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<\/div>\nThe big myth under consideration is the commonly heard legend among Protestants (especially of an anti-Catholic bent) of Catholic hostility to the Bible and desire to keep it out of the hands of the people, for fear that its doctrines will be exposed as contrary to the Bible. I have written about the falsity of this charge:<\/p>\n
See also in this regard, the wonderfully informative article by Andrew C. Gow,\u00a0\u201cThe Contested History of\u00a0 a Book: The German Bible in the Later Middle Ages and Reformation in Legend, Ideology, and Scholarship\u201d<\/a>\u00a0(\u00a0The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures<\/i>, Vol. 9, Article 13 [2009] ); and,\u00a0\u201cLuther\u2019s Condemnation of the Rostock New Testament,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0by Kenneth A. Strand.<\/p>\n Specifically, the present question under consideration is: whether Luther\u00a0himself\u00a0<\/i>perpetuated this ridiculous myth. The inimitable anti-Catholic Reformed Protestant polemicist James Swan, would-be Luther \u201cexpert\u201d and (so he likes to make out) the Last Word on Anything Luther, claimed recently that this was\u00a0not<\/i>\u00a0the case. I shall argue the contrary, that it is\u00a0indeed<\/i>\u00a0the case.\u00a0Swan (unlike many if not most Luther biographers I have seen) has habitually scorned and frowned upon Luther\u2019s\u00a0Table-Talk<\/i>\u00a0because it was transcribed by others (sort of like the Four Gospels recording Jesus\u2019 words). So he doesn\u2019t consider it to be a source of \u201cdependable\u201d Luther utterances. Here is his\u00a0contention<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [summarizing a view he disagrees with]\u00a0I think the gist of it is clear: Luther himself invented the myth that few previous to his work had a Bible. What does research leader Sabrina Corbellini base her conclusions on? Luther\u2019s Table Talk. . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Can\u00a0Luther himself be blamed for the myth? Perhaps indirectly, based on his alleged Table Talk statements. This though requires one to base historical fact on hear-say. One has to assume\u00a0non-writings of Luther\u2019s were intended to be (perhaps) deceptively inaccurate. Rather, I think the culprit wasn\u2019t\u00a0Luther, but rather his zealous followers.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Swan also gets his facts wrong in another statement:<\/p>\n I do recall mentioning from time to time that indeed German translations of the Bible were available previous to Luther, but that most of these were written in high-German. Luther\u2019s translation gained immediate popularity due to its readability . . .<\/span>\u00a0[related combox comment]\u00a0I recall it being said the German Luther wrote his Bible in was different than that previous.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In other words, Swan seems to think that High German was largely inexplicable (like saying \u201cShakespearean English\u201d or something), so that Luther came along (again, according to his factually false view) and wrote in Low German, making the Bible readable for most of the common men of Germany. He seems to think High German means \u201cmore\u00a0difficult<\/i>\u00a0German\u201d whereas \u201cLow German\u201d is more of the common tongue. This is completely erroneous (such errors occur very often in Swan analyses: believe me, I know, from nine years of observing his fallacious arguments). The wiseGEEK web page,\u00a0\u201cWhat is High German?\u201d<\/a>\u00a0clarifies:<\/p>\n High German is the variety of German spoken in central and south Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It is also spoken in areas of other European countries, including Poland, Italy, France and Belgium. \u201cHigh\u201d refers not to any perceived superiority, although many people assume it does, but rather to the ground elevation of the areas in Germany where it is spoken. High German contrasts with the Low German or Low Saxon variety of Standard German spoken in the northern part of the country and the Netherlands.<\/p>\n High German is not a dialect, but rather a variety with many different dialects of its own. The standardized form of German used in literature and formal situations throughout Germany and Austria, called Hochdeutsch \u2013 literally \u201cHigh German\u201d \u2013 is one dialect of High German. [see also: Wikipedia,\u00a0\u201cLow German\u201d<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The fact of the matter is that Luther\u2019s Bible was written in\u00a0High<\/i>\u00a0German, and had a profound effect on the subsequent development of High German (this can be documented in a hundred places, so I need not bother). Most of the 15th and early 16th century Catholic Bibles were also in High German, as I noted as far back as 20 years ago in my research.