I have always wondered why Catholics don't have a bible study program like we do in Protestant Churches.

@revenant Can I tell you a really funny story about Mary? Mary was a seeker. She had traveled the world enriching herself with various religions. She had gone to India and been in Hindu temples and been to Tibet to see the Buddhist prayer wheels spin and been to a mosque or two and now it was time for her to learn all about Christianity. She picked my church and my Sunday School class to learn. She attended faithfully and asked some very intelligent questions. I decided that it would be best to write her a letter explaining the Christian faith to her. I spent a lot of hours writing it and then on Sunday morning I passed it to her. She made a great fanfare telling everyone in the class that I had written her this letter. She began to read it as the class started to discuss a few prayer concerns and personal issues. I watched Mary as she finished page one and turned to page two. Suddenly she let out a shriek that would wake the dead, threw the letter across the table and raced from the room like the devil was after her shrieking and screaming all the way. She disappeared down the street and we never saw her again. I have no idea what she read that frightened her so. Several other people read the letter and wondered the same. What caused Mary to run away? To this day I have no idea.

@hippyjoe1955 I do not think we are talking about the same Mary ...? I was talking about the mother of Jesus but you are talking about a real human person.
I would have been so interested in learning what frightened her off so much...very strange...

@revenant While this was likely the most dramatic instance of demonic encounters it is by no means unique. Another Mary was famous for interrupting our Bible study. Then she became a Christian. Sharon was the same. On Tuesday night I ran into another 2 demonics at the Bible study. There would have been three but one of them has been sick and didn't have the strength to attend.

@Gloomy I didn't say there wasn't control...

But whether you agree with it or not (it's fine not to ofc) the Catholic Church's position was that excercising *some* control over people was actually in their interests, as a way to, (as the church understood things), make it easier for people to enter heaven. It's only in a very libertarian (protestant) view that this kind of control is seen as bad.

Sermons generally weren't in Latin (unless to an educated audience, eg we can assume many sermons in monasteries would be in Latin) but in the local vernacular. Indeed there are lots of mediaeval church laws ensuring priests did exactly this. (An arguably bigger problem in fact was the tendecy of priests to ignore or be largely ignorant of Latin and use their native language!)

Latin obviously got fetishised along the way (and a certain type of traddy Catholic fetishises it now too) but we should remember that it started being used because it WAS the vernacular for a lot of western Europe even long after the fall of the Roman Empire, and readily intelligible as a matter of course (for the educated) well into the 17th or 18th century and beyond.

The reformation obviously built on demands for easier access to scripture (although closing down all the monasteries where, at the time, a lot of the education went on might suggest more cynical other motivations?), but it was fundamentally about correcting church abuses which, fundamentally, the Catholic Church actually agreed with. Eg the selling of indulgences, which were never legal, ineffective (the church taught they didn't work but that doesn't stop nefarious priests trying it anyway!) and weren't remotely encouraged by the church hierarchy...but like lots of things, in practice often accepted because £££.

@Persephonee I don't think it wise to ascribe motives to anyone in the past since the effects are what matter. The RC church did not use the language of the people in its services. It used Latin. I am sure it conducted its charitable works in the local language but its masses were done in Latin. Whether it was intended or not is debatable but the effect was that the church was able to maintain its 'gateway' to heaven by its practices in ways that the various protestant churches can not. Last night at our Bible study the question came up about parishes in the protestant church along the line of the catholic church. She was a bit amazed to learn the we protestants are free to church shop. If we don't like the Lutheran we are free to go to the Anglican and if we don't like that we can go to the Methodist and if we don't like that we can go to the Mennonite and if we don't like that..... I was thinking of my Christian walk and the number of different denominations I have attended or been a member of. Presbyterion, Anglican, Missionary, Four Square, North American Baptist, Mennonite Brethren, Southern Baptist, Evangelical Free, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Evangelical Missionary. I have also taken classes in Orthodoxy and done private study of Roman catholicism. I remain a Christian who is not easily pigeonholed and stand against a church when it wanders and for a church when it seeks a way back. I have no trouble with the catholic church or the orthodox church except where they deviate from the all sufficient sacrifice done once and for all on the cross by Jesus Christ. Attempts to bring in second or third intermediaries or rituals to add to that sacrifice causes me to leave the building and not return.

@Persephonee I tried. No one wants to veer from the popular story or Google answer that's going around.

@Abbenthewarwolf I give a shit.

@Justice4All good for u.? But I don't

Or Nicky Gumbel, the founder of Alpha.

@SW-User What about them? John Newton was born again. A slave trader to a preacher of the Gospel. I have no idea who John Scott was. I have never heard of him before.

