/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.21562320]

Why can't Catholics make a good translation of the Bible? It belongs to them and they created it, right? That's what I'm continually told.

[Anonymous No.21562327]

>>21562320
You can tell the person who wrote this comic is a lgbtq+ Protestant faggot just by their writing style

[Anonymous No.21562332]

>>21562327
Is that why it makes fun of those Protestants in the NRSV panel?

[Anonymous No.21562337]

>>21562327
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gRjAAFzUq0

Glass houses, etc.

[Anonymous No.21562370]

>>21562320
Vulgate, Douay-Rheims, and Knox are pretty good.

[Anonymous No.21562378]

>>21562370
Douay-Rheims in its latest version was LITERALLY based on the KJV because of how difficult readers found the 1582 NT and 1610 OT to read though.

[Anonymous No.21562386]

>>21562320
This has to be about English translations.

[Anonymous No.21562389]

>>21562370
Both of those are old translation from the Vulgate

[Anonymous No.21562404]

>>21562320
haven't all Catholic masses been done in Latin up until the 1980s? They probably had no need for a translation.

[Anonymous No.21562405]

>>21562378
And the KJV was likewise based in part upon DR.

>>21562389
Yea?

[Anonymous No.21562407]

>>21562405
KJV preface:

"... as also on the other side we have shunned the obscurity of the Papists, in their Azimes, Tunike, Rational, Holocausts, Præpuce, Pasche, and a number of such like, whereof their late translation is full, and that of purpose to darken the sense, that since they must needs translate the Bible, yet by the language thereof it may be kept from being understood."

[Anonymous No.21562417]

>>21562337

[Anonymous No.21562427]

>>21562404
The preaching wasn't, but it was upto the priest to expound the vulgate into the audiences tongue.

[Anonymous No.21562438]

>>21562417
If only they had a supreme head of the church who could resolve the situation

[Anonymous No.21562454]

>>21562438
if we don't like him we'll just say the seat is vacant and filled by a antipope

[Anonymous No.21562456]

>>21562454
This is why Protestants need the Pope. So that they can have a supreme authority who 1) doesn't do anything to stop doctrinal crises that are occurring, or 2) doesn't actually exist because the current ones have been heretics for half a century

[Anonymous No.21562491]

>>21562378
Right, and the earlier versions were based on Tyndale and the Geneva Bible.

>>21562405
>And the KJV was likewise based in part upon DR.
That's an anachronism, as the translation committee was working on the translation from 1604 to 1611. The final review process of the translators started in 1609. The D-R wasn't even released until 1610.

[Anonymous No.21562498]

>>21562320
The problem is you’re speaking a non-Catholic language.

[Anonymous No.21562503]

>>21562404
>haven't all Catholic masses been done in Latin up until the 1980s?
Until 1969. But not only in latin. The "Latin Rite" was said in liturgical Croatian as well for example. Other rites were said in other liturgical (but not national) languages.
>They probably had no need for a translation.
Readings were done in national languages in certain places, liturgical in others. It depens on the area.
>>21562438
Sadly the current pope isn't going to do it, but some future one will. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

[Sage No.21562601]

Is the Bible /lit/? Is the Bible /his/? Is the Bible /x/?

[Anonymous No.21562608]

>>21562491
The Rheims NT was published in 1582(?) and is commonly acknowledged as having had an influence upon the KJV. And the Tyndale Bible made use of the Vulgate. And so on, but this is all beside the point unless the argument is somehow that the DR is not a Catholic translation.

[Anonymous No.21562612]

>>21562407
God damn, reformers are great

[Anonymous No.21562614]

>>21562454
Or even worse, accept that he's the Pope and Christ's vicar who can make infallible statements ex cathedra, but believe that everything he says is heresy.

[Anonymous No.21562625]

>>21562320
>Why can't Catholics make a good translation of the Bible?
They already did to latin

[Anonymous No.21562634]

>>21562625
Ah yes, Jerome, he rejected the conventional translations from the Septuagint and sought out the best manuscripts of the original Hebrew and Aramaic for the Old Testament, which lead him to reject to the deuterocanon and was among the first to call them the apocrypha. Yet when a Protestant does the same, it's heresy.

[Anonymous No.21562640]

>>21562634
>which lead him to reject to the deuterocanon
Sorta funny, because he never did that.

[Anonymous No.21562685]

>>21562640
He explicitly excluded them from the canon. He supported their use in liturgy while moving them from the Old Testament into the apocrypha, which is exactly what Luther and the Anglican church did.

