Pope Francis: turn to the Bible to engage in spiritual combat [CWN]

[Peter_J]

I can see that you feel I am a problem and I do not want that so I will evaporate.

Now you’re making me jealous.

But fwiw, if I had the power to make problematic people disappear I wouldn’t waste it on you. (I guess I would start with ISIS, but now I’m getting off topic.)

 

[Wannano]

:QUOTE=Peter J;14530586]Now you’re making me jealous.

But fwiw, if I had the power to make problematic people disappear I wouldn’t waste it on you. (I guess I would start with ISIS, but now I’m getting off topic.)

Without clarification I may have had the wrong interpretation of that! :ehh:

 

[Duane1966]

I can see that you feel I am a problem and I do not want that so I will evaporate.

Just to set the record straight I in fact did not have the knowledge of twenty authorized translations. How you can be so sure I knew that baffles me because you don’t even know me.

In Catholic eyes the Pope speaks to the world on behalf of Jesus. As I understood his address he is suggesting the world would become changed if Christians would become as familiar with their pocket Bibles as the are with their cell phones for the Bible contains the Word of God and gives us the information we need to combat evil.

I thought his insight into how we should implement the Word of God in our lives with as much familiarity as our own cell phone was incredibly insightful. Now I am somewhat discouraged for he did not say which translation and interpretation is acceptable.

My apologies. For some reason I thought you had been part of another discussion in the past that I had been part of, where I commented about there being 22 versions in the vernacular before Luther, and other Protestants on the forum acknowledged that fact. Again my sincere apologies. If you read my following posts you will see that there were 22 versions.

 

[Peter_J]

Peter J;14530586:

Now you’re making me jealous.

But fwiw, if I had the power to make problematic people disappear I wouldn’t waste it on you. (I guess I would start with ISIS, but now I’m getting off topic.)

Without clarification I may have had the wrong interpretation of that! :ehh:

Wait, didn’t we agree that Protestants are led by the devil and shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near Catholics?

Oops, wrong conversation.

But seriously, wouldn’t you like to have the power that you granted to Duane1966, I.e. the power to make problematic people disappear?

 

[Wannano]

My apologies. For some reason I thought you had been part of another discussion in the past that I had been part of, where I commented about there being 22 versions in the vernacular before Luther, and other Protestants on the forum acknowledged that fact. Again my sincere apologies. If you read my following posts you will see that there were 22 versions.

No problem , if I was part of the discussion I don’t remember it.

 

[Wannano]

Wait, didn’t we agree that Protestants are led by the devil and shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near Catholics?

Oops, wrong conversation.

But seriously, wouldn’t you like to have the power that you granted to Duane1966, I.e. the power to make problematic people disappear?

I do, goodness sake Peter, look at the post above this one!!:whacky:

Actually I found the formula in my Protestant Bible…something called turning the other cheek…not sure if it’s in the Catholic version or not!

 

[Duane1966]

There was a time when, at least in certain locations, owning Scripture was prohibited. Later at the Council of Trent, Scripture in select translations was allowed to be read only if the parishioner had written permission to do so. I don’t know when the Council of Trent’s ban was lifted allowing Catholics to read any version of the Bible even without getting special written authorization to do so, but I am glad that the Bible is being embraced and read regularly by Catholics today.

Susan, context is everything. Tell me, what do you think would have happened in just about any Protestant country over the last 500 years, or even here in the United States over the past 200 years, if a member of a Protestant congregation would walk into a Protestant area with a Catholic bible, do you think the Protestant pastors would have slapped them on the back and said: “it’s just great you have that version of the bible!!”? Considering that there were laws that states tried to enact against Catholics having their own schools, obviously what religious leaders consider "tainted" bibles goes both ways, and is obviously considered by both sides an important issue. After all, souls are at risk, and the Catholic Church was commissioned by the Lord to shepherd His flock. The argument over having bibles in the vernacular, is, without a doubt, just an excuse for a person to privately interpret them to make oneself their own religious authority. The fragmentation of Protestantism has bore this out.

