Why can't any Christians answer this question?

Question

Prior to Martin Luther’s translation of the the Old Testament from Hebrew to German, only the upper class and scholars could read the the Old Testament, which at that time was very few people. At that time, I think even Christians will agree, the Christian church was extremely corrupt. However, because of the corrupt upper class, the poor had no access whatsoever to “God’s word.” Hebrew was the language of the elite and the poor were not considered privileged enough to learn it. So my question is: Why would God take a chance on letting this happen? He could have appeared in the sky at any time or before each person at any time and told them what he expected of them. He could have created a Bible for every person in a language that they could understand. Or he could have appeared in the sky and demanded that the corrupt church leaders make his word available to the poor. However, no such thing happened. Yes, eventually Martin Luther translated the the Old Testament to German

and now it is available to everyone. But not before many good people lived and died never having had access to “God’s Word.”

I am getting Latin and Hebrew mixed up here. This doesn’t change my point, but I apologize for the mistake.

Answer 1

You're preaching to the choir, here.

Answer 2

First of all Luther did not translate the Old Testament into German from Hebrew. Luther knew Greek and translated the New Testament into German. He had help from 6 other scholars in translating the Hebrew into German.

Now to the other part of your question. When Jesus left, he gave the great commission to the church. For years the church was persecuted until Constantine made the faith legal. Then the church of Rome lost its focus and tried to set up a Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Knowing that the Bible would be interpreted many different ways they restricted access to it so that they could control the faith and the people better. However, the idea that God took a chance is absurd. God simply does not take chances. He knew ahead of time that it would eventually spread to the extent that it has today. And by the way the Bible of the Catholic Church was written in Latin, not Hebrew. Hebrew is indeed a hard language to learn. I am a student of it now, but it never was a language of the elite in Europe.

Answer 3

You really need to study your history. I don't know where to begin.

1. In the days of Martin Luther, only the upper class and scholars could read or write, period. The language did not matter. The upper class did not study Hebrew. Only Jewish people did that in those days.

2. When the Old Testament was written, every Jewish person could read and understand it.

3. The Old Testament was translated in Greek a couple of hundred years before Jesus was born. Greek was the langage everyone in that time understood, if they could read at all.

4. The New Testament was written in common, not classical Greek so the common man could read it.

5. When Rome conquored the known world, God had someone translated the Bible into Latin the official language of Rome in the 4th century.

6. God told certain men, like Martin Luther, to translate the Bible into his native language and men like Wycliffe and Tyndale to translate it into English.

7. The first book ever printed was the Bible.

Your question has been answered.

Pastor Art

Answer 4

Prior to Luther, the Old Testament was already translated into both Greek and Latin, the two common tongues of the Roman Empire, same as the New Testament. The biggest obstacle to the common people understanding the Bible would be a lack of general literacy, not a lack of knowledge about Hebrew.

And saying that the general church hierarchy had become corrupt was not the same as saying that all literate priests, monks, and scholars were completely corrupt, and were teaching the common people to sin.

I'm not really sure what your question is; all literate people had access to the Bible long before Luther. Luther did not make Protestantism out of whole cloth all by himself; apparently there was seething dissident long before he came on the scene and ignited the fuse. That is why he enjoyed so much popular support at the time.

Answer 5

Before Luther was born, the Catholic Church had already translated the Bible into 14 different vernacular languages, including German and English. However, that didn't make the Scriptures available to the common people of the day since 95% of them were illiterate. So even with all these vernacular versions available, it was still only the upper class who could read the Bible. Most people learned the fullness of Christian truth exactly the way everyone had learned it since the time of the Apostles - through the teaching of God's Church, the Catholic Church. Catholics had been biblically knowledgeable for 1,200 years before Luther was born, through the preaching of the Church; attending Mass, which is thoroughly steeped in Scripture; and the music and art used in Catholic Churches, which depicted biblical events.

Answer 6

First, the Bible during the time of Martin Luther was not written in Hebrew ... it was written in Latin. It is also 'wrong' to assume that ALL of the 'upper class' was corrupt, and also that they could all 'read' in any language. Reading was considered UNNECESSARY for any but 'librarians and scholars' who were 'churchmen' (mostly priests, but a few were monks who weren't ordained).
Second, while God 'could have' done the things you said, he WOULD NOT HAVE done them, because when God 'created' the Earth, he gave us FREE WILL ... and if God appeared and 'told us' what to do and we'd do it automatically (because who would want to 'argue' with God?) or if he'd created a Bible for 'everyone' (he'd have also had to give them the 'power' to read the Bibles) he'd have been BREAKING his own rules.
And while Martin Luther did translate the Bible, he did it from Latin to Prussian, not from Hebrew to German. German was not a 'language' then, because there wasn't a 'country' known as Germany. The country then was 'of a different and much wider border' and it was Prussia ... the 'confluence' of SEVERAL smaller countries, like Austria, Germany, the eastern part of France, and even the 'Slovak' and Czech countries, including Romania (known then as Rumania). You need to learn more HISTORY (and be more accurate in your own reading) before you 'comment' on this portion of 'religious history' ... but when you do 'know what you are asking/talking about' I think your questions will be even BETTER than this one was.