Read his Prologus Galteatus, he enumerates the canon of the Hebrews, the Tanakh, then goes on to describe the apocrypha which are on the same level of canonicity as the Shepherd of Hermas:
>This prologue of the Scriptures can function as a helmeted preface for all the books, which we are converting from Hebrew to Latin, so that we are able to know that whatever is outside of these should be removed into the apocrypha. Therefore, Wisdom, which commonly is inscribed 'of Solomon' and the book of Jesus son of Sirach, and Judith, and Tobit, and the Shepherd are not in the canon. I have found the first book of Maccabees in Hebrew, the second is Greek, which can be demonstrated from the style itself.
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf206.vii.iii.iv.html

Also Epistle 107 where he only mentions the Hebrew canon and New Testament books, then says to avoid the apocrypha
>12. (1) Let her treasures be not silks or gems but manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures; and in the selet her think less of gilding, and Babylonian parchment, and arabesque patterns, than of correctness and accurate punctuation. Let her begin by learning the Psalter, and then let her gather rules of life out of the Proverbs ofSolomon. In Ecclesiastes let her gain the habit of despising the world and its vanities. Let her follow the example set in Job of virtue and of patience. Then let her pass on to the Gospels never to be laid aside when once they have been taken in hand. Let her also drink in with a willing heart the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles.(2) As soon as she has enriched the storehouse of her mind with these treasures, let her commit to memory the Prophets, the Heptateuch, the books of Kings and of Paralipomena, the rolls also of Ezra and Esther." When she has done all these she may safely read the Song of Songs but not before: for, were she to read it at the beginning, she would fail to perceive that, though it is written in fleshly words, it is a marriage song of a spiritual bridal. And not understanding this, she would suffer hurt from it.(3) Let her avoid all apocryphal writings, and if she is led to read such not by the truth of the doctrines which they contain but out of respect for the miracles contained in them; let her understand that they are not really written by those to whom they are ascribed, that many faulty elements have been introduced into them, and that it requires infinite discretion tolook for gold in the midst of dirt.
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001107.htm

[Anonymous No.21562694]

>>21562332
It's edited

[Anonymous No.21562793]

>>21562608
>The Rheims NT was published in 1582(?) and is commonly acknowledged as having had an influence upon the KJV.
The commonly acknowledged influences on the KJV are the Geneva Bible 1560 and the Bishops' Bible of 1568, and their updated editions that were published later in the same century. One can find numerous points of agreement between these three translations. I have looked into this issue myself in some detail and I noticed that the Geneva Bible influence is greater than is commonly thought. Officially, the Authorized Version was supposed to be based on the Bishop's Bible as its primary source, then made more accurate in particular places where the Greek New Testament called for. The Bishop's Bible was based on the Great Bible, which in turn was modified by the CoE from a text that was most substantially influenced by Tyndale. However, the people weren't using it, as the Great Bible was seen as less accurate than the Geneva Bible, and it wasn't based entirely on the Hebrew, so they made the Bishop's. When puritans still weren't accepting that fifty years later, they made the KJV as the best attempt at a neutral translation that they could do. I have never seen an example where the KJV deviated from the original languages in favor of either the Vulgate text type or the Rheims. Several examples have been posited, but are rejected on the basis of a false premise; as an example Psalm 22:16 and the translation "pierced" is an accurate translation of the Hebrew word. The idea that the word translates to something entirely different (as it appears for example in the JPS 1917) is purely a modern misconception.

[Anonymous No.21562851]

>>21562498
The USA is has the fourth highest amount of Catholics in any nation

[Anonymous No.21562856]

>>21562694
I (OP) made the image myself, so it isn't

[Anonymous No.21562967]

>>21562625
What's a good version of the Vulgate?
I know some latin and I have the JKV to which I can compare if necessary.
Most bibles seem to be sold at a loss, so an inexpensive one would be preferable.

[Anonymous No.21562975]

>>21562601
All three actually

[Anonymous No.21562990]

>>21562320
is this true? seems like translating from latin to any language should be very straightforward, most modern languages are just latin for dummies, some with a bit of germanic added

[Anonymous No.21562995]

>>21562990
Modern translations are done from Greek and Hebrew, not Latin.

[Anonymous No.21563023]

>>21562995
>from Greek
aren't those Orthodox? and aren't there rumors that modern Hebrew was invented in medieval times?

[Anonymous No.21563029]

>>21562320
Who says they can’t? Have you tried reading their translations or are you just going off what’s /lit/ says.

[Anonymous No.21563031]

Protestant translation of Isa 9:6 (RSV, most others use similar wording)
>For to us a child is born,to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder,and his name will be called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

Catholic translation of Isa 9:6 (NABRE, they number it as v. 5)
>For a child is born to us, a son is given to us;upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.

