National Bible Workshop

Pope Francis repeatedly stressed that reading, understanding and applying the bible in our daily lives will strengthen our faith and make us children of God. Bible comes from the Greek words Ta biblia meaning sacred books. It was written about 2,000 years ago first in Hebrew/Aramaic, second in Greek and third in Latin when the Roman Empire made Christianity their religion. The first reliable Latin bible was made by St. Jerome (400 AD) and his version became the church text called Vulgate in 600 AD. The first book printed in Europe in 1456 was the Gutenberg Bible Vulgate edition. The church discouraged the translation of the Latin Vulgate edition into other languages fearing that the text translated might be corrupted (wrong word, phrase, no equivalent in the local language) or misinterpreted. Scholar John Wycliff made the first English translations.

The 15th country reformation era led to a German text by Martin Luther and English by Coverdale. The major English bibles today are the 1. Catholic or Douay, 2. King James or Protestant, 3. Gideon. Spain and Portugal, the world’s superpowers in the 15th century led the age of discovery and exploration specially in North and South America with the battle cry Gold, God and Glory. The sales of bibles increased as Spain and Portugal focused on empire building and religion. UK, Holland and France followed by colonizing Africa, Middle and Asia. UK had the most number of colonies from South Africa, Egypt, Pakistan, India, Burma, Malaysia, and Singapore to Hong Kong.

UK’s business in their colonies made it very rich and strong. It failed in Evangelization because they didn’t have many priests, brothers, sisters. Thus, the bible had little impact in Asia except in the Philippines (Spain), Goa and Macao (Portugal), Vietnam (French). The bible is needed in evangelization and missionary work. It is an indispensable part in celebrating mass. The problems regarding the bible are 1. They are expensive so very few families have it, 2. The 110 million Filipinos are divided into 5 major groups Tagalog, Ilocano, Bicolano, Ilonggo, Visaya plus about 30 dialects (Chabacano, Waray, Igorot, Ifugao, Indigenous tribes Obo, Mandaya, etc.), 3. There are a few translations in Visaya, Ilonggo, Ilocano, etc. and are expensive, 4. Modern Technology and mass production of T.V., computers, cellphones, laptops diverted the minds of the youth, the working class and the retirees from even holding a bible.

Should we give up? No. The bible and the church are our only guides/compass to the Lord’s way. Remove one and we will be lost. Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one goes to the Father, except through me.”