Don't read the bible

[mrs_abbott]

What was the reasoning that the church had for discouraging lay people from reading the bible? I have heard people say it was because the church thought we were too stupid, but i doubt this. What is the true reasoning and history behind it?

Catholics were told not to privately interpret the Bible without consulting the Church’s teachings. The Bible’s interpretation must go “hand in hand” with Tradition, which can be found in the Magisterium’s interpretation.
Catholics are discouraged from reading and interpretting the Bible without regard to what the CC teaches.

 

[scylla]

God hardly needed the Catholic churches help in preserving His Word. He obviously used the early church to copy and spread His word.

The entire new testament could be found in the quotes of the ECF’s well before 700 AD, not to mention the Alexandrian manuscripts.

Of course you would find the Bible quoted by the early Church Fathers, they were Catholic!

Wycliffe used Jerome’s Latin vulgate, show me the errors.

Ok…
wesley.nnu.edu/biblical_studies/wycliffe/Mat.txt
This is easy lets look at the Words of Jesus in the Lord’s Prayer…
'yyue to vs this dai oure `breed ouer othir substaunce"

Bread over any other substance? Whaaa?
Does any other valid translations do this? No.

Tyndale used Erasmus’s Greek translation, errors please?

The errors would not be just the translation, but using God’s Word and putting in commentary to further an agenda.
By putting in comments which insulted the faith he pretty much invalidated the Bible he translated.
If I put out a Bible which called non-catholics evil would they like it?

Was burning at the stake the biblical means of confronting error?

Yes!

It is better for someone to have a millstone tied around their neck than to lead others astray. —Jesus stated that execution was better than leading others astray.

Nowdays we are a little more pastoral, but in those days they took blasphemy seriously. That is why Catholics killed Protestants and Protestants killed Catholics. Religion was taken a lot more seriously in those days.
Now we just argue over the internet.

In Christ
Scylla

 

[Michael_Francis]

This thread is drifting on and off topic with the discussion of various forms of “correction”.

Please remain on topic of what the church’s position on Bible reading may have been at any given point or this thread will be closed.

 

[scylla]

Catholics were told not to privately interpret the Bible without consulting the Church’s teachings. The Bible’s interpretation must go “hand in hand” with Tradition, which can be found in the Magisterium’s interpretation.
Catholics are discouraged from reading and interpretting the Bible without regard to what the CC teaches.

But the Bible says I can tread with the snakes…

Why not? I wanna dance with snakes!
Maybe polygamy is ok… I am sure I can make the Bible say that too…

God Bless,
Scylla

Edit;
Sorry Moderator, I will keep on subject…
Read the Bible it is a Catholic book…
(Except when it is misrepresented and twisted to man’s destruction.)

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I think that it has been rather abundantly proved that the Church at all times has encouraged reading (and, in preliterate or semiliterate societies) hearing the Bible, provided the Bible was an authentic one, and provided that there were provisions in place to make sure that one not only heard it, but understood it correctly. This is only sensible. Who would wish to read a Bible that was incomplete, or incorrect? Who would wish to rely on his own, possibly poorly understood, interpretation of the Bible when there exists a real, God-given authority to help us to a full, complete understanding?

I think that to argue that Catholics were not 'allowed to" read the Bible without the help of a priest and/or catechism or other Magesterial tools meant that Catholics were discouraged to read the Bible (with its implied corollary that said Catholics could neither ‘think for themselves’, were ‘brainwashed’, etc.) is intellectually dishonest (consciously or unconsciously). Why, the eunuch acknowledged to St. Philip that he could not read Scripture without someone to give proper interpretation, and St. Peter warned against ‘private interpretation’ of Scripture. St. Paul also noted the many difficulties, in his letters to various churches, about people listening to ‘different gospels’, and not the one real gospel.

The fact that not only Catholics but non-Catholics could (did, and have) had individual error in understanding the above does not obviate the truth. It is possible, though I myself have never experienced it, that at some times some priests and laity taught, and believed, a “Feeneyitish” or “Jansenist” type of interpretation, to the point where those Catholics involved themselves believed that they ‘could not’ read the Bible. That is indeed a sad thing, but it is not, has not, and will not ever be the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church regarding reading the Bible.

 

[johnboyfl]

Herte are some links on churching.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churching_of_women
catholicity.com/encyclopedia/c/churching_of_women.html
fisheaters.com/churchingofwomen.html
dio.org/catholictimes/archive.php?file=archive/2005/09_11_2005/question
users.ox.ac.uk/~mikef/church.html
encyclopedia.jrank.org/CHR_CLI/CHURCHING_OF_WOMEN.html

I would like to say that this was a pastorial issue. The pastor was very very very control oriented. I am sure that this was not the case everywhere. I said in my post we were not permitted to question the priest, read the bible without his presence, and numerous other things that were just not true to church teachings. Only after I grew older and read the bible and studied church history did I realize he was not the best of pastors.

 

[lumengentleman]

My own two cents: while the “official” Church, especially in the voices of Leo XIII, Benedict XV, and Pius XII most certainly did promote biblical studies, I think it’s also undeniable that, at the parish level, this message wasn’t being promoted as heavily.