[Anonymous No.21563060]

>>21563023
>aren't those Orthodox?
The New Testament was written in Greek. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic, with some of the deuterocanonical books in Greek. Western Christians prior to the Reformation made heavy usage of a translation by Jerome called the Vulgate, which was a translation into Latin, from the Greek and Hebrew originals.

At the Reformation, Protestants desired to go back to the original languages and began translating from the Greek and Hebrew. All Protestants translations (KJV, RSV, ESV, NASB, etc.) are from the original languages. Catholics continued using the Vulgate, and thus translation like the Douay-Rheims are English translations of a Latin translation. Catholics changed their practice and started translating from the original Greek and Hebrew in the mid 1900s, so modern Catholic translations (e.g. NABRE) use basically the same textual basis as modern Protestant translations in the original languages.

Modern translations in Orthodox countries also are translated from the original Greek and Hebrew, e.g. Russian Synodol Bible, Today's Greek Version.

>and aren't there rumors that modern Hebrew was invented in medieval times?
Modern Hebrew is a development of the ancient Hebrew language. As I said, Jerome's translation into Latin, which he started in the late 4th century, used the Hebrew original as its basis for the Old Testament.

[Anonymous No.21563066]

>>21562793
The 1917 JPS was based on the KJV so it's not surprising it has some of the same translations. The KJV definitely used the Geneva Bible a good amount but the Geneva itself was influenced by Tyndale's Bible and the Great Bible so it's a complex relationship. In terms of Latin influence, the KJV uses the Latin for Lucifer in Isaiah 14:12 and in a small handful of other places.

[Anonymous No.21563077]

>>21563060
Also I will clarify something: there is an ancient translation of the Old Testament into Greek, called the Septuagint, which is quoted in the New Testament and was used much by the early church and still by Eastern Christians. There are also several other ancient translation besides the Vulgate, such as the Syriac Peshitta, which are important. Modern translators look at all of these. They don't have a slavish development to the Hebrew, as there are some instances where it seems that the Hebrew Old Testament has been corrupted somewhat. But the starting basis of modern translations is the Hebrew, and the ancient translations are weighed on a case-by-case basis.

[Anonymous No.21563079]

>>21562320
Catholics didn't write the Bible, jews did

[Anonymous No.21563083]

>>21563077
>They don't have a slavish development to the Hebrew
devotion* not development

[Anonymous No.21563085]

>>21563079

[Anonymous No.21563092]

>>21562685
Protestants don't like Maccabees because it exposes their Greek religion of Greek pastors that is anti-Torah (anti-Shabbat, anti-kosher, etc)

[Anonymous No.21563096]

>>21563031
Here is the true translation
https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/34228/what-does-isaiah-96-mean

[Anonymous No.21563097]

>>21563092
You realise Catholics and Orthodox don't follow Torah either? And Torah-observant jews don't read the Maccabees?

[Anonymous No.21563102]

>>21563097
>You realise Catholics and Orthodox don't follow Torah either
Yes, Christianity is a false religion
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8CB85C3DF82DF9EB

>And Torah-observant jews don't read the Maccabees?
They do, it's just not obligatory nor is it in the canon. I still hear rabbis comment on the Maccabees being righteous scholars who fought the greeks and won.

[Anonymous No.21563103]

>>21563092
Protestants reject the deuterocanonical books because the Jews and various church fathers also did not consider them canonical. They've always been in a disputed state unlike the Hebrew scriptures.

[Anonymous No.21563116]

>>21563102
The Maccabees are remembered in Jewish folk history, but the actual Maccabees books were only preserved in Greek by Christians, and they're the earliest sources for the revolt. The original Hebrew version of 1 Maccabees was lost forever. Not putting down Jews, that's how the texts survived.

[Anonymous No.21563130]

>>21563102
>They do, it's just not obligatory nor is it in the canon.
This is how the Reformers understood the texts as well, that they are good to read for edification, but that they are not inspired and do not function as a rule of faith.

[Anonymous No.21563142]

>>21563060
>At the Reformation, Protestants desired to go back to the original languages and began translating from the Greek and Hebrew.
how they know it is the original, and not just a greek different copy from the original changed in a different way?

[Anonymous No.21563167]

>>21563142
I don't think there's any evidence of such a thing. We also have the writings of the church fathers, who are much closer to the time of writing, and they do not bear this out.