\u00a0For example:<\/p>\n The number of translations . . . of the complete Bible, was indeed very great . . . Between this period [1466] and the separation of the Churches at least fourteen complete editions of the Bible were published in High German, and five in the low German dialect. The first High German edition was brought out in 1466 by Johann Mendel, of Strasburg . . .<\/span><\/p>\n [Other editions in High German: Strasburg: 1470, 1485 \/ Basel, Switzerland: 1474 \/ Augsburg: 1473 (2),1477 (2), 1480, 1487, 1490, 1507, 1518 \/ Nuremburg: 1483]. Bible Translations in Low German: Cologne: 1480 (2) \/ Lubeck: 1494 \/ Halberstadt: 1522 \/ Delf: before 1522]\u00a0(Johannes\u00a0<\/span>Janssen,\u00a0<\/span>History of the German People From the Close of the Middle Ages<\/em>, 16 volumes, translated by A. M. Christie, St. Louis: B. Herder, 1910 [orig. 1891]<\/span>,\u00a0 Vol. 1, 56-57; vol. 14, 388)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I knew this in 1991, but Swan is just now getting up to speed on this elementary fact, in a\u00a0recent footnote<\/a>, citing Philip Schaff. He had made the same dumb mistake in a combox comment on his site, dated\u00a015 March 2010<\/a>:<\/p>\n Luther\u2019s translation though<\/span>\u00a0[sic]\u00a0far surpassed earlier German Bibles for two main reasons (the later<\/span>\u00a0[sic]\u00a0being the more important): The printing press made Luther\u2019s Bible readily available to a society that was already purchasing his writings (that is, he was popular), secondly, his translation was not written in high German, but in\u00a0<\/span>[sic]\u00a0written in a way that could be easily understood by the common man.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Probably because of this very paper, Swan (on 7-2-11<\/a>) admitted his ignorance of the subject (the closest we will get to a retraction from him):\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve never done any extensive studies into the \u2018type\u2019 of German Luther used . . .\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It may seem petty for me to point out an error of this sort, but it is within the background context of constant insinuations from Swan through the years that my Luther research is utterly untrustworthy and all-around pathetic, whereas his {{{{{chok<\/i>e<\/i><\/b>!!!}}}}} is uniformly excellent and always facts- and primary sources-based. It\u2019s not the case. The present two errors are among dozens and dozens in Swan\u2019s \u201cresearch\u201d that I have personally documented. Many papers refuting Swan have since been removed from the Internet, because his mistakes were so basic or embarrassing that I didn\u2019t want to be uncharitable to my esteemed Protestant friends by making out that Swan\u2019s low standard is the norm in Protestant apologetics.<\/p>\n But enough of writing generally about Swan\u2019s silliness. It\u2019s another question, whether Luther\u2019s German translation was superior to the previous ones. Most argue (including most Catholics) that it was indeed far superior. But the controversy at hand was\u00a0whether the Bible was available to the populace in (mostly High) German to any significant extent before Luther<\/i>. It certainly was<\/em>. But Luther lied and polemicized in his usual juvenile fashion, and claimed that it\u00a0wasn\u2019t<\/i>.<\/p>\n Swan now comes along and says that Luther didn\u2019t perpetrate any such lie (only zealous followers of his did). He is wrong. Oddly, he refutes himself in an earlier article about the same general subject matter, by citing Luther in a\u00a0June 2008<\/a>\u00a0post:<\/p>\n Swan again refutes his present insinuation in a post dated\u00a022 October 2005<\/a>. He cites\u00a0Luther\u2019s\u00a0Preface to the First Part of his German Works<\/i>\u00a0(edition of 1539)<\/b>\u00a0\u2014 I provide relevant highlights of his longer complete quote:<\/p>\n Not only has good time been wasted, and the study of the Scriptures neglected; but the pure understanding of the divine Word is lost, until at last the Bible has come to lie forgotten in the dust under the bench.\u00a0<\/span>[another English version<\/a>\u00a0adds here,\u00a0\u201cas happened to the book of Deuteronomy, in the time of the kings of Judah\u201d]<\/span><\/p>\n [. . .]<\/p>\n For when the Bible can be left lying under the bench, and when it is true of the Fathers and Councils that the better they were, the more completely they have been forgotten; there is good hope that, when the curiosity of this age has been satisfied, my books too will not long remain; . . .<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I do not treat the Fathers and the Councils very differently. In this I follow the example of St. Augustine, who is one of the first, and almost the only one of them to subject himself to the Holy Scriptures alone, uninfluenced by the books of all the Fathers and the Saints. This brought him into a hard fray with St. Jerome, who cast up to him the writings of his predecessors; but he did not care for that. If this example of St. Augustine had been followed, the pope would not have become Antichrist, the countless vermin, the swarming, parasitic mass of books would not have come into the Church, and the Bible would have kept its place in the pulpit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Luther stated similarly in another place:<\/p>\n And again he repeats the false mantra:<\/p>\n As early as 1518<\/a>\u00a0he had proclaimed the self-serving myth:<\/p>\n [T]he Holy Word of God has not only been laid under the bench but has almost been destroyed by dust and filth.