Jabin said:

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I have had to endure so many preachers like Tony Alamo, John McArthur, and Jimmy Swaggart

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Although I do not know much about him at all, McArthur seems to be several quantum levels different than Alamo and Swaggart. But perhaps I am missing a lot. What do you not like about McArthur, and why do you put him in the same category as the other two?

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https://www.gty.org/library/articles/DD09/roman-catholicism

Thanks????

That link apparently shows McArthur's teachings about RCC. What makes him the equivalent of Alamo, though?

It's a false dichotomy.

UTExan said:

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dermdoc said:

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UTExan said:

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dermdoc said:

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Jabin said:

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I have had to endure so many preachers like Tony Alamo, John McArthur, and Jimmy Swaggart

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Although I do not know much about him at all, McArthur seems to be several quantum levels different than Alamo and Swaggart. But perhaps I am missing a lot. What do you not like about McArthur, and why do you put him in the same category as the other two?

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https://www.gty.org/library/articles/DD09/roman-catholicism

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This is the key for me:
" Whereas evangelical Protestants believe the Bible is the ultimate test of all truth, Roman Catholics believe the Church determines what is true and what is not. In effect, this makes the Church a higher authority than Scripture."

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So what did the church do before Bibles were widely available or people could read?

And I am not a Catholic but facts are facts.

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Seems as if they tried to suppress popular reading and distribution of the Bible if John Wycliffe's experience is any guide. In the early 1400s Pope Martin 5 had him posthumously declared a heretic and his body was exhumed and burned. That showed him.

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I like this on heresy.

https://www.truebiblicalfreedom.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/You-are-already-a-heretic.pdf

I didn't watch the whole thing but I watched a little

That Gendron guy is a clown

John MacArthur:
Christianity… That was dead cold, and the Gospel was lost. Truth was lost. But it had massive power over people. What kept that power was… Don't put the Bible in their language. Don't let them read it. The church is the only interpreter of the Bible. They can't interpret scripture. If anybody tried to do the interpretation on their own, they would be murdered. We know the story of William Tyndale. He translates the Bible into English. They chase him all over the place until they finally kill him. What was his crime? Translating the Bible into the language of the people so that every "plowboy" in England could read the scripture. That is a crime that brings down that false system.
Trent Horn:
In reality, Catholics had been allowed to publish vernacular translations of the Bible for centuries before Tyndale published his English New Testament in 1534. Two late medieval examples include the 1466 German Mentelin Bible, Guyart Moulins' 1297 French Bible, and the Pe****ta, a 5th-century Syriac Bible that had been used in the Eastern Church, while the Western Church, at that time, was blessed with St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate. Even though it was in Latin, that was a vernacular translation because people read and understood Latin. It was read aloud in churches and could be understood by the masses.
The church did not oppose the idea of vernacular Bible translations as such. It opposed the idea of private individuals making their own translations of the Bible on their own authority because they might mistranslate the word of God and lead people away from the faith. In fact, the church still prohibits this. Section 825 of the Code of Canon Law requires permission to create a formal Bible translation.
The church took seriously its duty to protect the integrity of sacred scripture, which is something that any Protestant who loves the Bible should appreciate since most Protestants wouldn't tolerate a New World Translation of the Bible that Jehovah's Witnesses use to be a part of their Bible studies.
The church rejected Tyndale's translation because he rendered words in a way that undermined church teaching, like translating "ecclesia" as "congregation" instead of "church." The notes and prologues in his Bible also contained attacks on things like the papacy. The Protestant authors David Price and Charles Ryrie say of Tyndale's translation: "Unquestionably, anti-Catholic outbursts are sufficiently numerous to make a strong impression on any reader."
It was the state that later executed Tyndale for his heresies that threatened to undermine its authority. The church only disciplined Tyndale by publicly removing his priestly vestments. Heresy, at that time in history, was considered a crime against the public order, which led to executions of both Protestants and Catholics throughout the Reformation.
The Catholic author Matthew A.C. Newsome writes the following, "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. 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-Rheims version, whose New Testament was released in 1582 and whose Old Testament was released in 1609.

https://www.catholic.com/audio/cot/rebutting-john-macarthurs-catholic-dark-ages

"There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be."

Fulton J. Sheen

10andBOUNCE said:

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Perhaps if there are that many who are failing to correctly perceive, maybe the issue is how complicated the owner has made it?

If I leave a meeting at work and 9 out of 10 people came away with a different message than I said, I didn't do a good job of communicating in that meeting.

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What if you run a a meeting and 5 out of those 10 people told everyone what you were saying was wrong. How likely do you think it is everyone walks away with clarity?