[Anonymous No.21563175]

>>21563167
i mean how did they get the copies? they must have been copied by somebody

[Anonymous No.21563177]

>>21563077
>Also I will clarify something: there is an ancient translation of the Old Testament into Greek, called the Septuagint
According to our sources, there was a translation of the books of Moses made by seventy elders in 3rd Century BC Ptolemaic Egypt, however this translation has not been preserved. What we have instead is a later work by Origen in the 3rd Century AD, contained within the Hexapla, which he gave the same title (LXX or Seventy) but as a translation of the entire Old Testament rather than the first part of it. It is widely acknowledged that Origen had a part in editing this version, and it is likely that he took other people's translations that had been done between his time and the original work and incorporated into his version. He probably also took quotes directly from the New Testament, which makes it look like it was quoting him, but it's actually the other way around.

As for the apocrypha, there have been various collections of apocrypha over the years. This seems to have been included at first as useful reference material by the editors, similar to other things that are sometimes included in Bibles today. They are certainly not standardized, as different parts of the apocrypha were included in different early documents. The earlier protestant translations in English for example included something called the "Prayer of Manasses" within their apocrypha (when they did include apocrypha) even though this isn't part of Catholicism's deuterocanon which was later declared to be scripture at Trent.

[Anonymous No.21563183]

>>21563175
Yes, texts in the ancient world could only be passed down through copying them by hand. We can look at ancient manuscripts which we possess, and we can also look at how the texts were transmitted in different regions, because we have ancient translations of the texts into other languages, e.g. Latin, Syriac. We can also see how texts were cited in the writings of the church fathers.

[Anonymous No.21563191]

>>21563031
Can’t believe there is anyone who would think the second translation is better than the first.

[Anonymous No.21563194]

>>21563177
You shouldn't assume that a collection of texts means that all of the texts within that collection are considered to be canonical. Jerome rejects the deuterocanonical texts as a rule of faith but includes them in the Vulgate, for example.

[Anonymous No.21563202]

>>21563116
>The original Hebrew version of 1 Maccabees was lost forever. Not putting down Jews, that's how the texts survived.
If you’re a Christian you can’t believe this because God promises multiple times in scripture to preserve His word. By definition, if the words are lost, they aren’t God’s. This is also why believing Christians can’t logically accept any revisions or translations based on manuscripts dug out of ancient Egyptian garbage pits in the 19th and 20th centuries. So what translations one accepts as most accurate depends strongly on whether one is a Christian or not.

[Anonymous No.21563213]

>>21563142
There were several different people who spent significant time and resources compiling all of the Greek manuscripts together, who came to similar independent conclusions, and they were able to determine what the original was, after excluding individual typographical mistakes that gradually accumulated among handwritten copies (but obviously didn't affect all of them), and after disqualifying anything that had signs of being tampered with by intermediate parties, as there were several such of these as well. Most notably perhaps is the Vaticanus (B), which showed up around 1475, as well as the Vulgate editions, which were shown to be divergent from the Greek in numerous places. For instance, where the term "daily bread" was changed to "supersubstantial bread" in Matthew 6:11, or where "born" was changed to "born again" (renatus) in John 3:5, but there was no Greek equivalent to these changes in any manuscript. This is known today as the "received text," or "textus receptus," and perhaps the most influential and accurate copies were those of Stephanus in 1550, Beza in 1598 and Elzevir in 1633, among several others that were all very similar to each other. Later, the scholar John Mill gathered together all of these editions and manuscripts, and in 1707 published an extensive apparatus documenting all of the variants between the TR editions, which is available in various scanned copies online today.

[Anonymous No.21563218]

>>21563066
>In terms of Latin influence, the KJV uses the Latin for Lucifer in Isaiah 14:12
As does every English translation before the KJV.

That isn't deriving a translation from the Vulgate family of texts, that's just one way of translating a Hebrew name into an English one. It's a name meaning "shining one." The word choice "Lucifer" for this reflects the influence of Latin on the English language as a way of translating that Hebrew phrase, rather than the choice of using a Latin source text. Actually the same word has a slightly different meaning in Latin, because there it means "morning star." This reflects the differences between the two languages.

[Anonymous No.21563245]

>>21563177
>even though this isn't part of Catholicism's deuterocanon which was later declared to be scripture at Trent.
It was included due to being included in some Latin Bible manuscripts as extra material, same for 2 Esdras (aka 4 Ezra). As you said, inclusion in a manuscript doesn't necessarily mean canon, in fact the canon was obviously somewhat fluid. There were also liminal categories which included texts that were edifying but not properly canon, and some texts that were disputed.

Actual canon lists are probably a better guide but you see a lot of variation and uncertainty in those as well. For example, the early fathers were suspicious of Tobit and Judith, they're not included in the canon list by Melito of Sardis (possibly the earliest surviving Christian Old Testament canon), neither by Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Amphilochius of Iconium, Epiphanius, nor Gregory of Nyssa. Hilary of Poitiers says they're disputed. Athanasius and Jerome have them as non-canon books that are good to read. Augustine was unusual in his full support of them and he likely influenced their inclusion in the canon presented at the Council of Hippo, and Innocent I's later approval of them.

