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Judaism -

The Bible was essentially written by Jews, so first let’s understand the roots of censorship in the Torah. Some of the writings are pretty awkward, and the Talmud (a collection of writings on Jewish law and tradition) has something to say about it.

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Judaism -

According to Tractate Megillah 4:10, when such texts appear in the Torah, they should not be read in the synagogue.

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Catholic Church medieval ban -

In 1199, Pope Innocent III banned private Bible study by unschooled groups because he believed it would lead to misinterpretation and therefore heresy.

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Catholic Church medieval ban -

But while Pope Innocent III didn’t ban the ownership of the book, the 1229 Council of Toulouse did: they made it illegal to actually hold any books of the Bible.

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John Wycliffe -

John Wycliffe, a 14th-century English reformer, is credited with being one of the first to translate the Bible into English. As you can imagine, this was a big no-no for the Catholic Church.

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John Wycliffe -

Wycliffe died before he was tried for heresy, but the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Arundel, still professed a few harsh words about him, calling Wycliffe a "pestilent wretch of damnable memory, yea, the forerunner and disciple of anti-christ who, as the complement of his wickedness, invented a new translation of the Scriptures into his mother-tongue."

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The Reformation -

In 1490, the printed press had arrived, and levels of literacy had increased. Several vernacular translations of the Bible started to appear in different languages, such as the one in German popularized by Martin Luther in 1534.

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The Reformation -

The Pope had to do something about it, so the Council of Trent (a council of the Catholic Church) came up with a response: the 'Latin Vulgate,' the standard Catholic Bible.

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The Reformation -

This was the way the Catholic Church found to ban Protestant versions of the Bible. And because most people couldn’t read Latin, the Bible remained quite an inaccessible book.

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Burning Bibles -

In 1842-43, the Bible Society (which happened to be Protestant) distributed Bibles to Champlain, New York's Catholic population. Though one Catholic priest made sure many of these didn’t reach the intended audience.

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Burning Bibles -

French priest Fr. Telman (or Telmont) made sure he burned a number of these Protestant Bibles in public when he visited Champlain. It was deemed that the priest acted alone, so the relationship between Catholics and Protestants was not affected by this clear act of censorship.

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Redaction -

Catholics were not the only ones censoring Bibles, however. It turns out Protestants also did so when it was convenient for them. Planters would ask British missionaries to redact parts of the Bible when trying to educate slaves.

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Redaction -

It is known that some parts of the Bible have been used to justify slavery, and indeed these were the parts emphasized by the missionaries.

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Slave Bible -

Some 90% of the Old Testament and half of the New Testament were actually redacted from these Bibles, according to Museum of the Bible curator Anthony Schmidt.

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Slave Bible -

Only 232 of a total of 1,189 chapters were included. Obviously they didn’t want slaves to know about chapters emphasizing equality, let alone hearing about Exodus, where the Israelites escape Egyptian slavery!

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Slave Bible -

The slave Bible was published three years after the Haitian Revolution in 1804, and the heavy redaction was also used to avoid a possible slave rebellion. Planters certainly didn’t want the same thing to occur in the British West Indies.

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Nazis -

The Nazis were experts in appropriating, molding, and adopting other cultures, religions, and iconography. And, of course, Christianity and the Bible were no exception.

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Nazis -

So, how did they make the Bible more Nazi? Well, by removing Jewish references and by replacing the Ten Commandments for maxims that emphasized loyalty to the party and its leader.

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Nazis -

They banned a few words, including “hallelujah," and replaced biblical figures with pagan gods instead. Hitler saw Judaic-Christian beliefs as a threat to his vision, and sought to replace it with his own nationalist pagan agenda.

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A military mistake -

In 2009, military chaplains at U.S. Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan were about to distribute translated Bibles to Afghans. But conversion from Islam in Afghanistan is actually a capital offense. The mistake was rectified by burning the Bibles.

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A military mistake -

Burning the Bibles was considered unnecessary and an extreme measure, which was heavily criticized by some Christian groups. However, the US government did not issue any apology or a statement about it.

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Malaysia -

In 2014, the Malaysian government confiscated hundreds of Bibles because the Bible Society had translated the word "God" as "Allah."

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Malaysia -

The Malaysian government was worried that the word, used by Christians, would cause civil unrest. But Malaysia's Christian community appealed the ruling and actually won.

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China -

Chinese premier Xi Jinping thought it would be a good idea to rewrite the Bible because it’s too Westernized. The goal was to make it more in harmony with the communist ideology, as well as to have it include elements of Buddhist and Confucian.

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China -

Though this has apparently not gone forward, the state still controls the distribution of Bibles and any other Christian texts. It has been reported that some texts have been changed, such as in the Gospel of John, where Jesus actually stones the adulteress, rather than saving her.

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Complaints -

In 2015, the Bible placed sixth on the list of the most challenged books of the American Library Association (ALA)'s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

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Complaints -

Not only has the ALA received complaints about the Bible’s sexual content and violence, some people believe in the separation of church and state and therefore that libraries should not hold the book at all.

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“Hella gay” Bible -

In 2017, comedian Elijah Daniel decided to publish a "hella gay" Bible, which was essentially a satire.

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“Hella gay” Bible -

The book saw God being replaced by Rihanna, Adam and Eve becoming Adam and Steve, and Satan was made Donald Trump.

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“Hella gay” Bible -

The book became a best seller on Amazon. It goes without saying that many Christians were not happy with the satire, so Amazon actually ended up banning the book.

Sources: (Grunge)

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