Take this with a grain of salt. I didn’t live in the days before the Council. I did, however, spend some time in SSPX circles, and to whatever extent those kinds of communities (and many like them) are an accurate “snapshot” of life before the Council, it seems that there was indeed a problem with people being discouraged from reading Scripture - at least to some extent.

I could tell stories about Traditionalists saying things like, “just read the Catechism, leave the bible-reading to the saints and priests”, but as I said, I don’t know how accurately this represents the story of “life before Vatican II.”

I do think, however, that these accusations don’t just come out of nowhere. There must be at least some substance to them, no?

 

[VociMike]

Another counter-example to offer is the series of booklets my parents bought for us kids. They were illustrated bible stories in a kid-friendly format, and I remember we had dozens and dozens of them in binder format. I only remember two details about the series now - a rather lurid picture (to my yound eyes) of the slaughter of the Innocents, and stories about Whoopsie the Angel. Anybody else remember Whoopsie?

 

[davidv]

I remember Woopsie the angel. It was in a collection named “Treasure Chest”, if my memory serves me. One of my fondest memories, is of my grandmother reading these stories to my siblings and me.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Johnboy, I’ll open up a separate thread to address your issue so that this one stays on topic, and I’ll link to this thread so that you can find it. I’ll call it “Churching of Women.”

 

[OldRedleg]

Kaycee wanted a reference on error of translation.

As already noted 90% of Tyndale’s translation of the Bible into english was used in making the King James Version. With that in mind…

"More than 400 errors in the first edition of the King James Bible were corrected in a subsequent edition two years later."

From:

Lightfoot, Neil R. How We Got the Bible , Baker Book House; 2nd edition. August 1988. p.58.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

What was the reasoning that the church had for discouraging lay people from reading the bible? I have heard people say it was because the church thought we were too stupid, but i doubt this. What is the true reasoning and history behind it?

See here…The Bible Kept from Ordinary Catholics?

 

[bear06]

Oh what a treasure to have.:bowdown2: :bible1: You probably have all the important information about your ancestors written down in there too.

Believe it or not, no. There was a couple of deaths recorded. I couldn’t believe it. I think they might have been afraid to write in it. It’s just beautiful.

 

[Ignatius]

What was the reasoning that the church had for discouraging lay people from reading the bible? I have heard people say it was because the church thought we were too stupid, but i doubt this. What is the true reasoning and history behind it?

This is completely false. Catholics were always encouraged to read the bible. In fact, prior to the printing press, it was only the Catholic Church which provided bibles to every parish so the people could hear the Word of God.

 

[dylanschrader]

I’ve heard this told to people, too. I guess because some people never read the Bible, they assume that the Church forbade it. Maybe they expected priests to hand out Bibles at Mass and quiz people?

 

[Zooey]

God hardly needed the Catholic churches help in preserving His Word. He obviously used the early church to copy and spread His word.

Oh, dear…I really hate to burst your bubble…The early church were all Catholic. There was only one church, up until the time of Luther, Calvin, et al…

 

[Church_Militant]

God hardly needed the Catholic churches help in preserving His Word. He obviously used the early church to copy and spread His word.

If you say so, but the fact is that reading the writings of the ECF shows that they were Catholic in their beliefs and practices and in fact disdained anyone who held the kind of teachings that modern n-Cs generally do.

The historic fact is that it was indeed the Catholic Church which fulfilled the role that I pointed out. Nobody holding any doctrines similar to modern n-Cs had anything to do with it because they simply didn’t exist.

The entire new testament could be found in the quotes of the ECF’s well before 700 AD, not to mention the Alexandrian manuscripts.

And this proves precisely what Kaycee? Not a blessed thing, since the 73 book canon of scripture was already settled by the Councils of Hippo and Carthage in 393 & 397. Go look it up for yourself, it’s history.

Wycliffe used Jerome’s Latin vulgate, show me the errors.

And? The errors were Wycliffe’s…not Jerome’s.

Tyndale used Erasmus’s Greek translation, errors please?

I wouldn’t use either translation for a doorstop…

Was burning at the stake the biblical means of confronting error?

Irrelevant.

 

[Mannyfit75]

You can add Wycliffe’s Bible has Maccabees 1 and 2. Yet the JKV does not…

 

[kaycee]

Oh, dear…I really hate to burst your bubble…The early church were all Catholic. There was only one church, up until the time of Luther, Calvin, et al…

Offcourse it was Catholic, just not Roman Catholic.

 

[guanophore]

If you say so, but the fact is that reading the writings of the ECF shows that they were Catholic in their beliefs and practices and in fact disdained anyone who held the kind of teachings that modern n-Cs generally do.

The historic fact is that it was indeed the Catholic Church which fulfilled the role that I pointed out. Nobody holding any doctrines similar to modern n-Cs had anything to do with it because they simply didn’t exist.And this proves precisely what Kaycee? Not a blessed thing, since the 73 book canon of scripture was already settled by the Councils of Hippo and Carthage in 393 & 397. Go look it up for yourself, it’s history.And? The errors were Wycliffe’s…not Jerome’s. I wouldn’t use either translation for a doorstop…Irrelevant.

I think this is not entirely accurate. When reading about the early history of the composition of the creeds, designed to teach against error, one finds that there were, indeed many people in existence at the time that held beliefs contrary to “sound doctrine”. they were called schismatics, or heretics.