[Anonymous No.21563249]

>>21563213
didn't orthodox greeks just keep using the greek bible? couldn't they just ask them for a copy or were those tampered too?

[Anonymous No.21563273]

>>21563249
A lot of the manuscripts they were able to acquire in the late 15th and early 16th century did in fact come from Byzantine areas. These manuscripts reflect a text (majority text) that differs from the received text of the New Testament in some points, but they are more similar and perhaps more related than either the Latin Vulgate or what we now know as the Alexandrian manuscripts.

[Anonymous No.21563346]

Anon, I ...

[Anonymous No.21563372]

>this thread

[Anonymous No.21563412]

>>21563202
The only Scriptures according to Jesus are: the Torah and the Prophets (includes Psalms and others)

[Anonymous No.21563419]

>>21562320
The best translation in a modern language is Lemaitre de Sacy's French bible despite being j*nsenist. This is the text that broke countless poets.
I assume you meant English language translations, in which case my favorite is clearly the Knox Bible which has the advantage of almost completely ignoring the Kang Jimmy, which is terrible all around, and the Douay Rheims, which is written in an Anglo-Latin not unlike Milton.

[Anonymous No.21563443]

>>21563346
>>21563372
>We made a good translation 1600 years ago by someone who rejected the deuterocanon as scripture and can be equally claimed by every Christian tradition
Woah...

[Anonymous No.21563955]

>>21563218
The Latin is a literal translation of the Hebrew meaning 'light bringer' probably referring to the morning star I.e. Venus

[Anonymous No.21564059]

>>21562967
>Most bibles seem to be sold at a loss, so an inexpensive one would be preferable.
I'm afraid Latin isn't your best bet for that, it is not sold at a loss to spread the gospel to plebs. There are two or three texts of the vulgate usually sold, not counting old prints.
The first is the 1592 Clementine, which is found along the Douay Rheims in the Baronius edition.
The second is the Weber-Gryson which is the academic standard for Jerome with apparatus listing variants down to individual manuscripts.
The third is not the Vulgate of Jerome but the Nova Vulgata, a Latin edition based on the preceding but extensively revised based on a composite compilation of 1st millenium texts in various languages and versions and readapted into classical Latin (Cicero as opposed to 400AD). It is the text cited in Vatican documents since the 80s. Some dislike it because it doesn't correspond to any traditional text but it is absolutely patrician.

>>21563443
>can be equally claimed by every Christian tradition
I wish, St Jerome is extremely based. I can't see how any true protestant can read him without throwing a tantrum (besides cherry picking his scriptural list).

>>21562634
>sought out the best manuscripts of the original Hebrew and Aramaic for the Old Testament
That's a strange presentation. At least twice he only managed to get a Amoraim doctor to give him one scroll for one night (the scrolls were rare and it was virtually forbidden to give them) and doubted their accuracies in places, preferring readings from other Greeks versions. Many modern scholars assert several books were translated directly from lost Greek versions but that's another matter.
>reject to the deuterocanon
To him canon meant perfection of the letter, which he of course rejects in his prefaces. He translated himself four ouf of nine of those books (with the two long versions), and made use of them both in sermons/letters and dogmatic works.
>https://www.biblindex.org/citation_biblique/

[Anonymous No.21564531]

>>21564059
>I can't see how any true protestant can read him without throwing a tantrum
We view the church fathers as individual theologians (which is the only way to account for how they differ from each other) so we don't mind disagreement.
>To him canon meant perfection of the letter, which he of course rejects in his prefaces.
Cardinal Cajetan cites Jerome as a source for rejecting the deuterocanon as a rule of faith, but accepting them as a source of edification.
>He translated himself four ouf of nine of those books (with the two long versions), and made use of them both in sermons/letters and dogmatic works.
That does not entail acceptance of them as being a rule of faith in the sense that the Hebrew scriptures are.

[Anonymous No.21564906]

One thing I think that gets overlooked is that the Jews THEMSELVES used the Septuagint. Hellenic Jews and Jews spread across the Near East in the aftermath of the Babylonian Captivity often read in Greek, and the Septuagint was an accepted version of the Tanakh and the related books in a great number of Jewish communities. So when someone tries to get at Christians for using a non-Hebrew version of the Old Testament, they're wrong. The early Christians were using a version of the Old Testament that many of them would have been very familiar with from their Jewish antecedents.