<\/span>\u00a0(Preface to the complete edition of\u00a0A German Theology<\/i>, Luther\u2019s Works<\/em> [LW], vol. 31, 75-76; WA 1, 378 f.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In his\u00a0Commentary on Peter and Jude<\/i>\u00a0(1523), Luther in his infinite wisdom opines:<\/p>\n An even more outrageous and sweeping, lying instance of this sloganistic phraseology of \u201cunder the bench\u201d occurs in Luther\u2019s\u00a0Large Catechism<\/i>\u00a0(April 1529):<\/p>\n 43] For where He does not cause it to be preached and made alive in the heart, so that it is understood, it is lost, as was the case under the Papacy, where faith was entirely put under the bench, and no one recognized Christ as his Lord or the Holy Ghost as his Sanctifier, that is, no one believed that Christ is our Lord in the sense that He has acquired this treasure for us, without our works and merit, and made us acceptable to the Father. What, then, was lacking? 44] This, that the Holy Ghost was not there to reveal it and cause it to be preached; but men and evil spirits were there, who taught us to obtain grace and be saved by our works. 45] Therefore it is not a Christian Church either; for where Christ is not preached, there is no Holy Ghost who creates, calls, and gathers the Christian Church, without which no one can come to Christ the Lord.<\/span>\u00a0(\u201cThe Apostles\u2019 Creed\u201d; Article III<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Further support for the notion that Luther perpetuated the ludicrous myth of almost total ignorance of and inaccessibility of the Bible before he brought it to light (much like his similarly absurd views of having \u201crediscovered the gospel\u201d (as if Catholics didn\u2019t have a clue about it before he arrived on the scene), comes from Hartmann Grisar\u2019s six-volume biography,\u00a0Luther\u00a0<\/i>(the following from\u00a0Vol. 5 from 1916<\/a>):<\/p>\n [I]t is instructive from the psychological standpoint to trace the development in Luther\u2019s mind of the fable to be dealt with more fully below that, under Popery, the Bible had been discarded and that he, Luther, had brought it once more to light. . . .<\/p>\n When afterwards he had been dazed by his great success with his translation of the Bible he was led to fancy that he was the first to open up the domain of Holy Scripture. This impression is closely bound up with the arbitrary pronouncements, even on the weightiest questions of the Canon, which we find scattered throughout his prefaces to the books of the Bible. He frequently repeats that he had forced all his opponents to take up the study of the Bible and that it was he alone who had made them see the need of their devoting themselves to this branch of learning so as to be able to refute him. Here of course he is exaggerating the facts of the case. Accustomed as he was to hyperbole, we soon find him declaring, first as a paradox and then as actual fact, that the Bible had been buried in oblivion among the Catholics. The Papal Antichrist had destroyed all reverence for the Bible and all understanding of it; only that all men without exception might not run headlong to spiritual destruction had Christ, as it were by\u00a0\u201cforce,\u201d<\/span>\u00a0preserved the\u00a0\u201csimple text of the Gospel on the lecterns\u201d \u201ceven under the rule of Antichrist.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n *<\/p>\n The Bible in the Ages before Luther<\/b><\/p>\n It would be to perpetuate a prejudice all too long current among Protestants, founded on Luther\u2019s often false or at least exaggerated statements, were one to fail to recognise how widely the Bible was known even before Luther\u2019s day and to what an extent it was studied among educated people. Modern research, not seldom carried out by open-minded Protestants, has furnished some surprising results in this respect, so that one of the most recent and diligent of the Protestant workers in this field could write: \u201cIf everything be taken into account it will no longer be possible to say as the old polemics did, that the Bible was a sealed book to both theologians and laity. The more we study the Middle Ages, the more does this fable tend to dissolve into thin air.\u201d \u201cThe Middle Ages concerned themselves with Bible translation much more than was formerly supposed.