But there is another point that I find at the same time both laughable and hypocritical in the cries for a bible in the vernacular, one that most people never stop to contemplate. If the vernacular is so important, why at a time when most of Judea spoke Aramaic, was there no condemnation by Jesus about the fact that the sacred Jewish scrolls read in the synagogues, were written in Hebrew, and had to be read in Hebrew? Obviously, God did not consider the transmission of the OT to His own people in the vernacular a subject worthy of His attention.

Council of Toulouse 1229:
“We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old and the New Testament; unless anyone from the motives of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books.”

Remember, context is everything. From New Advent:

the Synod of Toulouse directed in 1229 its fourteenth canon** against the misuse of Sacred Scripture** on the part of the Cathari: “prohibemus, ne libros Veteris et Novi Testamenti laicis permittatur habere” (Hefele, “Concilgesch”, Freiburg, 1863, V, 875). In 1233 the Synod of Tarragona issued a similar prohibition in its second canon, but both these laws are intended only for the countries subject to the jurisdiction of the respective synods (Hefele, ibid., 918).

Notice, it forbids translations. You were free to own the Vulgate, if you could afford one. And I have yet to find a historian who does not admit that if you were one of the one percent of the population at this time who could read, in this area of the world, the probability of you being able to read, but not read Latin, was ZERO. So the Church was, once again, concerned with misuse.

Council of Tarragona 1234:
"No one may possess the books of the Old and New Testaments, and if anyone possesses them he must turn them over to the local bishop within eight days, so that they may be burned…”

It is always important to know context, and to not trim the whole canon to fit your argument. Here is the whole passage:

THE COUNCIL OF TARRAGONA - 1234 A.D.
The Council of Tarragona of 1234, in its second canon,
ruled that:
“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…”

• D. Lortsch, Historie de la Bible en France, 1910, p.14.

So again we see, that the laity were free to own the Latin Vulgate, which every historian agrees that if you could read at this time period, in the area of the world that this council took place, you could read Latin.

Council of Trent 16th century:
Book dealers who sell or in any other way supply Bibles written in the vernacular to anyone who has not this permission, shall lose the price of the books, which is to be applied by the bishop to pious purposes, and in keeping with the nature of the crime they shall be subject to other penalties which are left to the judgment of the same bishop. Regulars who have not the permission of their superiors may not read or purchase them."
ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/TRENTBKS.HTM

Your own quotes prove that what I stated is true. If you got permission, you were free to own the Latin Vulgate. The Church was worried about having corrupted translations. I am sure you would in reality commend the Catholic Church for being such a careful guardian that she did not want corrupted Scriptures causing sheep to wander away. Every one of your passages shows that the laity were only forbidden to have unauthorized translations. They were free to own the Latin Vulgate.

By the way, using your logic, since every state in the US forbids the operation of a motor vehicle without a license, the United States actually bans the operating of motor vehicles by it’s citizens. The fact that states make people get drivers licenses must seem ridiculous in your eyes.

 

[Duane1966]

Were there really 20 authorized German translations? That sounds like a lot and I can’t find a source that agrees with that. Do you have any more information about the translations?

22 versions in the vernacular before the Reformation. I am linking an article by a history professor from the University of Alberta. I will post some excerpts, but the whole article is an interesting read. He quotes from many German Lutheran scholars, that back up the fact that the history that has been popularized about that time period, is for the most part a twisting of the facts. prophetess.lstc.edu/~rklein/Doc11/gow.pdf

In his ‘Table Talk’, Luther is reported to have presented an example of the ‘extreme blindness’ under the Papacy, on the 22nd of February, 1538, namely that “Thirty years ago, no-one read the Bible, and it was unknown to all. The prophets were not spoken of and were considered impossible to understand. And when I was twenty years old, I had never seen a Bible. I thought that the Gospels or Epistles could be found only in the postills [lectionaries] for the Sunday readings…

…a few of Luther’s contemporaries saw things quite differently. Henri Daniel-Rops, in The Protestant Reformation addressed the question from the point of view of a putative late-medieval decadence in faith:

Quote:
Was the Church in Germany in need of reform? The need here was no greater and no less than elsewhere in Christendom. Faith was very much alive in Germany. In 1494 a worthy merchant wrote in his diary: “My country abounds in Bibles, works on salvation, editions of the Fathers, and other books of a like sort.”76

…

As the Catholic polemicist and Bishop of Bruges Jean Baptiste Malou argued in 1846,14the Lutheran Professors of Theology Wilhelm Krafft (1821–1897) at Bonn in 1883, 15and Friedrich Kropatschek (1875–1917) at Breslau in 1904,16the Catholic polemicist Franz Falk (1840–1909) in 1905,17and Erich Zimmermann (1938) and Hans Rost (1939) demonstrated before the middle of the twentieth century,**** vernacular Bibles circulated and were read widely, especially in the Empire and with the exception of fifteenth-century England, all through the later Middle Ages…****

Scholars generally agree that vernacular Bible translations abounded in the later Middle Ages, both in manuscript and in early printings, and were framed by an even more voluminous literature of Biblical piety and devotion, and by countless partial Biblical text editions in the vernacular (Gospels, Psalters, harmonized Gospel renderings [Diatessera] and Bible retellings [historiated Bibles])…

In 2001, Owen Chadwick noted in a book addressed to a larger readership that there were many printed editions of the Bible before Luther: in Latin, 94; and he mentions 16 in German. In fact there were 14 in early new High German, 4 in early new Low German, and 4 in early modern Netherlandish, for a total of 22 Germanic editions by 1518. (As the author stated earlier, these 22 bibles were full translations)

In the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Biblical material was widespread, popular and well known among literate townspeople, clerics and nobles alike, especially in the Empire…

Because they were under the direction of a warden or house confessor, nuns had relatively good access to vernacular translations. A fifteenth-century Netherlandish manuscript specified that the sister who was in charge of the books was to see that if anything in the book appeared to be false, it should be brought before the rector of the house for him to examine, before it is allowed to be commonly used by the sisters. (…) Great care is to be taken not to lend books to outsiders without the permission of the rector. (…) Uncommon books are not to be read at meals until the rector has first seen that their contents are good and profitable. (…) Books are not to be lent to ignorant people.42Although great care was enjoined on the sister in charge to see that such vernacular books did not fall into the ‘wrong’ hands, such an admonishment documents** both the relatively mild attitude of the church regarding such books and the interest of the unlearned laity in them (the learned laity also had good access to vernacular books, including Bibles). In those important female houses whose library catalogues have survived, we notice the existence not merely of many vernacular works of Biblical piety and devotion, but also of vernacular Bibles…

Earlier generations of German scholars unravelled Luther’s polemic about the inaccessibility of the Bible.49*Rost notes that eighteenth-century scholars were often surprised to discover that German Bibles had been circulating in large numbers well before Luther’s translation,** so steeped were they in the story of Biblical inaccessibility started by Luther himself…

In 1883, Wilhelm Krafft entered the lists with a short piece (published as a monograph) **arguing that the large number of editions of the German Bible before Luther proves that it was not merely kept in the libraries of princes and religious houses or schools, but that it was read “in accordance with the repeated urgings of the editors and other Christian writers by educated lay-people”. **For example, he cites the editor of the 1480 Cologne Bible, who wrote in his preface that all ‘good hearts’, clerics and lay-people, who see and read this Bible should unite themselves with God and ask the Holy Spirit, master of this text, to help them to understand this translation according to His will and for the salvation of their soul. Other editors of German Bibles and writers of the later fifteenth century also recommended that their readers read for themselves in the Bible.

.

 

[Duane1966]

And finally.

Alister McGrath, an avowedly Protestant historian of theology, noted in 1987** that no universal or absolute prohibition of the translation of scriptures into the vernacular was ever issued by a medieval pope or council, nor was any similar prohibition directed against the use of such translations by the clergy or laity,”21 thus echoing early and perfectly orthodox Lutheran statements of the same point by Kropatschek22 and Adolf Risch, in 1922,23 as well as Margaret Deanesly’s similar points in 1920.**24 The most these older authors would allow is that the church was simply reluctant to allow unsupervised lay access to vernacular translations,the quality of which was difficult to control. By the end of the twentieth century, scholars were even less guarded about the importance of the medieval vernacular Bible.