I won't speak to how the Latin word was best translated, as I don't know off the top of my head. But point of information:

Literacy did not explode due to biblical translations. Literacy didn't truly grow until mid 1800s to early 1900s. The Industrial Revolution and dependence on a somewhat educated population is why literacy exploded.

That explosion of literacy also led to the Scientific Revolution. Many of the earliest scientists were from middle class, Protestant backgrounds, and were literate. The Scientific Revolution preceded the Industrial Revolution by centuries.

Jabin said:

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Thaddeus73 said:

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John MacArthur:
Christianity… That was dead cold, and the Gospel was lost. Truth was lost. But it had massive power over people. What kept that power was… Don't put the Bible in their language. Don't let them read it. The church is the only interpreter of the Bible. They can't interpret scripture. If anybody tried to do the interpretation on their own, they would be murdered. We know the story of William Tyndale. He translates the Bible into English. They chase him all over the place until they finally kill him. What was his crime? Translating the Bible into the language of the people so that every "plowboy" in England could read the scripture. That is a crime that brings down that false system.
Trent Horn:
In reality, Catholics had been allowed to publish vernacular translations of the Bible for centuries before Tyndale published his English New Testament in 1534. Two late medieval examples include the 1466 German Mentelin Bible, Guyart Moulins' 1297 French Bible, and the Pe****ta, a 5th-century Syriac Bible that had been used in the Eastern Church, while the Western Church, at that time, was blessed with St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate. Even though it was in Latin, that was a vernacular translation because people read and understood Latin. It was read aloud in churches and could be understood by the masses.
The church did not oppose the idea of vernacular Bible translations as such. It opposed the idea of private individuals making their own translations of the Bible on their own authority because they might mistranslate the word of God and lead people away from the faith. In fact, the church still prohibits this. Section 825 of the Code of Canon Law requires permission to create a formal Bible translation.
The church took seriously its duty to protect the integrity of sacred scripture, which is something that any Protestant who loves the Bible should appreciate since most Protestants wouldn't tolerate a New World Translation of the Bible that Jehovah's Witnesses use to be a part of their Bible studies.
The church rejected Tyndale's translation because he rendered words in a way that undermined church teaching, like translating "ecclesia" as "congregation" instead of "church." The notes and prologues in his Bible also contained attacks on things like the papacy. The Protestant authors David Price and Charles Ryrie say of Tyndale's translation: "Unquestionably, anti-Catholic outbursts are sufficiently numerous to make a strong impression on any reader."
It was the state that later executed Tyndale for his heresies that threatened to undermine its authority. The church only disciplined Tyndale by publicly removing his priestly vestments. Heresy, at that time in history, was considered a crime against the public order, which led to executions of both Protestants and Catholics throughout the Reformation.
The Catholic author Matthew A.C. Newsome writes the following, "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. 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-Rheims version, whose New Testament was released in 1582 and whose Old Testament was released in 1609.

https://www.catholic.com/audio/cot/rebutting-john-macarthurs-catholic-dark-ages

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Now that is a lot of misleading propaganda and re-writing of history. You ought to look at some non-RCC sources for a change to obtain a more accurate account of historical events.

As an example of your post's inaccuracy, "ecclesia" is better translated as "congregation" rather than "church". Its use in Greek was a town assembly or gathering. Nothing in the context shows that the NT authors intended to use it to mean an organization or formalized church.

And to say that most people read and understood Latin is ludicrously untrue. At that time, most people were illiterate and only a very few educated elites, particularly priests, could even understand Latin. Literacy did not become widespread until the explosion of Bible translations into the vernacular, against the will of the RCC, which motivated people to learn to read so that they could have and read their own Bible.

Finally, blaming Tyndale's execution on the State vs. the RCC is dishonest. The state and the RCC were so intertwined at that time that attempting to shift blame from the RCC to the state is a doomed effort. The RCC conducted Tyndale's inquisition. The states typically deferred to the RCC; i.e., the RCC could protect individuals from charges of heresy. But the RCC did not with Tyndale.

It was typical for the RCC to charge someone with heresy, conduct an inquisition, and then turn them over to the state for execution, which is exactly what happened with Tyndale.

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Reading of scriptures didn't explode until the printing press. And then many people decided they could just interpret scripture accurately on their own. Every wonder why there are so many protestant denominations that cannot agree? The RCC made some horrible decisions in the past. What they did not do was every state doctrines of the faith that conflicted with scripture. There were bad people, and I'm sure bad opinions, but the teachings have been the same as the church fathers. The RCC was only against everyone reading the bible because of exactly what happened. They read scriptures and often made them apply to their intentions. I tend to believe the Church that began with Christ and not one that was created in the 1500's and splintered.

BluHorseShu said:

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dermdoc said:

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I know nothing about Alamo.

