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The Church's Forbiddance of Scripture Study

Once while speaking to a protestant minister's son, I was asked why the Catholic church forbid the study of scripture. My answer was simple enough. I simply told him that if I were forbidden to read or study scripture, then the Catholic church would have no basis for authority because denying scripture was denying Christ, and to deny Christ was to deny the very essence of the church and who founded it. So to put it simply, the church not only does not discourage scripture study but promotes it.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God."

(John 1:1)

 

"This sacred Synod earnestly and specifically urges all the Christian faithful...to learn by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures the excelling knowledge of Jesus Christ... For ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ..."

(Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation)

(Chapter 6 Section 25)

It is ironic that in the part that states "For ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ" is actually a quote from St. Jerome who was the first person within the Catholic church to translate the collected set of books of the bible into the Latin vulgate.

Did the church burn bibles?

The answer to this is: Yes the Catholic church did in fact burn entire volumes and sets of bibles, but one must look as to the reason behind the action. The reason for bible burnings was an attempt to keep the error rate down in copies due to inaccurate or badly translated scriptures. The goal of the church was to keep the original meaning of the scriptures in tact. Over time many different publications will change the meanings or editors of major publishing companies will rewrite entire sections of books that an author will put up for publishing. This happened in the middle ages just as it does today with all our computer technology and modern printing presses. The main difference was that if a mistake was found within a bible that was copied and translated entirely by hand, the only thing do to would be to discard it and make sure that bad translation did not get copied again. Could you imagine one of the ten commandments saying "Thou shall covet thy neighbors wife". This is simply one word omitted. Just imagine what else could happen when all books were written by hand. We make mistakes constantly that we conveniently simply press the backspace key to remove. But copy an entire book by hand and ink, and you have yourself quite a task indeed. I have included a listing of some of the bibles that were burned and removed completely from the churches library. We can see in just these 3 examples that one word or even one letter can completely change the meaning. Consistency and accuracy is very important when printing the Word of God.

1 - One version printed in 1717 was called the "Vinegar Bible" because it had a chapter heading "parable of the vinegar" instead of "parable of the vineyard"

2 - One version printed in 1795 was called the "Wicked Bible" It omitted the word "not" in Exodus 20:14 which read "Thou shall commit adultery"

3 - One version was called the "Murderer's Bible". It misquoted Mark 7:27 as to say "let the children first be killed" instead of "let the children first be filled"

Did the church chain the bible to the lectern?

The answer to this is: Yes the Catholic church did in fact chain the bible to the lectern, but again one must put themselves in the time and place that this was done. First,  there were no printing presses at the time. The printing press was not invented until 1450 by Johan Guttenberg. Mr. Guttenberg was no saint either. More than likely his main motivation for the invention was monetary reasons rather than educational. The Guttenberg bible sold at the time for 30 florins which was an average of 4 years worth of a common man's wages at that time in history. Therefore, it was not until years later before printing became cheap. Even after the printing press was invented, hardly no one could afford a bible besides the very rich. Everything was done by hand before the printing press, and those copies that churches did have were grossly expensive and took virtually years to replace due to the fact that they had to be written. Where was the one place there was a bible? The church of course! Was there a threat of someone taking the bible home and running off with it? Of course there was! The chains were used primarily as an anti theft deterrence rather than an educational deterrence. Currently the church endorses a few different publications, and encourage all of its parishioners to study scripture with utmost seriousness.

"God, the inspirer and author of both testaments, wisely arranged that the New Testament be hidden in the Old, and the Old be made manifest (clear) in the New...The books of the Old Testament ..show their full meaning in the New Testament .. and shed light on it and explain it."

(Decree on Divine Revelation)

(Chapter Section 16)

 

"1093 In the sacramental economy the Holy Spirit fulfills what was prefigured in the Old Covenant. Since Christ's Church was "prepared in marvelous fashion in the history of the people of Israel and in the Old Covenant," the Church's liturgy has retained certain elements of the worship of the Old Covenant as integral and irreplaceable, adopting them as her own: -notably, reading the Old Testament; -praying the Psalms; -above all, recalling the saving events and significant realities which have found their fulfillment in the mystery of Christ (promise and covenant, Exodus and Passover, kingdom and temple, exile and return). "

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