The last part that I highlighted, is an easy conclusion to reach, and the correct one I might add. The importance of a bible in the vernacular population that statistics show at the start of the sixteenth century to be about ten percent, is just not that important.

I must admit to one error that I posted earlier. None of the 22 versions in the vernacular were given an official license to be printed, but the fact that pre-Reformation vernacular works of piety and the bible were found in convents and monasteries, cannot fail to lead one to conclude that the bishops knew about them, and had no major problem with them.

 

[Duane1966]

Wait, didn’t we agree that Protestants are led by the devil and shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near Catholics?

Oops, wrong conversation.

But seriously, wouldn’t you like to have the power that you granted to Duane1966, I.e. the power to make problematic people disappear?

That power should only be used for good. In your hands, who knows what might happen?

 

[Peter_J]

I do, goodness sake Peter, look at the post above this one!!:whacky:

shaw: Oh you Protestants, always trying to get us to look at some book or something.

 

[Peter_J]

Actually I found the formula in my Protestant Bible…something called turning the other cheek…not sure if it’s in the Catholic version or not!

Buut seriously, I use CAF’s “ignore list” feature. Does that count as turning the other cheek?

 

[commenter]

Thread topic is the use of the Bible in spiritual combat…not the Eucharist.

Please return to topic and remain there.

Fresh topics should be addressed in a separate thread and there is already such a thread in progress.
Responding to a Protestant Claim about the Eucharist

Actually there are constantly several threads about Catholic vs Protestant, with the usual suspects recycling, and recycling, the same usual arguments over and over.

Let’s look at the more interesting part of the **this **thread topic: “in spiritual combat”.
The pope believes in spiritual combat! Against an actual devil!

The world is divided in 2 groups.

Some people, including many Catholics and Protestants, believe in absolute truths, including some about the supernatural. There is an actual, literal devil, as well as unfallen angels. Both influence individuals and societies. Satan is not the only source of evil - there is also The World and The Flesh - but the impact of devils cannot be ignored. There are supernatural means, including the sacraments, as well as the Bible, that can assist us in spiritual combat. “Spirituality” is not inherently good or evil.

There are other people, including many Catholics and Protestants, who either deny the supernatural altogether, or say the supernatural is what each person feels it is, rather than any doctrine for all. They regard the devil (or unfallen angels) as a literary symbol, not a reality. They regard “spirituality” as inherently good, though each person has to define their own spirituality, rather than any kind of doctrine. They regard any mention of the devil, or angels in general, as distractions from the real priority, fostering peace and justice, and equality.

The pope is obviously in the first group, but the second group seems to dominate the media and educational systems, as well as much of Catholic and Protestant institutions. I encourage posters to consider the Bible, and **this **distinction.

 

[susanlo]

Susan, context is everything. Tell me, what do you think would have happened in just about any Protestant country over the last 500 years, or even here in the United States over the past 200 years, if a member of a Protestant congregation would walk into a Protestant area with a Catholic bible, do you think the Protestant pastors would have slapped them on the back and said: “it’s just great you have that version of the bible!!”? Considering that there were laws that states tried to enact against Catholics having their own schools, obviously what religious leaders consider "tainted" bibles goes both ways, and is obviously considered by both sides an important issue. After all, souls are at risk, and the Catholic Church was commissioned by the Lord to shepherd His flock. The argument over having bibles in the vernacular, is, without a doubt, just an excuse for a person to privately interpret them to make oneself their own religious authority. The fragmentation of Protestantism has bore this out.

I have never heard of somebody being forbidden or discouraged from reading a “Catholic Bible.” Do you mean one with the Deuterocanon? I think the general view from the reformation churches was that these books were Jewish literature containing many historical facts, but they weren’t written by prophets inspired by the Holy Spirit. I don’t know of any examples of these books being burned by churches, but I have no doubt you can find an example for me.

Which state banned Catholic Schools?

