The Bible Banned

● In 1229 the Council of Toulouse issued forty-five canons to end heresy. One of them “forbids the laity to have in their possession any copy of the books of the Old and New Testament, except the Psalter and such portions of them as are contained in the Breviary or the Hours of the Blessed Virgin; most strictly forbids these works in the vulgar tongue.” Some centuries later Henry VIII worked feverishly to keep Bibles from being smuggled into England. Public notices gave warning: “No women, nor artificers, nor apprentices, journeymen, serving-men, yeomen, husbandmen or laborers shall read the Bible in English to himself or another, privately or openly on pain of a month’s imprisonment.” And yet today when millions of people can read the Bible freely, most of them are Bible illiterates.