see what I mean.

What comes from the Church is in the Catechism, not individuals’ opinions. If material, apart from formal Church documents, has been approved by a bishop, for instance, it merely means it contains nothing contrary to faith and morals, but it doesn’t mean that everything in it is accurate or isn’t mere opinion.

So yes, it is up to us to be careful what we read and at what stage of our spiritual development we read it. Catholics are not treated like drones or babies, but adults who have the duty to properly form ourselves with the aid of our bishops and pastors. If you have difficulty discerning what is proper reading material, ask your pastor or other reliable person to help guide you. Take advantage of classes you parish may offer. Don’t despair, God is still God and the Church isn’t going to lead us astray.

 

[TimothyH]

Should the Bible be read by everyone? The Bible itself says:
There are some things in them [St Paul’s letters] hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. (2 Peter 3:16)

If St Paul’s letters are admittedly “hard to understand” and, if “the ignorant and unstable,” i.e., those without a solid grounding in the apostolic faith, twist them and the other Scriptures “to their own destruction,” doesn’t it make sense that the Church restrict the reading of her books to only those who are properly prepared, lest the Church be complicit in the destruction of the ignorant and unstable who misunderstand and twist the Scriptures?

No, this doesn’t make sense at all.

If we wait to be properly prepared then no one would read the Bible. Countless people throughout history have picked up the Bible without formal preparation by the Church and have been converted to Christianity through what they read.

I came back to the Catholic Church by reading John 6. No one “prepared” me. God worked through the Sacred Texts. You have to give God some credit here.

And then there is lectio divina which can be done by anyone.

I would go so far as to say that the people without a solid grounding in the faith are the ones who need the Bible the most.

-Tim-

 

[Della]

No, this doesn’t make sense at all.

If we wait to be properly prepared then no one would read the Bible. Countless people throughout history have picked up the Bible without formal preparation by the Church and have been converted to Christianity through what they read.

I came back to the Catholic Church by reading John 6. No one “prepared” me. God worked through the Sacred Texts. You have to give God some credit here.

And then there is lectio divina which can be done by anyone.

I would go so far as to say that the people without a solid grounding in the faith are the ones who need the Bible the most.

-Tim-

That can happen, for certain. But being properly instructed isn’t a bad thing, either since a good many people will not/do not have such revelations from such “cold” reading so to speak.

One needs a clear mind, trust in the truthfulness of Scripture, and a desire to know the truth. IOW, one needs to be properly disposed. Not everyone is–at least not without some guidance and instruction. But, it can happen, I agree.