\u201d<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n According to a careful summary recently published by Franz Falk no less than 156 different Latin editions of the Bible were printed in the period between the discovery of the art of printing and the year of Luther\u2019s excommunication, i.e. from 1450 to 1520. To this must also be added at that time many translations of the whole Bible, many of them emanating from what was to be the home of the innovations, viz. 17 German, 11 Italian, 10 French, 2 Bohemian, 1 Belgian, 1 Limousine and 1 Russian edition, making in all, with the 6 Hebrew editions also known, 199 editions of the complete Bible. Of the German editions 14 are in the dialect of Upper Germany.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Besides this the common people also possessed extracts of the Sacred Book, the purchase of the entire Bible being beyond their slender means. The Psalter and the Postils were widely known and both played a great part in the religious life of the Middle Ages. The Psalter, or German translation of the 150 Psalms, was used as a manual of instruction and a prayer-book for both clergy and laity. Twenty-two translations dating from the Middle Ages are extant, and the latter editions extend from the \u2018seventies of the 15th to the \u2018twenties of the 16th century. The Postils was the collection of lessons from both Old and New Testaments, prescribed to be read on the Sundays. This collection sufficed for the people and provided them with useful reading matter, with which, moreover, they were rendered even more familiar owing to the homilies on these very excerpts usually given on the Sundays. The early printers soon helped to spread this form of literature. We still have no fewer than 103 printed German editions of the Postils (often known as Plenaries) dating from the above period.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n . . . Even a superficial glance at the Middle Ages,\u201d says Risch, \u201ccannot fail to show us the gradual upgrowth of a fixed German Biblical vocabulary. Luther here could dip into a rich treasure-house and select the best. \u2026 In laying such stress on Luther\u2019s indebtedness to the past we have no wish to call into question the real originality of his translation.\u201d<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n \u201cThat, during the Middle Ages,\u201d says another Protestant scholar, \u201cmore particularly in the years which immediately preceded Luther\u2019s appearance, the Bible was a well-spring completely choked up, and the entrance to which was jealously guarded, used to be, and probably still is, the prevailing opinion. The question is, however, whether this opinion is correct.\u201d \u201cWe have before us to-day so complete a history of the Bible in the various modern languages that it can no longer be said that the Vulgate alone was in use and that the laity consequently were ignorant of Scripture. It greatly redounds to the credit of Protestant theologians, that they, more than any others, took so large a part in collecting this enormous store of material.\u201d \u201cWe must admit that the Middle Ages possessed a quite surprising and extremely praiseworthy knowledge of the Bible, such as might in many respects put our own age to shame.\u201d \u201cWe have to acknowledge that the Bible at the present day no longer forms the foundation of our knowledge and civilisation to the same extent as it did in the Middle Ages.\u201d<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Who, however, was responsible for the prevalent belief that the Middle Ages knew nothing of the Bible? Who was it who so repeatedly asserted this, that he misled the people into believing that nobody before him had studied Holy Scripture, and that it was only through him that the\u00a0\u201cWord of God had been drawn forth from under the bench\u201d<\/span>? A Protestant quite rightly reproves the \u201cbad habit\u201d of accepting the estimate of ecclesiastical conditions, particularly of divine worship, current \u201cwith Luther and in his circle\u201d -, 1 it is, however, to fall short of the mark, to describe merely as a \u201cbad habit\u201d Luther\u2019s flagrant and insulting falsehoods against the ecclesiastical conditions at the close of the Middle Ages, falsehoods for which his own polemical interests were solely responsible.<\/p>\n . . . As some Protestants have sought to clear him of the authorship of so glaring a fable and to insinuate that the expression belongs rather to his pupil Mathesius, we must here look a little more closely into the words.<\/p>\n Luther himself uses the saying, for instance, when claiming credit in his Commentary on the Prophet Zacharias (chap, viii.) with having rendered the greatest possible service to Scripture. He says:\u00a0\u201cThey<\/span> [the Papists] are still angry and refuse to listen when people say, that, with them, Scripture lay under the bench, and that their mad delusions alone prevailed.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0In this connection the Weimar editor of the Commentary refers to a work of the former Dominican, Petrus Sylvius, aimed at Luther and entitled \u201cVon den vier Evangelein, so eine lange Zeit unter der Bank sein gelegen.