The Crusades Justification

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How Misinterpretation of the Bible Helped the Justification of the Crusades.
The Crusades were a series of expeditions undertaken by Christian holy men in the hopes of delivering holy places from Islamic tyranny (Douglas J. Potter). The popes felt that Europe should be under Christian unity, and the pressure that they felt from the Byzantine Empire threatened said unity, so they decided to send troops of men to free the land of the Byzantine Empire once again for the Christians. One would think that for a religion that is supposed to promote the teachings of Jesus, who said “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; (Matthew
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This standardized bible was called the Vulgate, which was translated from the original languages it was written in, Greek and Hebrew, into the language of the scholars, Latin. The Vulgate became the bible that all literate Christians used during the middle ages. In 1320, John Wycliffe believed and taught that the bible was full of irrefutable truths, and that anyone should be entitled to read it, not just the rich who could afford to study Latin. Wycliffe believed the bible should be used to guide the religious and political government, and thus began …show more content…
The verse from the bible stating to love ones neighbor as oneself was misconstrued and used to justify the constant fighting. Pope Innocent III stated it best when he said “How does a man love according to divine precept his neighbor as himself when, knowing that his Christian brothers in faith and in name are held by the perfidious Muslims in strict confinement and weighed down by the yoke of heaviest servitude, he does not devote himself to the task of freeing them?” The idea that one can not love their neighbor when said neighbor is holding ‘brothers in faith’ hostage became the basis that the fighting was based on. Fighting and bloodshed became the norm, and lasted for hundreds of years with almost no progress being

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