@SW-User I have taught Alpha. Do you have a point to make? I think I asked a fairly simple question.

@4meAndyou It's funny: we have lots of different Bible translations in our house: English, Spanish, French, and Latin. Of all of them, the one I cannot warm up to is the King James! lol. I just can't embrace that style of English and feel nourished by it. (But I know many people find it beautiful!) I usually read the New American Bible.

My favorite "thee and thou" translation is the Revised Standard Version.

And about the old Catholic Bible, the Douay Reims version, I always thought the sentence structure was weird, until I finally figured out why it is written the way it is. It attempts to capture, in English, the syntax of the Latin Vulgate! It's supposed to be an aid in understanding the Latin better.

OK, the sentence structure is still weird, but at least there is a reason!

@4meAndyou The problem I find with the King James Version lies with the Epistles of Paul. James insisted the Bible was finished in a hurry and the translators did not have time to ponder over Paul, and it does not flow. So they translated it from the Greek, one word at a time. The epistles read like my own schoolboy Greek!

@SW-User I agree. Paul is a nightmare...almost impossible to understand what he is saying at times.

@DrWatson [quote]The Catholic church had been translating the bible into English even when English was "old English": St. Bede translated many books into anglo-saxon.[/quote]

St. Bede translated one book - The Gospel of John. It was not approved by the Catholic Church. In fact, it was illegal in England - and anywhere the Catholic Church had authority - to translate the bible into a vernacular language.

The British Library in London can attest to this:

[quote]Throughout medieval times the English church was governed from Rome by the Pope. All over the Christian world, church services were conducted in Latin. It was illegal to translate the Bible into local languages. John Wycliffe was an Oxford professor who believed that the teachings of the Bible were more important than the earthly clergy and the Pope. Wycliffe translated the Bible into English, as he believed that everyone should be able to understand it directly.

Wycliffe inspired the first complete English translation of the Bible, and the Lollards, who took his views in extreme forms, added to the Wycliffe Bible commentaries such as this one in Middle English. Made probably just before Henry IV issued the first orders for burnings to punish heretics in 1401, this manuscript escaped a similar fate.

Wycliffe was too well connected and lucky to have been executed for heresy, although the archbishop of Canterbury condemned him. The support of his Oxford colleagues and influential layman, as well as the anti-clerical leanings of King Richard II, who resisted ordering the burning of heretics, saved his life. Forty years after his death, the climate had changed, and his body was dug up, and along with his books were burned and scattered. Nonetheless the English translations had a lasting influence on the language. 'The beginning of the gospel of Ihesu Crist the sone of god,' opens the Gospel of Mark, its first letter decorated with the Mark's symbol, the lion. The commentary begins, 'Gospel: the gospel is seid a good tellyng.' Red underscores pick out the gospel text, while the commentary is written in slightly smaller script. The gold frame decorated with flowers and leaves and presentation of text and commentary are completely conventional for their time.[/quote]

No English translation was approved by the RCC until 1609, the RCC approved the Douay–Rheims Bible. An apparent counter measure ... Various English translations were already in circulation - Wycliffe, Tyndale's and The Geneva Bible, by this time, even King James authorized edition was already completed and awaiting publication.

@raysid498950247 I remember a particular debate between a Protestant and a Catholic where the Protestant brought up the Catholic Church's history of burning heretics at the stake. The Catholic tried to defend the Church by stating:

History only recollects the burning of 5 to 10 heretics per year.

The Protestant replied:

5 to 10 heretics burned at the stake, in public, each year. Is that not enough to scare the wits out of anyone who dared challenge Catholic doctrine?

@Justice4All The Coverdale Psalms of 1535 are still in use today. As they found their way into the 1662 Prayer Book of the Church of England.

@Graylight

[quote]Literally a whole site dedicated to Catholic Bible study resources and material.
[/quote]

Please allow me to clarify: "Bible study" for Protestants is not just someone deciding to read online resources. Although I agree, using those bible study tools can be insightful. At Protestant churches, we have weekly bible study programs, where members of the congregation come together to read and exegetically discuss biblical passages.

[quote]First, for most of the history prior to the Reformation, the written language for /virtually everything was Latin, and reading and writing in Latin was taught in school. For much of that time, it was also the language commonly spoken by ordinary people.
[/quote]

Latin was the language of the aristocrats, clergymen and other well educated people. That didn't include the vast majority of the population. Ordinary people in most of Europe did not speak Latin during the time of the Reformation, nor was it widely spoken in the 1400s.