\u201d<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Popery, Luther says in another passage,\u00a0\u201ckicked Scripture under the bench.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n *<\/p>\n . . . Elsewhere he describes in detail the trouble he had in pulling the Bible from\u00a0\u201cunder the bench,\u201d<\/span>\u00a0particularly owing to his theological rivals and the sectarians within the camp; on this occasion his black outlook as to the future of the Bible he had thus set free scarcely redounds to the credit of his achievement. He says in his tract against Zwingli (\u201cThat the words of Christ, \u2018This is My Body,\u2019 still stand fast,\u201d 1527):\u00a0\u201cWhen in our own day we saw how Scripture lay under the bench, and how the devil was deluding us and taking us captive with the hay and straw of men-made prayers, we tried, by the Grace of God, to mend matters, and have indeed with great and bitter pains brought Scripture back to light once more, and, sending human ordinances to the winds, set ourselves free and escaped from the devil.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n *<\/p>\n It is plain that they\u00a0\u201cabuse and revile Scripture, thrust it under the bench, pretend that it is shrouded in thick fog, that the interpretation of the Fathers is needed and that light must be sought in the darkness.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Thus did he write against Emser in 1521.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Modern Protestant writers in this field are also somewhat sceptical about the theory of Luther\u2019s complete ignorance of the older translation of the Bible, and the assertion that he made no use whatever of it. O. Reichert, for instance, in his new work \u201cLuthers deutsche Bibel\u201d makes the following remarks on Luther\u2019s work in the Wartburg, with which we may fittingly conclude this section: \u201cAlthough he probably was able to make use of Lang\u2019s translation of 1521 in his rendering of Matthew, and as a matter of fact did have recourse to it, and though he most likely also had the old German translation at his elbow, as is apparent from many coincidences, nevertheless, what Luther accomplished is an achievement worthy of all admiration.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, Swan wouldn\u2019t be Swan if he didn\u2019t: 1) refuse to admit when he has gotten facts wrong, 2) fight ferociously against admitting it\u00a0especially<\/i>\u00a0where a Catholic is involved, 3)\u00a0never<\/i>\u00a0admit it when\u00a0I\u00a0<\/i>am involved; and 4) dig himself deeper into the embarrassing hole he is already in, by the time-honored anti-Catholic techniques of spin and sophistry, obfuscation and obscurantism. Now he is trying to spin Luther\u2019s words, to exclude certain meanings:<\/p>\n But as you can see, (at least here) he isn\u2019t saying the Roman Church kept the physical Bible out of people\u2019s hands by hiding it. Similarly, in other comments he argues that the Romanists basically ignored the Bible in a sense that the Gospel itself was obscured, and ungodly traditions had been hoisted upon the Bible.\u00a0<\/span>(7-2-11<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Swan saves himself from total embarrassment only by his qualifying parenthetical remark. It\u2019s true that Luther\u00a0does<\/i>\u00a0mean his words in the latter sense at times (Catholic biographer Grisar acknowledges this), but this doesn\u2019t rule out that he also often intends the first sense of physical removal of the Bible from the laity (by either prohibition or absence of vernacular translations, or lack of availability of same): according to the timeworn, imbecilic Protestant Myth that has been heard countless times ever since. It was begun by Luther. Swan has offered us a half-truth. That Luther intends the first sense is already observed in the excerpts I have provided above. For example:<\/p>\n [T]he Bible lies forgotten in the dust under the bench\u00a0(as happened to the book of Deuteronomy, in the time of the kings of Judah).<\/span>\u00a0(1539<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The editors of this collection of Luther writings, gives the biblical reference alluded to by Luther: 2 Kings 22:8. Here it is (RSV):<\/p>\n And Hilki\u2019ah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, \u201cI have found the\u00a0<\/b>book of the law in the house of the LORD.\u201d And Hilki\u2019ah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Most Bible scholars consider this lost work, the book of Deuteronomy. Note that it was literally, physically lost, in the temple. Once it was found, it was read to the people. This is not merely loss of proper\u00a0interpretation<\/i>, but loss of the\u00a0book itself<\/i>. Luther proves that this is his meaning by citing this analogy. It couldn\u2019t be any clearer than it is.<\/p>\n Again above, Luther refers to a state of affairs where (Catholic) men\u00a0\u201cpermit the Word of God to fall into disuse . . .