But there is another point that I find at the same time both laughable and hypocritical in the cries for a bible in the vernacular, one that most people never stop to contemplate. If the vernacular is so important, why at a time when most of Judea spoke Aramaic, was there no condemnation by Jesus about the fact that the sacred Jewish scrolls read in the synagogues, were written in Hebrew, and had to be read in Hebrew? Obviously, God did not consider the transmission of the OT to His own people in the vernacular a subject worthy of His attention.

Did the Jewish Synagogue leaders ban the Septuagint and burn the copies they found?

I can see some argument for reading and preserving Scripture in its original language and teaching the language to the followers. However, neither the Old Testament or New Testament was written in Latin. The Latin was just a translation as well. So I don’t see the same logic here.

Remember, context is everything. From New Advent: Notice, it forbids translations. You were free to own the Vulgate, if you could afford one. And I have yet to find a historian who does not admit that if you were one of the one percent of the population at this time who could read, in this area of the world, the probability of you being able to read, but not read Latin, was ZERO. So the Church was, once again, concerned with misuse.

It is always important to know context, and to not trim the whole canon to fit your argument. Here is the whole passage:

I was unable to find the full canon for the Council of Tarragona online. I took the quote I shared from Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Tarragona
I would not purposefully change the text of a quote. I do see now that on some sources this quote has “in the Romance language” and on other sources it doesn’t. Interestingly enough, Wikipedia cites the same French book that you gave (along with the actual council canon which I don’t know where to find.) I found the French book by Daniel Lortsch, but unfortunately I don’t speak French. Maybe someone else can find it in here? fdier02140.free.fr/histoirebible.pdf

Either way, the Council of Toulouse states that the Old Testament and New Testament are forbidden. The translations are forbidden for the “Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin,” but the Latin for these 3 were allowed.

So again we see, that the laity were free to own the Latin Vulgate, which every historian agrees that if you could read at this time period, in the area of the world that this council took place, you could read Latin.

Your own quotes prove that what I stated is true. If you got permission, you were free to own the Latin Vulgate. The Church was worried about having corrupted translations. I am sure you would in reality commend the Catholic Church for being such a careful guardian that she did not want corrupted Scriptures causing sheep to wander away. Every one of your passages shows that the laity were only forbidden to have unauthorized translations. They were free to own the Latin Vulgate.

By the way, using your logic, since every state in the US forbids the operation of a motor vehicle without a license, the United States actually bans the operating of motor vehicles by it’s citizens. The fact that states make people get drivers licenses must seem ridiculous in your eyes.

Operating a motor vehicle incorrectly could cause injuries and deaths to fellow citizens. Younger children can drive trucks and tractors on their family farms where they aren’t around the public. Licensing is only necessary when you are on public government maintained streets and have the potential to hurt others. I have never heard that reading could injure and even kill people.

 

[susanlo]

22 versions in the vernacular before the Reformation. I am linking an article by a history professor from the University of Alberta. I will post some excerpts, but the whole article is an interesting read. He quotes from many German Lutheran scholars, that back up the fact that the history that has been popularized about that time period, is for the most part a twisting of the facts. prophetess.lstc.edu/~rklein/Doc11/gow.pdf

And finally.The last part that I highlighted, is an easy conclusion to reach, and the correct one I might add. The importance of a bible in the vernacular population that statistics show at the start of the sixteenth century to be about ten percent, is just not that important.

I must admit to one error that I posted earlier. None of the 22 versions in the vernacular were given an official license to be printed, but the fact that pre-Reformation vernacular works of piety and the bible were found in convents and monasteries, cannot fail to lead one to conclude that the bishops knew about them, and had no major problem with them.

I wonder why they needed so many different translations. Was it because the area was made up of separate political areas and information wasn’t shared? That seems like a lot. One or two authorized translations could have been sufficient and solved the issue of improperly translated works. Most, if not all, of the translations before Luther were translations of the Latin instead of translations from the Hebrew and Greek.