I think most Catholics think MacArthur portrays their beliefs falsely. From my rudimentary knowledge of Catholicism, I tend to agree that MacArthur does not accurately.portray Catholic beliefs.

I do not know why MacArthur has to pick fights like this. But he sure does it a lot.

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He does. And there are so many holes in his claims and just wrong statements. What he means is his interpretation of scripture is the accurate one. There are many great debates about Sola Scriptura and the irony that he mentions Luther based on things Luther still believed is priceless.

The only differences is that traditions helped the Church fathers and those on down, interpret the scriptures. One person alone under a tree with a bible is likely not to read the gospel in the accurate way the church fathers taught. Sola Scriptura is precisely why we have so many denominations and myriad of scripture interpretations.

'Do you understand what you are reading?' And he said, 'How can I, unless some one guides me?' And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him" (Acts 8:30-31).

So if MacArthur claims he is the one to correctly and accurately guide everyone, then he believes beyond Sola Scriptura.

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Yep. Every interpretation (and there are many) are based on that mortal man's interpretation.

I am very leery about what anybody says "just because". Or even if I agree with them initially.

Jabin said:

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The Banned said:

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I won't speak to how the Latin word was best translated, as I don't know off the top of my head. But point of information:

Literacy did not explode due to biblical translations. Literacy didn't truly grow until mid 1800s to early 1900s. The Industrial Revolution and dependence on a somewhat educated population is why literacy exploded.

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Not correct. See, e.g.,

Literacy - Our World in Data

Note that the explosion in literacy occurred shortly after Gutenberg's first use of the printing press in the mid-1450s, publishing - - - wait for it, the Bible!

Also note that the explosion of literacy occurred first in the Protestant, non-RCC, countries.

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Only two countries cracked 50% by 1820 and only 3 by 1870. Also, those two happened to be the wealthiest countries per capita around that time. The Dutch were crushing it in trade and the UK was obviously the UK. France was more powerful militarily, but the Dutch were outpacing them economically. Makes sense that those countries achieve higher literacy first. Note that Germany, where it all kicked off, stayed very low. So it can't just be the reformation. It's correlation, not causation.

Nothing about literacy "exploded" until the Industrial Revolution was well under way.

ETA: note that Sweden, while almost completely Protestant by 1600, didn't have a literacy boom until the IR as well

Jabin said:

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The Banned said:

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I won't speak to how the Latin word was best translated, as I don't know off the top of my head. But point of information:

Literacy did not explode due to biblical translations. Literacy didn't truly grow until mid 1800s to early 1900s. The Industrial Revolution and dependence on a somewhat educated population is why literacy exploded.

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Not correct. See, e.g.,

Literacy - Our World in Data

Note that the explosion in literacy occurred shortly after Gutenberg's first use of the printing press in the mid-1450s, publishing - - - wait for it, the Bible!

Also note that the explosion of literacy occurred first in the Protestant, non-RCC, countries.

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Gutenberg's Bible was insanely expensive. Publishing that first was more an advertisement as an attempt to make it more widely available. But that's a bit beside the point. The printing press helped make literacy more attainable and more necessary. Religion was part of that. The Protestant focus on the individual's relationship with God meant certain groups, particularly Calvinists, prized literacy. It's not purely about religion, though. The printing press exploded in popularity because of pamphlets, not Bibles. Bawdy and violent stories, songs, and newspapers drove printing and the rise of literacy.

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Only two countries cracked 50% by 1820 and only 3 by 1870. Also, those two happened to be the wealthiest countries per capita around that time. The Dutch were crushing it in trade and the UK was obviously the UK. France was more powerful militarily, but the Dutch were outpacing them economically. Makes sense that those countries achieve higher literacy first. Note that Germany, where it all kicked off, stayed very low. So it can't just be the reformation. It's correlation, not causation.

Nothing about literacy "exploded" until the Industrial Revolution was well under way.

ETA: note that Sweden, while almost completely Protestant by 1600, didn't have a literacy boom until the IR as well

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I don't know where you're getting your data from, but it's not from that chart I posted.

According to the chart, Sweden had a literacy rate of 75% by 1800.

You also dismiss England and Holland because of their wealth. Why should they be dismissed for that reason? As many historians have noted, there is a strong correlation between religion and wealth (e.g., the Protestant work ethic), leading one to suspect that correlation would also be true of widespread Bibles.

It's not valid at all to describe Germany's literacy rate as "very low". It was up to 38% by 1750. And one cannot overlook the fact that much of Germany remained RCC. That part of Germany did not have the benefit of Bibles in the vernacular, removing the motives of the middle and lower classes to become literate in order to read their Bibles.

All the numbers on "Our world in data" are showing is whether or not a person could sign their name versus making their mark on a document. That has little bearing on whether a person could actually read, much less read the scriptures.

