Forging New Weapons

THE Roman church had discovered that the root of her troubles lay in the reading of the Bible by the laity, and had opposed it with all the power at her command. But she finally realized that her open war on the Scriptures had aroused suspicion that her life and doctrines were out of harmony with God’s word, and could not endure the light of an open Bible.FAFA 18.1

To allay such feelings she must make it appear that she was not opposed to the Scriptures, but only to the “erroneous Protestant Bible.” But how could such an impression be made, when that Bible was a faithful translation of the Hebrew and Greek texts, in which the Scriptures were originally written? Then, too, the Protestants had, at that time, some of the most able Hebrew and Greek scholars in all Christendom.FAFA 18.2

Providence had brought the Reformers in contact with some of the best sources of Bible manuscripts: (1) When the Turks captured Constantinople in 1453, many of the Greek scholars fled to the West, bringing with them their valuable manuscripts from the East where Christianity originated, and then Greek and Hebrew learning revived in the West. ^{1See “History of the English Bible,” by W. F. Moulton. pp. 34-36.} (2) With this influx from the East came also the Syrian Bible, used by the early church at Antioch in Syria (Acts 11:26), which was translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts long before the Massoretic (O.T.) text, and is the oldest known Bible manuscript (unless it should be the one lately discovered by Chester Beatty. ^{2Copies of the Syriac Bible were later found among the Syrian Christians at Malabar. South India, with all the earmarks of the old Syrian manuscripts. See “The Old Documents and the New Bible.” by J. P. Smyth, pp. 166, 167; “Indian Church History.—by Thomas Yates, p. 167, “Christian Researches in Asia,” by Claudius Buchannan, pp. 80, 143.} (3) During their severe persecutions the Waldenses came into contact with the Reformers at Geneva, and thus their Bible, which had been preserved in its apostolic purity, was brought to the Reformers. ^{3An illustration of how some learned Roman Catholics have estimated the Protestant Greek New Testament can be seen when we read of the Catholic legislation on forbidden books. A commentator says:
“In diocesan seminaries the textbook prescribed in Greek was very often some portion of the original text of the New Testament, and Protestant editions were selected as they contained a more ample vocabulary, and, perhaps, better grammatical annotations than Catholic editions. Such an act would appear quite pardonable and excusable as the text was entire and pure.... But according to the present rule ... bishops have no power to select such works.’ “A Commentary an the Present Index Legislation,- Rev. T. Hurley. D. D.. p. 70.. New York: Benziger Brothers. 1908.
With their feelings against Protestant books, such permits could not have been given, unless the superiority of the book demanded it.}FAFA 18.3

Translations direct from the original languages in which the Holy Scriptures were written, and comparisons with ancient sources, by men of high scholarly ability and sterling integrity, gave the Protestants a perfectly reliable Bible. In spite of these plain facts, the Catholic authorities had to do something to turn the minds of their people away from the Protestant Bible, so widely distributed. They therefore advanced the claim that Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation was more correct than any copy we now have of the original Hebrew and Greek texts. We shall now examine this claim.FAFA 19.1