\u201d<\/span>\u00a0It\u2019s not used at all; this is again,\u00a0non-use<\/i>\u00a0of the Bible altogether, not false or corrupted use of it. If I permit my bicycle to fall into disuse, quite obviously I am not using it at all. The chain would get rusty in due course. Luther uses the same analogy in the same work: [the Bible]\u00a0\u201claid up in rust\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n Luther\u2019s\u00a0Commentary on Peter and Jude<\/i>\u00a0from 1523 (cited at length above), explicitly states that Catholics supposedly desired to keep the Bible out of the laity\u2019s hands: directly in opposition to Swan\u2019s baseless opinion that Luther wouldn\u2019t have said such a thing. Luther lied. And it is virtually certain that he couldn\u2019t have been so ignorant of history and Catholicism (being quite a sharp guy) to not have\u00a0deliberately<\/i>\u00a0lied. He was indeed deliberately lying; i.e., propagandizing. So why not lie today, too, if your goal is to defend Luther at all costs, every time he is critiqued, and cherished anti-Catholic Myths and Whoppers? This is what Swan habitually does. He defends historical lies and untruths by lying about them and engaging in sophistry. Facts and truth be damned!<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n [original combox comments]<\/p>\n It\u2019s not one stupid mistake that is the problem. We all make dumb mistakes. It\u2019s the fact that Swan poses as some kind of expert, and maintains the pretense that his research is head and shoulders above everyone else\u2019s (above all, mine<\/em>, of course).<\/p>\n Those of us who have followed his shenanigans know this, and this is why it was important to show readers how exceedingly often Swan makes such errors, and quite silly ones at that.<\/p>\n This is a guy, remember, who has chided me on many occasions, because I cited a German Luther primary source (usually from a German speaker such as Grisar or Althaus) and hadn\u2019t read it myself (as if\u00a0he<\/i>\u00a0reads German primary materials).<\/p>\n I had written an additional reply to I had written an additional reply to Swan\u2019s latest bilge yesterday but the text was lost and I didn\u2019t wanna spend time on belaboring the obvious, to rewrite it. Mostly I just cited at some length portions of the Gow article, which amply refuted his contentions. Swan had picked one portion of it, that cited Cochlaeus, to bash Catholics, missing the point (as almost always, with him).<\/p>\n The article, on the other hand, repeatedly stressed that the Bible (in the vernacular, including in German) was widely available to the masses prior to Luther.<\/p>\n I also noted how Luther suppressed by the force of law, Bible translations other than his own (e.g., Emser\u2019s of 1527).<\/p>\n Luther also didn\u2019t care much at all for opinions that diverged from his own. He was harder on the Zwinglians and Anabaptists than he was on Catholics, and their works (along with Calvinist ones a little later) were suppressed by law in Lutheran territories.<\/p>\n All sides, in other words, blocked access to materials deemed to be heterodox and thus harmful to souls. Yet Catholics are always blamed for this, and the pretense is maintained that the Lutherans were far different and champions of free speech and of the Bible. Both sides suppressed what they regarded as bad translations of the Bible. Yet Catholics are accused of being \u201canti-Bible.\u201d<\/p>\n Always a double standard . . .<\/p>\n Always revisionist history, favoring Protestantism, by ignoring or distorting Catholic opinions on any given issue.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n (originally posted on 6-15-11)<\/p>\n Photo credit:\u00a0<\/strong>Luther Bible, 1534; photo by<\/span>\u00a0Torsten Schleese<\/a>, from\u00a0Luther\u2019s house in Wittenberg (1999)<\/span> [public domain \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a>]<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [Martin Luther\u2019s own words below will be in\u00a0blue; Hartmann Grisar\u2019s footnotes (only) in\u00a0brown; James Swan\u2019s words in\u00a0green] *** The big myth under consideration is the commonly heard legend among Protestants (especially of an anti-Catholic bent) of Catholic hostility to the Bible and desire to keep it out of the hands of the people, for fear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2331,"featured_media":47431,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[231,23],"tags":[281,1841,539,1837,609,832,1839,1840,11003,1842,1843,536,1838],"class_list":["post-47429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anti-catholicism","category-martin-luther","tag-bible","tag-catholic-german-translations-of-the-bible","tag-german-bible","tag-history-of-the-bible","tag-holy-scripture","tag-james-swan","tag-latin-vulgate","tag-luther-the-bible","tag-luthers-bible","tag-luthers-lies","tag-revisionist-church-history","tag-sacred-scripture","tag-vernacular-translations"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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