Zobel said:

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All the numbers on "Our world in data" are showing is whether or not a person could sign their name versus making their mark on a document. That has little bearing on whether a person could actually read, much less read the scriptures.

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Where did you get that? I don't see that info in or around the chart. It claims literacy to mean that a person "could both read and write".

Additionally, multiple other sources exist describing the rapid rise of literacy in NW Europe well before the IR.

And I'm a bit surprised at the push-back on this widely accepted idea - that the translation of the Bible into the vernacular contributed (or caused) the growing literacy in Europe. See, e.g.:

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Although vernacular Bible translations, which contributed much to the rise of literacy in Europe, were first promoted by Protestants, the newly available text in one's own language was used by all Christian denominations.

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Religious Texts | Europeana

The table below specific to the UK says so. The one presented as European literacy rates is based off of an even more questionable model based on estimates of book prices and an estimated elasticity of demand for books

From the source:

Jabin said:

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Only two countries cracked 50% by 1820 and only 3 by 1870. Also, those two happened to be the wealthiest countries per capita around that time. The Dutch were crushing it in trade and the UK was obviously the UK. France was more powerful militarily, but the Dutch were outpacing them economically. Makes sense that those countries achieve higher literacy first. Note that Germany, where it all kicked off, stayed very low. So it can't just be the reformation. It's correlation, not causation.

Nothing about literacy "exploded" until the Industrial Revolution was well under way.

ETA: note that Sweden, while almost completely Protestant by 1600, didn't have a literacy boom until the IR as well

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I don't know where you're getting your data from, but it's not from that chart I posted.

According to the chart, Sweden had a literacy rate of 75% by 1800.

You also dismiss England and Holland because of their wealth. Why should they be dismissed for that reason? As many historians have noted, there is a strong correlation between religion and wealth (e.g., the Protestant work ethic), leading one to suspect that correlation would also be true of widespread Bibles.

It's not valid at all to describe Germany's literacy rate as "very low". It was up to 38% by 1750. And one cannot overlook the fact that much of Germany remained RCC. That part of Germany did not have the benefit of Bibles in the vernacular, removing the motives of the middle and lower classes to become literate in order to read their Bibles.

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Sorry, the Netherlands dropped off in the 1800s for some reason. So I would have to amend that to 3 countries by 1820 and 4 by 1870. Still not great.

So 200 years after Sweden became fully Protestant and immediately after the political unrest settled and economic reform in the country was blasting off, it had to be the Bible as the catalyst? Not the radical economic changes or new found political stability?

And yes, 38% is very low if we're using the Bible as the catalyst for literacy, especially considering the other two examples. Germany was majority Protestant by that time, so if biblical interpretation was the primary impetus, you should expect more than 38%. But the German economy starts to take off in the early to mid 1800s and boom! Very literate population. Just took 300 years. This was also the time they formed mandatory public education.

So where we had two strong, Protestant economies, we had two high literacy rates. Where we had two weak, Protestant economies, we have low literacy rates. That is until their economy starts to pick up. I'm not saying people weren't trying to read their Bible, but I guess I would question why two countries with already strong economies were so far ahead of the other countries that protestantized at the same time if reading their Bible was the primary factor.

I'm not seeing where you are getting your point from the chart you posted. Sorry.

ETA: I see that the second chart at the link I posted bases literacy on the ability of people to sign their names. It appears that, lacking any other hard data, scholars use that as a marker for literacy. It may not be perfect, but very little data from ~500 years ago is. We have to use the data we have, unless there's a good reason not to.

I'm missing your point. Sweden's literacy rate of 75%, before the IR, is pretty impressive. What am I missing?

Also, there is/was a consensus of historians that the Bible and its translations drove literacy in northwestern Europe. The King James translation was referred to as the "People's Bible", for example. Sweden passed a law mandating the teaching of reading and writing specifically so that people could read their Bibles.

If that consensus of the academy does not exist today, it is most likely due to the blinders of the "woke" scholars that today have taken over the academy, rather than any new information that contradicts the previous consensus.

The chart I posted is where the graph comes from. It's the source they cite. The problem is that itself is an estimate made of estimates made of estimates.

I'm not sure how demonstrative it is that place one vs place two bad higher literacy rates based on estimated book production and estimated elasticity of demand. I'm saying it's pretty fuzzy to begin with. Trying to also tie that in to Protestantism or any other single cause is probably unwise. It's complicated.

I would also note that in WWI the US recruits were about 75% literate by what I have been able to find, where literacy means they could sign their name. But that's men, and if you look typically male literacy historically was much higher than females - on the order of 2x. So ballpark 75% of adult males and 50% of adult females at the beginning of the 20th century in the US were literate.

Do we really think Sweden was past that a century before? I don't.