It seems that there was inconsistency in various regions as to whether vernacular Bibles were allowed.:

The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge: BIBLE READING BY THE LAITY, RESTRICTIONS ON.
Chapter II:
“Owing to lack of culture among the Germanic and Romanic peoples, there was for a long time no thought of restricting access to the Bible there. Translations of Biblical books into German began only in the Carolingian period and were not originally intended for the laity. Nevertheless the people were anxious to have the divine service and the Scripture lessons read in the vernacular. John VIII in 880 permitted, after the reading of the Latin gospel, a translation into Slavonic; but Gregory VII, in a letter to Duke Vratislav of Bohemia in 1080 characterized the custom as unwise, bold, and forbidden (Epist., vii, 11; P. Jaff�, BRG, ii, 392 sqq.). This was a formal prohibition, not of Bible reading in general, but of divine service in the vernacular.”

“In Germany, Charles IV issued in 1369 an edict to four inquisitors against the translating and the reading of Scripture in the German language. This edict was caused by the operations of Beghards and Beguines. In 1485 and 1486, Berthold, archbishop of Mainz, issued an edict against the printing of religious books in German, giving among other reasons the singular one that the German language was unadapted to convey correctly religious ideas, and therefore they would be profaned. Berthold’s edict had some influence, but could not prevent the dissemination and publication of new editions of the Bible. Leaders in the Church sometimes recommended to the laity the reading of the Bible, and the Church kept silence officially as long as these efforts were not abused.”
ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.v.lxi.htm

Chapter III.2:
“The first index published by a pope (Paul IV), in 1559, prohibited under the title of Biblia prohibita a number of Latin editions as well as the publication and possession of translations of the Bible in German, French, Spanish, Italian, English, or Dutch, without the permission of the sacred office of the Roman Inquisition (Reusch, ut sup., i, 264).”
ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.v.lxi.htm

 

[Wannano]

Buut seriously, I use CAF’s “ignore list” feature. Does that count as turning the other cheek?

Seriously, ok. If I understand the “ignore list” it is set up in this fashion. I register your name to be ignored and then forever any posts you put forward will not show up on my screen?

 

[Wannano]

Actually there are constantly several threads about Catholic vs Protestant, with the usual suspects recycling, and recycling, the same usual arguments over and over.

Let’s look at the more interesting part of the **this **thread topic: “in spiritual combat”.
The pope believes in spiritual combat! Against an actual devil!

The world is divided in 2 groups.

Some people, including many Catholics and Protestants, believe in absolute truths, including some about the supernatural. There is an actual, literal devil, as well as unfallen angels. Both influence individuals and societies. Satan is not the only source of evil - there is also The World and The Flesh - but the impact of devils cannot be ignored. There are supernatural means, including the sacraments, as well as the Bible, that can assist us in spiritual combat. “Spirituality” is not inherently good or evil.

There are other people, including many Catholics and Protestants, who either deny the supernatural altogether, or say the supernatural is what each person feels it is, rather than any doctrine for all. They regard the devil (or unfallen angels) as a literary symbol, not a reality. They regard “spirituality” as inherently good, though each person has to define their own spirituality, rather than any kind of doctrine. They regard any mention of the devil, or angels in general, as distractions from the real priority, fostering peace and justice, and equality.

The pope is obviously in the first group, but the second group seems to dominate the media and educational systems, as well as much of Catholic and Protestant institutions. I encourage posters to consider the Bible, and **this **distinction.

I found this to be a very insightful and appropriate reminder. We don’t strive against flesh and blood but against the evil supernatural.

As Christians, if we are not constantly confronted with a spiritual battle, is it an indication the devil is happy with where we are?

 

[rcwitness]

Seriously, ok. If I understand the “ignore list” it is set up in this fashion. I register your name to be ignored and then forever any posts you put forward will not show up on my screen?

Good question. I’ve wondered what it means too. I have never even been close to feeling the need to ignore somebody. It seems like a poor attitude, to me.

But I certainly don’t specifically read every post in the thread, always. When I’m trying to enter an already lengthy thread, I do skim, and give more attention to “friends” and people who often write constructive posts.

 

[Peter_J]

I just can’t see getting bothered by something posted anonymously on the internet.