The author of the Speculum Vitae (The Mirror of Life), writing late in the fourteenth century, chose to use English and explained why.


I’ll tell you in English

If you’ll stay with me long enough.

I won’t speak or waste Latin,

But I’ll speak English, that people use most,

Since that is your native language

That you have most in use here,

Which each person can understand

Who was born in England.

For that language is most in evidence

Both among the educated and the uneducated.

[b]I believe no-one knows Latin

Unless they’ve taken it at school.[/b]

Some know French and not Latin

Who have frequented the court and lived in it.

And some know a bit of Latin

Who know French very poorly.

Some understand English

Who know neither Latin nor French.

But educated and uneducated, old and young,

All understand the English tongue.

@Patriot96 The KJV is losing much of its support. The idea of the Bible in the language people is kind of lost because no one speaks that form of English anymore. Many of the words and much of the pronunciation has changed including the sound of the name of Jesus since in Elizabethan English the J was pronounced as a Y and V was a W sound.

@hippyjoe1955 I've heard various times there was no j in the standard English alphabet, however, jesus name was written as Iesus, and the i could be phonetically pronounced as a Y or as a J as in Iames (james).

I am not saying that you are wrong. You may very well be more educated than I am on the subject. Most linguists probably agree with you. However, here's something to think about: Italian is the closest language to Latin and Jesus' name in Italian is Gesù.

@Justice4All The original Hebrew/Aramaic is Yeshua. The Greeks transliterated it and the Romas added the S The S at the end of the name.

@Justice4All some so called non denominational churches do not ascribe to the creeds.

Most do.

Some Protestants don’t know much about the Early Christian Fathers. And orthodox Christians do of course.

@SW-User There are downsides and upsides. The downside is that a lot of Catholics don't know their own Bible. The downside to the printing press is that everyone who could read and afford one could read the Bible; the bad thing is that without an understanding of history, language, and the times the gospels were written, it could lead to misunderstanding. The famous quote by a Governor in the Southern United States " If English was good enough for our Lord Jesus Christ, it's good enough for me!"

@JimboSaturn Indeed. The renaissance brought in a greater understanding of Greek and Roman culture, at the same time as the printing press. Sadly Greek never took off in English schools, and Latin abandoned in the sixties.

@SW-User Yes, the [i]Living Word[/i] will always involve community.

@BohemianBoo I think that the Catholic Church actually speaks of Tradition and the concensus of [i]all[/i] believers. The "true" interpretation unfolds through time and is not something set in stone.

@BohemianBoo That is absolutely positively correct. Catholics support their doctrines with traditions, church dictates, early Christian writings and Ecumenical creeds. While Protestants hold to the principle of sola scriptura (Scripture alone) - putting sole emphasis on biblical exegesis.

@dale74 Why would a Baptist Church use a Catholic scripture study program? What kind of Baptist church is that?

Okay show me on the website of a Catholic Parish where they're having weekly bible study.

This is an example of services you would see at a typical Baptist church:

And this is the service scheduling at a Catholic Parish:


Maybe there's a new trend going on, however, generally Catholics don't have weekly bible study.

@Justice4All
There are six different ones based on age times or dates

@BohemianBoo How are we dying out?

@BohemianBoo The Catholic church is dying out... it is only growing on African recruiting. There are probably more African catholics than European catholics now. Poor Africans

@Justice4All Catholicism was dying out for a while, but now it's remaining pretty stable.

@graphite Reading Dante's Inferno is not considered bible study. If your Church has bible study, your church is one of the few. Not many Catholic churches have weekly bible study. As I've previously posted:

Typical Baptist church service scheduling:


Catholic Church scheduling:

@Justice4All Dante's Inferno? What the he** are you talking about?

@therighttothink50 Are you Catholic? Do you attend bible study? If so, must be a new trend.

@Gloomy [quote]Why read the Bible when you can burn it?[/quote]

The Bible has a ton of faults but it also includes some very useful bits of advice in the more secular books that is applicable to everyone regardless of religion.

For example, the most important dvice a parent can ever give his children is found in Proverbs 1:8-19 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=proverbs+1%3A8-19&version=ERV

Nortice that there is no mention of God in tht passage. Imagine if all parents taught their kids that passage. There might be a lot less crime if they did.

In the book of Sirach it even has several chapters that tell you how to write a book with lots of characters in it. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Sirach+44-51&version=CEB

@Justice4All I didn't ask for ur advice. Dumb is Dumb. Call my comennt dumb the same as calling me Dumb. And I don't anger issues.

@SandWitch if u wanna get with me Dm

@SandWitch the definition of Dumb is in ur Mirror!! /