08 Aug '10 23:05>
Originally posted by twhiteheadMartin Luther, The Catholic monk (because he originally FAILED to become a priest), was not the first. He was just the only one, at that time that successfully led a splinter faction of the church away from it.
I know this has nothing to do with the thread, but what are you talking about?
I wasn't aware of any editing going on, and if you are referring to different translations, the the Catholics are just as involved in translation as everyone else. And I wasn't aware that Martin Luther was the first to translate the Bible.
As to the editing"
The Missing Parts
of the King James Bible
The Apocrypha
Unknown to almost all of the over two billion people who claim the Bible as their spiritual foundation is that there are several books and two sections missing missing from all but a few versions of that Bible. Perhaps one of the best kept secrets of the modern Protestant church is that the Bible used by that body is not the original King James Bible. That translation, completed in 1611, and the Bibles published for the use of the clergy and the church members until late in the 19th Century, contained 80 books. Although attempts to remove the 14 books known as the Apocrypha from the Bible began immediately after the King James translation was completed they remained in the Bible until the end of the 19th Century. There is no doubt that the 14 books of the Apocrypha were controversial, but it cannot be denied they were included in the original King James Bible.
The concept of the Protestant Church about the Apocrypha is virtually non-existent, with the general understanding that only the Catholic Church uses it. One would be hard-pressed to find any members of the clergy even aware that these books were ever included in the King James Bible. There are 155,683 words and over 5,700 verses contained in 168 chapters now missing from the King James translation of the Bible due to the exclusion of the Apocrypha. Although this only happened just over a hundred years ago, their existence as fully accepted scripture is virtually unknown.
A clear history exists of the inclusion of the Apocrypha in the King James Bible:
· In the year 1615 Archbishop Gorge Abbott, a High Commission Court member and one of the original translators of the 1611 translation, "forbade anyone to issue a Bible without the Apocrypha on pain of one year's imprisonment"
· "It should be observed that the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the Church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive than the [Protestant Old Testament] . . . It always included, though with varying degrees of recognition, the so-called Apocrypha or Deutero-canonical books. The use made of the Apocrypha by Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian and Clement of Alexandria is too frequent for detailed references to be necessary" (Early Christian Doctrines, J. Kelly)
· "In 405 Pope Innocent I embodied a list of canonical books in a letter addressed to Exsuperius, bishop of Toulouse; it too included the Apocrypha. The Sixth Council of Carthage (419) Re-enacted the ruling of the Third Council, again with the inclusion of the apocryphal books… "The Sixth Council of Carthage repromulgated in Canon 24 the resolution of the Third Council regarding the canon of scripture, and added a note directing that the resolution be sent to the bishop of Rome (Boniface I) and other bishops: ‘Let this be made known also to our brother and fellow-priest Boniface, or to other bishops of those parts, for the purpose of confirming that Canon [Canon 47 of the Third Council], because we have received from our fathers that these are the books which are to be read in church.’" (The Canon on Scripture, F. F. Bruce)
· "The holy ecumenical and general Council of Trent . . . following the example of the orthodox Fathers, receives and venerates all the books of the Old and New Testament . . . and also the traditions pertaining to faith and conduct . . . with an equal sense of devotion and reverence . . . If, however, any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have by custom been read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate, and knowingly and deliberately rejects the aforesaid traditions, let him be accursed." (Decree of the Council of Trent in 1546)
· "In the name of Holy Scripture we do understand those canonical books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church. . . And the other books (as Jerome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners: but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine." (Articles of Religion of the Church of England, 1563, Sixth Article)
When the bible was re-written for the uneducated masses that flocked to Martin Luther's coat tails, much was changed to suit his interpretations. Then when