Okay I’ll grant there could be exceptions; like if Wannano said “Rome is the whore of Babylon” that would certainly bother me (if he were serious I mean) but only because even though he’s technically anonymous to me I’ve come to know him as someone reasonable. But if it were someone anonymous and unknown to me then I would just think “Okay, so one out of the hundreds of millions of Protestants thinks Rome is the whore of Babylon. I wonder if it’ll rain today?”

I have enough to worry about just having Steve Bannon in the White House.

 

[Duane1966]

I have never heard of somebody being forbidden or discouraged from reading a “Catholic Bible.” Do you mean one with the Deuterocanon? I think the general view from the reformation churches was that these books were Jewish literature containing many historical facts, but they weren’t written by prophets inspired by the Holy Spirit. I don’t know of any examples of these books being burned by churches, but I have no doubt you can find an example for me.

It was a crime in Protestant England to own the Douay-Rheims bible, and they were burned. As were bibles where the Reformers held sway in Switzerland. As were Latin Vulgates burned in parts of Protestant controlled France.

Which state banned Catholic Schools?

Oregon, early 20th century. Washington tried to also.

Did the Jewish Synagogue leaders ban the Septuagint and burn the copies they found?

No, because the Septuagint was authorized by them. The Jewish high priest sent scribes to do the translation. Notice, it was an authorized translation.

I can see some argument for reading and preserving Scripture in its original language and teaching the language to the followers. However, neither the Old Testament or New Testament was written in Latin. The Latin was just a translation as well. So I don’t see the same logic here.

You miss the point completely. When Jesus read from the scrolls in the synagogue, very few of His audience would have fully understood what He was reading. His listeners spoke Aramaic, while the scrolls in Judea were in Hebrew. There are similarities between Hebraic and Aramaic, but comprehension would have been understanding snippets. Yet nowhere do we see Jesus upbraiding the Jewish leaders for not providing scrolls to the people in the vernacular? Why? Surely if it was important to have God’s word in the vernacular in the middle ages, it would be just as important at the time of Christ. The simple fact of the matter, a bible in the vernacular is not all that important. Much more important is the teacher of God’s word.

I was unable to find the full canon for the Council of Tarragona online. I took the quote I shared from Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Tarragona
I would not purposefully change the text of a quote. I do see now that on some sources this quote has “in the Romance language” and on other sources it doesn’t. Interestingly enough, Wikipedia cites the same French book that you gave (along with the actual council canon which I don’t know where to find.) I found the French book by Daniel Lortsch, but unfortunately I don’t speak French. Maybe someone else can find it in here? fdier02140.free.fr/histoirebible.pdf

Wikipedia is famous for giving only half of a story. I never take my information from them, as I have found Wikipedia for the most part unreliable.

Either way, the Council of Toulouse states that the Old Testament and New Testament are forbidden. The translations are forbidden for the “Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin,” but the Latin for these 3 were allowed.

You misread the canon. I will dissect it for you. There are three parts to the canon. Part one is the main part. The other two parts either restrict, or clarify what exactly is being banned, and are in direct relation to part one, and each other. You must always read canons carefully. The mistaken assumption you have reached is easy to make.

Part one:

"Canon 14.* We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament;*

If this were to stand by itself, your argument wound be valid

Part two show exceptions:

unless anyone from motive of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin

If the canon were to stop here, your argument would still be valid.

Part three, stands in relation to part one, and shows exactly what is being prohibited.

*but we most strictly **forbid their having any translation ***of these books."

If we are to take your argument as valid, this part of the canon is redundant. But actually they are clarifying that it is translations that are banned in part one, not the Latin Vulgate.

So, a layperson was free to own the Latin Vulgate at this time.

Operating a motor vehicle incorrectly could cause injuries and deaths to fellow citizens. Younger children can drive trucks and tractors on their family farms where they aren’t around the public. Licensing is only necessary when you are on public government maintained streets and have the potential to hurt others. I have never heard that reading could injure and even kill people.

But reading can lead to the loss of your soul, correct? And the Church was established by Christ to shepherd His flock to Heaven, correct? So if the Church is concerned that reading a bad translation of the bible will be detrimental to someone’s soul, and the New Testament actually says the exact same thing, isn’t banning an unauthorized translation, that you know is corrupted, the most prudent course of action?