Answer 7

To say that the poor had no acess to God's word is seriously incorrect. Even while advances in printing were occuring most christian communities were inundated with access to oral and written testiments. There is also a major emphasis in current scholarship on the non-oral character of this information, ranging from the rabbinic methods of note-taking to the listening-literacy of the general populace.The establishment of local churches from the central core required the transmission of written materials and this process was VERY early. The literary milleu demonstrated in the pre-Christian Pseudepigraha was that plenty of written literature was produced in the beth sofer ('houses of learning') of Jerusalem--of which there were scores. All the evidence we have is that the earliest materials were WRITTEN and widely available. By the way, most scholars would have you qualify your definition of the Christian church as many disagree that the Catholic church and the Christian church are the same thing. In any case, that the Catholic church was currupt is irrefutable. One more thing, in Acts 17:26-27 we can infer that God specifically planned the geographical, demographical, and socio-economical disposition of every generation that has ever existed so your question, while interesting, is one that only God can answer. Fortunately, he gives us many clues about this in scripture. For instance, Romans 1:20 informs us that based on general (i.e. the physical world) revelation alone, man is without an excuse for
not turning to God. In Acts 17:27 we learn that he has always been within the grasp of anyone that seeked or cared to seek for Him.

Answer 8

The answer to this question might be unacceptable by your standards. God doesn't necessarily care about the things we care about. To be God means to be living past, present, and future all at the same time, so he's not really "taking a chance". In Martin Luther's day, lots of people were funtionally illiterate, and the expense of printing before Guttenburg in 1455 made acess to the Bible difficult anyway. Think for a second about the writings of Desiderius Erasmus- he too saw the curruption in the Church, but felt it could be repaired (and it, for the most part, was during the Counter-Reformation) so it's not quite as bad as we may understand. When we think of "good people dying" for no reason, it bothers the heck out of us, and we say, "why doesn't God do anything", but I think the perspective of being omnipotent and omniscient changes things. For instance, when I was a kid, I couldn't understand why my Mom didn't buy all the candy she could afford at the store. She had money, there was candy, what was the problem? Now, of course, I understand differently. Hopefully that will happen to all of us in the hereafter- we gain a different understanding.

Answer 9

You are equating God to the Bible. So I am assuming you are thinking without the Bible people did not know about God? Or that the upper class, scholars and priests did not preach/discuss any good words at all of the texts. And remember that even the forrest fire which appears so destructive at first and leaves everything behind it scorched has many redeeming qualities that the earth needs.

Like many folks, people will only believe what they can see or touch. The thing is that philosophy excludes faith. Faith requires belief in something that you can't touch or see.

I believe that God does speak with me in many ways outside of the written word. Sometimes it is through other people, sometimes it is in a selfless act committed by someone else, sometimes in the beauty of things around me and sometimes it is just a peaceful feeling inside me. The hardest thing I have ever had to do was to open my mind and heart to things I was unsure of and listen and make my own decisions.

Answer 10

Your question is rather childish and immature and you should quit reading things you don't understand. Taking your line of reasoning and applying it to more important things one could thereby ask, Why would God allow his only son to be executed for our sins. That concept is a lot more important than your reasoning. The answer, of course, is that it was part of God's plan. Also, one addition, if God were to creat bibles in every language and make sure that each and everyone has a bible during the timeframe in which you speak of then it would accelerate his plan. Don't forget that God's word does reach everyone, if not in this life then in the herafter. Dont' forget that Jesus descended into hell where he preached the word for all to hear and choose. The time for the word of God to be preached in all the land is already chosen. That time is just before the second coming. Matthew 24:14

Answer 11

God didn't take a chance on that happening. Men did. Mankind was given the ability to choose between good and evil. Mankind was given the ability to create a fair and equal society. Mankind chose not to do it. I am totally in agreement with you that much of the Church was extremely corrupt, but you are grossly oversimplifying this. Much of that corruption was at a political level, and not always at the local level. You cannot acknowledge the negative aspects of something and totally ignore the many positives. That is not a sound and logical argument. The church may have had corruption at its higher levels, but the Church also provided spiritual guidance and unity for the people, and few of them would have said they were unhappy with it. At the local level, many priests and monks provided much needed services to the poor. Some did not, to be sure. You find this to be true in secular government as well. Some officials are honest. Some are not. But in the end, the blame falls on the individuals that choose to be evil, not on God. Yeah, God could appear in the sky and fix everything, but why should he have to? That is not why we are here. We have the power to create a perfect world. Blaming God for our failure is pretty lame. It is like blaming your parents when you refuse to clean your room.